Cyber-Socialism?
Wired “senior maverick” Kevin Kelly has called a wide variety of P2P collaborations a new form of socialism. For example, he points to Craigslist as a collective where the principle “from each according to abilities, to each according to his needs” may well be functioning:
How close to a noncapitalistic, open source, peer-production society can this movement take us? Every time that question has been asked, the answer has been: closer than we thought. Consider Craigslist. Just classified ads, right? But the site amplified the handy community swap board to reach a regional audience, enhanced it with pictures and real-time updates, and suddenly became a national treasure.
Operating without state funding or control, connecting citizens directly to citizens, this mostly free marketplace achieves social good at an efficiency that would stagger any government or traditional corporation. Sure, it undermines the business model of newspapers, but at the same time it makes an indisputable case that the sharing model is a viable alternative to both profit-seeking corporations and tax-supported civic institutions.
Larry Lessig is not happy with the socialism talk. There’s a fascinating conversation in the comments there, but I just want to add a “legal realist” angle to the debate.