Self-organisation and the economy - Friday April 1st 2011
Time: 5-8 pm
Location: Lock Keepers Cottage, QMUL, Mile End, London E14NS - no.33 on the
map.
How do self-organising practices clash with, are reabsorbed into, or exit
the mainstream economy? Participants are invited to address issues of
self-organisation in the economy from cooperatives to social enterprises,
between state funding, self funding, alternative economies and charity
dependence, and related questions of authorship, redistribution of
resources, production of value and co-production.
Siôn Whellens (Calverts Coop, London)
Siôn Whellens was a contributing editor at Anarchy Magazine, and active
with London Workers Group, Workers Playtime and the anti-party and
autonomist communist left in London in the late 1970s and 1980's. He
co-published a bi-weekly newsletter, the Picket Bulletin, during the long
Wapping printers' lockout of 1986, dedicated to creating an effective
communication tool for grassroots activists. Since 1983 he has worked with
Calverts, a collective-type worker co-operative of graphic designers and
printers, and in the wider worker co-operative milieu. He is an elected
member of the Worker Co-operative Council and a director of Co-operatives
UK . Siôn is interested in exploring the conflicts and potentials of
workers’ self-expression, self-organisation and self-management under
capitalism, and understanding how the development of our day-to-day
activity can contribute to the emergence of a new social economy.
For resources, see:
Siôn's blog: Bethnal Bling;
The special issue of Affinities on The New Coopoerativism;
A group of worker co-operators recently wrote and published a ‘code of
governance’ which is really a guide to what the seven co-operative
principles should look like in practice. PDF download;
Bob Cannell's blog. He is a thinker-practitioner of worker co-operation and
its enemies;
Radical Routes is an explicitly anti capitalist federation of autonomous UK
worker, housing and social co-ops. Their site has interesting content and
resources;
For a more political take, see the opening paragraphs of Barrot &
Martin’s ‘Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement’
-------------------------------------
Marcel Mars (Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht)
Marcel Mars will discuss the use of free software, proprietary
collaborative software/social networks and file sharing practices in the
context of self-organization. Software is a socio-technical system in which
machines, people, and processes are inextricably interconnected and
interdependent. [1]
The use of collaborative software in every organization will affect its
organizational structure, capacity of negotiations, rules of access to
(org) resources, decision making process and overall group dynamics. That
said, an organization (still) controls the strength of the effect with its
knowledge of how to use and adapt (develop) collaborative software to its
own needs.
The collaborative development of software, as in the case of free software
movement, brought to the world enormous autonomous infrastructure beloved
by many activists and self-organization freaks. Still, the network effect
[2] created by most of the groups, activists or not, pays off to the web2.0
startups, social network giants and other proprietary solutions.
"Utility Computing is the packaging of computing resources, such as
computation, storage and services, as a metered service similar to a
traditional public utility (such as electricity, water, natural gas, or
telephone network)."[3] When computing in general and computer-supported
collaboration becomes public utility its development becomes more and more
invisible to the public. Utility computing is still in its first phase. It
is mainly led by big corporations like: Amazon, Microsoft, HP, Google,
Oracle, IBM etc.
Their infrastructures are built upon Free software (Linux, Xen, KVM,
Apache, Hadoop). But, they keep their advances in technology as trade
secrets.
[1] Ensmenger, Nathan L. The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers,
Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise. The MIT Press,
2010.
[2] “Network effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”, n.d.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect.
[3] “Utility computing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”, n.d.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_computing.
For resources, see Marcel's blog: Kiberkomunist
-----------------------------------------
Matt Zimmerman (Debian/Ubuntu, London)
---------------------------------------
Toni Prug (QMUL, London, Hack the State, gComm(o)ns)
Toni Prug will discuss the impossibility of democratic self organization in
the economy.
"If the economy disrupts our lives, then we must disrupt the economy"
(UK Uncut, 2011)
For self organization to be democratic, there must be no capital, state
power holders, or holders of physical forces of coercion (parts of society
without state/capitalist controls over them) who are in the position to
impose their will to dictate the model of cooperation by utilizing
people’s need to acquire the means of subsistence by selling their labour
for a wage, or to obey in fear for life. The egalitarian impulse that
exists in self organization is rarely developed due to participants’
different class positions (skills, time, space, money, social networks) and
the lack of value chains external to capitalist models of valorization
whose inbuilt anti-egalitarianism cannot valorize egalitarian self
organization.
