By Michel Bauwens, Peer-to-Peer Foundation, April 2020
Before the Corona outbreak (..), I had been reviewing the literature on historical rhythms and cycles to set the stage for the current ‘chaotic transition’ and ‘what comes next’.
In short, I have come to two important conclusions:
- society moves from relative stable stages, through chaotic transitions, which are real mutations both in human consciousness and in socio-economic structures
- this change is non-linear and moves through internal or external shocks.
Clearly, Corona is such a shock, partly exo-genous, i.e. a unpredictable outside factor, but also partly endo-genous (internal factor), since our devastating ecological practices are an important part of pandemic generation. It’s a double whammy which both endangers human life and creates a double shock to the economic system (both demand and supply driven, this is quite unprecedented, as economic crisis usually alternate between one and the other). Corona is not going to be sufficient for a full transition, but it will be a Great Accelerator, which has already changed so much in such a short time. I am not predicting that the results will be uniformly positive (accelerating the green/p2p/commons transition), or negative (Naomi Klein’s shock doctrine). Think about what happened after the fall of Rome to see a mixture of radical changes.
Read the rest of the article here. (Also on socioeco.org)
Moreover, you will find here an Introduction to the P2P Foundation Wiki Material about Commons Economics.
