Photo: Bethany Horne, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons¹¹

Michel Bauwens

Belgian activist (born 1958)

Michel Bauwens (born 21 March 1958) is a Belgian political theorist, writer, and conference speaker on the subjects of technology, culture and business innovation. A leading thinker in the emerging field of peer-to-peer (P2P) theory, Bauwens founded the P2P Foundation, a global organization of researchers working in open collaboration in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property.²

From Wikipedia’s article on Michel Bauwens (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Mar 21, 1958.¹

About

He has authored a number of essays, including his thesis The Political Economy of Peer Production.

From Wikipedia’s article on Michel Bauwens, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.²

Companies

FaircoopFounder¹⁰

Early life and education

Date not recordedUniversité libre de Bruxelles³
Date not recordedFree University of Brussels³

Career

Occupation: computer scientist, philosopher.⁶

Date not recordedFounded Faircoop⁴
Date not recordedFounded P2P Foundation⁵

Personal life

BornMar 21, 1958, Belgium⁷
CitizenshipBelgium⁸

Legal issues and controversies

Bauwens has repeatedly spoken out against identity politics, claiming it as antithetical to egalitarian participation within a post-racial community. This perspective was criticized as being a form of racial color blindness. In response, numerous contributors to the P2P Forum chose to officially distance themselves from him and his views.

In May 2021, Bauwens allegedly removed several signatories of the disassociation statement from the P2P Foundation wiki. Since it is a community-maintained wiki, this raised further controversy. Two weeks later, Bauwens also edited the P2PF wiki article of P2P Lab (where several signatories belonged) diminishing its role. The wiki entries have been restored by other wiki editors.