The richest parts of the world have increased their productivity several
times since WWII. Instead of proliferation of time for self organization
based on abundance of the time gained by increased productivity,
egalitarian elements (access to shelter, health, education, care) are
disappearing and the amount of labour time sold for a wage, or volunteered
in a hope of one, is increasing. If we consider self organization as a form
of emancipation, and if we aim for it to be democratic, in the times of
rapidly reduced material equality amongst the people of some of the
wealthiest states in the world, the possibility of democratic self
organization has to be considered not as a sporadic question, but as a
central, systemic one.
For resources, see:
Werner Bonefeld: ‘What is the alternative?’ (Shift, 2011, No. 11)
http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=400
Alexei Penzin, ‘The Soviets of the Multitude: On Collectivity and
Collective Work: An Interview with Paolo Virno’ (Mediations, Volume 25,
No. 1, Fall 2010)
http://www.mediationsjournal.org/articles/the-soviets-of-the-multitude
"Marx's Method" by David Harvey: A Colloquium Talk Video (Geography at
Berkeley, October 21, 2010)
http://geography.berkeley.edu/about/story.php?id=47
----------------------------------------------
Next encounter in the series:
Friday May 6th
Self-organization and community
External dynamics, political discourse and outreach. The role of the
organizer when working with constituencies. Issues of politicization,
outreach, involvement, negotiation.
Doina Petrescu (Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée, Paris)
http://www.urbantactics.org/
Jane Wills (QMUL, London)
http://www.citizensuk.org/campaigns/living-wage-campaign/
For more information or to take part in the project, please write to
selforganising(a)gmail.com or visit www.self-org.blogspot.com
<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=15037>
Towards a bio-urbanist policy for the Basque region,
<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=15037>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
Michel Bauwens
4th April 2011
via http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=25978
*Question: is the p2p urbanist community in anyway connected with the great
work of John Thackara?*
see below:
Excerpted <http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=25978>from
a long article by John Thackara, which cites many examples of
alternative Basque urbanists working in this direction, against the
starchitectural options still chosen by mainstream politicians and planners:
*“Buildings conceived as icons, spectacles or tourism destinations have
fallen victim to the law of diminishing returns. Bilbao’s Guggenheim is now
one among hundreds of me-too cultural buildings around the world. As their
number has grown, their capacity to attract attention, or differentiate
their host city, has declined. Spoiled consumer-travelers are liable to
lunch in the café, buy the t-shirt, and move on. That’s not a great return
on all the time, work and money needed to bring these totemic edifices
about.*
*The second objection to the Euskal Hiria strategy, and Guggenheim 2 as its
emblem, is that they would stand for the high entropy economic model that
caused the global crisis in the first place — and that is now dying.*
*If the iconic cultural building as a catalyst of development has run its
course, and the Real Estate Industrial Complex is gone forever, is there an
alternative?*
*A conference in Bilbao last week, organized by Fernando Golvano and Xabier
Laka, challenged speakers to propose new models of development based on more
artful and sustainable uses of the region’s social, landscape and natural
assets.*
*My contribution was to say that a bioregion — more than a high-entropy
“knowledge hub” preoccupied with abstraction — could be the ideal basis on
which to re-imagine the future development of the Basque Country. At the
scale of the city-region, a bioregional approach re-imagines the man-made
world as being one element among a complex of interacting, co-dependent
ecologies: energy, water, food, production and information.*
*The beauty of this approach is that it engages with the next economy, not
the dying one we have now. Its core value is stewardship, not perpetual
growth. It focuses on service and social innovation, not on the outputs of
extractive industries. Being unique to its place, it fosters infinite
diversity.*
*The idea of a bioregion also changes the ways we think about the cities we
have now. It triggers people to seek practical ways to re-connect with the
soils, trees, animals, landscapes, energy systems, water and energy sources
on which all life depends. It re-imagines the urban landscape itself as an
ecology with the potential to support us.*
*A bioregion is literally and etymologically a “life-place” — a unique area,
in the words of American writer Robert Thayer, that is “definable by natural
(rather than political) boundaries with a geographic, climatic,
hydrological, and ecological character capable of supporting unique human
and nonhuman living communities.”*
*A growing worldwide movement is looking at the idea of development through
this fresh lens. Sensible to the value of natural and social ecologies,
groups and communities are searching for ways to preserve, steward and
restore assets that already exist — so-called net present assets — rather
than thinking first about extracting raw materials to make new iconic
buildings from scratch. “*
--
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
always a treasure trove for original presentations:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <sergio.lub(a)gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 3:11 AM
Subject: Invitation to Friendly Favors Events – April 2011
To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com
To Michel Bauwens
You are invited to participate in the upcoming events listed below and at:
http://tinyurl.com/FavorsEvents
To reserve your space, please login at Favors.org, go to Events and RSVP for
yourself and your guests. To carpool see Who’s Coming.
