my own take is that a peer to peer economy reverses the equilibrium between competition and cooperation.

In capitalism, competition is primary and cooperation happens within the cooperating entities, although mostly in hierarchical ways\

in a commons oriented society, the cooperation within the context of a commons is primary, and competition, between market (but not capitalist) and non-market entities (say between joomla and drupal), happens within that context of cooperation

marvin brown makes the crucial point in civilising the economy that it is the citizenry that decides on provisioning systems, which may, or may not, involve market mechanisms

ows is a good example, the general assembly decided on food provisioning, through vermont organic farmers, which provided for free, but in order to preserve the livelyhoods of the food vendors, decided on fundraising to buy from the vendors

whether to use a market or non-market mechanism is secondary to the necessity of having a system which guarantees social reproduction ... (the vermont organic farmers would not be able to socially reproduce their own activities if giving away without reciprocity were there only activity)

On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Karl Robillard <krobillard@san.rr.com> wrote:
On Wednesday, December 07, 2011 01:43:25 AM 10natalie@cox.net wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordoliberalism

   "Ordoliberal theory holds that the state must create a proper legal
environment for the economy and maintain a healthy level of competition
(rather than just "exchange") through measures that adhere to market
principles."
   "The concern is that, if the state does not take active measures to foster
competition, firms with monopoly (or oligopoly) power will emerge, which will
not only subvert the advantages offered by the market economy, but also
possibly undermine good government, since strong economic power can be
transformed into political power"

--------------------

Requiring competion is a bass-ackwards way to build a humane economy.  This
solution is like trying to fight fire with fire.  Competition is about the
capture of scarce resources and the suppression or elimination of those that
cannot get them.  Rather than perpetuate a system you know leads to bad
outcomes maybe people should try another system.

The focus should be on sustained *diversity* not on any process of
elimination.  You want to keep all people involved in the economy, not drive
the less capable into the dirt.

It seems to me that the concept of competition is often used where it's not
appropriate.  In free software we have all kinds of graphical desktop
environments and most people would say they are competing with each other.  In
this case there is no scarcity as users may use any or all of these interfaces
and developers are free to mix and match ideas between them.  The dynamic
between these projects is much more symbiotic than competitive.

To put an end to scarcity we must attend to systems of abundance, not pretend
that systems of scarcity management (e.g. money and markets) are going to
trancend themselves.  Ha ha!  There's a slogan for you: "Attend, not pretend!"


-Karl

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