Andrzej Waskiewicz

Can we imagine a social order where ‘things’ only connect people and do not separate them from one another? There have been several attempts, which I divide into three categories: following Plato’s idea of ‘rationing’, Aristotle’s idea of ‘exchange between friends’, and Bacon’s idea of ‘abundance’. Such imagined happy societies know neither the market nor distributive and redistributive justice. Not surprisingly, ideas of this kind have reemerged in various forms after the crisis of 2008, most importantly the post-growth society, the sharing economy and the zero marginal cost society. I will discuss them in the last chapter of my new book.