From Exchange to Contributions: Generalizing Peer Production into the Physical World

Peer production is a new mode of production that has emerged in the areas of software and content production during the last decades – a mode of production based on sharing and cooperation. We discuss whether and how peer production can be extended into the realm of physical production and whether a society is possible in which peer production is the primary mode of production. We investigate which problems need to be solved for the generalization of peer production and how they can be addressed in the context of individual peer projects as well as society as a whole. Our findings indicate there is no inherent reason for peer production to remain limited to the sphere of information. We analyze how we may expect a society whose economy is based on free cooperation in a multitude of peer projects to work and how such a society compares with societies based on market production or planned production. We show that the differences are striking, and that such a peer economy would grant people an unprecedented amount of control over their own lives, while avoiding the unpleasant effects of other modes of production.