You can learn about our speakers' work by visiting their websites, reading
their books and making direct contact through our network.
Our free online video archive of past events is listed below our Upcoming
Events.
To subscribe: www.favors.org > Register
To unsubscribe, please reply writing Unsubscribe in the subject line.
Sergio Lub
www.favors.org/profile/24
*
UPCOMING EVENTS
2011 Apr 1st - Fri at 6:00 PM
PAUL FITZGERALD & ELIZABETH GOULD - Crossing Zero: The AfPak War at the
Turning Point of American Empire
Presentation by the first American journalists in Afghanistan during the
Soviet invasion and who continued working there for 3 decades � What they
have learned, what are the possibilities and what we can do to influence the
outcome
Location: MDPC Mt. Diablo Peace Center, 55 Eckley Lane, Walnut Creek, CA
94596 - (925) 933-7850 - www.mtdpc.orgtinyurl.com/CrossingZero
2011 Apr 4th - Mon at 5:00 PM
ELIZABETH GOULD & PAUL FITZGERALD - Crossing Zero: The AfPak War at the
Turning Point of American Empire
Presentation by the first American journalists in Afghanistan during the
Soviet invasion and who continued working there for 3 decades – What they
have learned, what are the possibilities and what we can do to influence the
outcome
Location: San Francisco State University - 1600 Holloway Avenue . San
Francisco . CA 94132 . Tel (415) 338-1111 - Lecture Room HSS 306, on the
corner of Holloway Ave. and 19th Ave.
tinyurl.com/CrossingZero
2011 Apr 6th - Wed at 6:00 PM
JIM ROUGH: Dynamic Facilitation. Skills for Collective Wisdom
Potluck dinner followed by a workshop from the creator of the Dynamic
Facilitation seminars. DF opens exciting doors of possibility for collective
wisdom, spiritual evolution, true democracy, and for solving impossible
problems.
Location: Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) - 101 San Antonio Rd. -
Petaluma, CA 94955
jim(a)dynamicfacilitation.com
www.tobe.net
2011 Apr 27th - Wed at 6:00 PM
GEORGIA KELLY: Mondragon Cooperatives and the refreshing alternative of
workers' owned businesses.
Potluck dinner and a presentation by the president of the Praxis Peace
Institute and host of the educational visits to Mondragon Cooperatives in
Spain.
Location: NeXus at United Earth Networks at the Craneway Center - 1414
Harbour Way South, Suite 1010, Richmond, CA 94804
www.praxispeace.org
* * *
PAST EVENTS RECORDINGS
Chronological list of videos freely available online:
2011-03-11 - Kevin Blackwell - Communicating with wise spirits
www.ustream.tv/recorded/13263881
2011-03-08 - Marcin Jakubowski - Open Source Ecology
www.ustream.tv/recorded/13190637
Q&A: www.ustream.tv/recorded/13191323
2011-02-10 - Georgie Weston - Challenge Day for teen students
www.ustream.tv/recorded/12606159
2010-12-07 – Arq. Robert Swatt - West Coast Green Architecture
www.ustream.tv/recorded/11314978
2010-11-19 - Steve Bassett - Disclosure and Exopolitics
Sound: www.ustream.tv/recorded/10967854
Documentary: nhne-pulse.org/ufo-documentary-the-day-before-disclosure
2010-11-16 - Richard Miles - Appreciating childhood wisdom.
www.ustream.tv/recorded/10906168
2010-10-08 - Graham Hancock - Egyptian Worldview and Entangled - Parallel
Realms and the Mysteries of the Vine of the Dead.
Presentation: www.ustream.tv/recorded/10083095
Conversation: www.ustream.tv/recorded/10085941
2010-09-15 - Kathia and Alexander Laszlo - Evolutionary Leadership for
Sustainability.
www.ustream.tv/recorded/9601495www.ustream.tv/recorded/9602406
2010-08-20 - Dr. Robert Bowman - Regaining America back from Corporations.
www.ustream.tv/recorded/9052806
2010-08-11 - David Blume - Locally produced Alcohol for fuel
self-sufficiency.
www.ustream.tv/recorded/8871461
2010-07-22 - Carolyn North - Standing Stones and our Ancestors' Mindset
www.ustream.tv/recorded/8449707
2010-04-28 - Gunter Pauli - The Blue Economy, 100 innovations - 10 years -
100 million jobs. A challenge to give up doomsday thinking.
www.ustream.tv/recorded/6520308
2010-04-08 - Peter Russell - Towards a Science of Being
www.ustream.tv/recorded/6057370
2010-03-30th - Peter Meisen - Developing the World Resources Simulation
Center
www.ustream.tv/recorded/5843235
2010-02-25 – Scott McKeown - Transition Town Movement
www.ustream.tv/recorded/5013745
2010-01-21 - Richard Lukens - Craneway.com - Attracting conscious raising
events
www.ustream.tv/recorded/4139973
2009-12-15 - Jamie Janover - The Unified Field Theory of Nassim Haramein
Part 1 of 2: www.ustream.tv/recorded/3147411
Part 2 of 2: www.ustream.tv/recorded/3149981
2009-12-10 - Don Hotson - Quantum Connections - Diracs Equation and the Sea
of Negative Energy
www.ustream.tv/recorded/2899121
* * *
EVENT COST & IN-KIND PAYMENTS
Our Dinner/Lectures offer 3 payment options: FREE, $20 or $40.
- FREE when you bring a large dish to share AND login at Favors.org giving
20 Thankyous (see below) as you RSVP to an event,
- $20 per person if you do only one of the above (the dish OR the 20Ts), or
- $40 if you show up with no dish and gave no Thankyous.
Any money collected at the event benefits a charity of the speaker's choice
and the Thankyous you give acknowledge those that made the event possible.
Thankyous or Ts are a self-imposed reminder to pay forward for the discounts
or favors received. Accounting of Ts is transparent and web based. Ts are
non redeemable and have no commercial value. Ts are a community currency
started by Friendly Favors to objectively account for generosity and
goodwill. First time users wishing to use Ts may receive their Login by
going to www.favors.org and clicking on Register.
Friendly Favors' purpose is to help connect those who envision a world that
works for all.
*
--
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Gordon-Farleigh <stirtoaction(a)gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 6:39 AM
Subject: New political magazine - Stir - now online!
To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com
Hi Michel,
I have just finished editing Stir - www.stirtoaction.wordpress.com - feel
free to republish any of the articles on your site. They are all under
creative commons licenses. Also please share with anyone who is involved or
interested in community organising and political activism.
It features:
Can the Commons Move from the Margins to the Mainstream?
by David Bollier
Why is it that the commons is so often excluded from official policy
discussions about how to manage resources and improve people’s lives?
The Practice of Unknowing
by Marianne Maeckelbergh
The popular educator Paolo Friere said ‘You make the path by walking it’.
This saying is one of the guiding principles of the alterglobalization
movement and it is this approach that radically differs from the
prefigurative and overdetermined politics of the past.
Mastering Masterlessness
by Nina Power
If we can be simultaneously both student and teacher, can skill sharing work
to reject specialisation and the deference it encourages?
Local Acts of Resistance Counter Global Systems of Domination
by Haleh Zandi of Planting Justice
With many facing environmental racism, cheap calorie and nutritionally
bankrupt foods, and childhood obesity, Planting Justice are working to
empower low income communities to meet their own food needs.
A Community Bill of Rights
by Ben Price
Having experienced endless litigations and relentless resubmission of
permits by corporations, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
decided they would be more successful if they created their own
community-led ordinances that could be ratified in the US Constitution.
What do we want? And Who Decides?
by Kai Huschke
In the fall of 2007 seven people – active on neighborhood, social justice,
and environmental fronts – gathered in a small living room in one of
Spokane, Washington’s poorest neighborhoods to talk about their community.
Thanks,
Jonny Gordon-Farleigh
--
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
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