January 2016 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: To keep track of
by Michel Bauwens 09 Jan '16

09 Jan '16

Varoufakis launches Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 Source: https://roarmag.org/2016/01/07/varoufakis-launches-democracy-in-europe-move… Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, or DiEM 25, is billed as an alternative to prevailing authoritarianism and austerity. Hoping to show Europeans they have an alternative to the prevailing system of “authoritarianism” and austerity, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has announced a new cross-continent movement with a “simple, common agenda:” To democratize Europe. The movement, known as the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (or DiEM 25), will be launched on February 9 at Berlin’s Volksbühne theater. Varoufakis, who first revealed <http://espresso.repubblica.it/archivio/2015/12/22/news/yanis-varoufakis-a-f…>the plan late last month in an interview with *L’Espresso*, said <http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2016/01/02/united-european-democrats-we-stand-div…> that he is hopeful this “activist movement” will connect progressives across the continent and enable them to take back power from the ruling elite and what he described as the “shadowy world of bureaucrats, bankers, and unelected officialdom.” “To counter this de-politicisation of political decision making, which reinforces the economic crisis and the crisis of legitimacy facing Europe, we need a movement that rises up throughout in Europe, at once, with the same agenda everywhere to re-politicize political decisions and to democratize the decision making process,” he said in an interview with* El Diario* published on Saturday. “There is no other means by which to arrest the awful feedback between authoritarianism and failed economic policies—a feedback that, left unchecked, will wreck Europe and help ultra-nationalism triumph,” Varoufakis added, referring to the rise of ultra-right and fascist forces such as Greece’s Golden Dawn <http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/06/greek-minister-poison-troika-au…> party. Varoufakis, who has been a fierce <http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/02/varoufakis-i-prefer-cut-my-arm-…> and vocal critic of austerity, stepped down <http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/06/no-yes-rejection-austerity-just…> from his post within the Syriza government this summer amid tense negotiations with EU creditors. The launch of the DiEM 25 movement comes amid a growing leftist surge across Europe. 2015 saw the rise of anti-austerity forces in both the United Kingdom, with the election of Jeremy Corbyn <http://www.commondreams.org/tag/jeremy-corbyn> to Labour party leader, as well as in Spain, where the Podemos <http://www.commondreams.org/tag/podemos> party gained enormous power. According <https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.volksbuehn…> to the German socialist paper *Neues Deutschland*, Varoufakis will be appearing at the launch along with “some of his ‘accomplices’ from all over Europe,” though the complete list of speakers has yet to be announced. Varoufakis said that the while the exact organizational contours of the movement are still unknown, he is hopeful that the grassroots, cross-border structure will embolden and empower progressives across the continent. “What makes me optimistic about a pan-European movement? That it will be pan-European!” he said. “We shall exert pressure on every Parliament, every government, every head of state at once,” Varoufakis continued. “That when the troika is squeezing, let’s say the Madrid government, it will know that the electoral process in, say, Germany or France or Portugal will punish any local politician who does the troika’s bidding.” “It is a truly utopian undertaking,” he added. *Written by Lauren McCauley for Common Dreams <http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/05/greeces-varoufakis-launch-pan-e…>.* -- - Strategic developer P2P Foundation. Director of content commonstransition.org - Co-founder guerrillatranslation.org -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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my take on the 'meaning of life'
by Michel Bauwens 09 Jan '16

09 Jan '16

see http://excellencereporter.com/2016/01/07/michel-bauwens-the-meaning-that-we… -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Civicist's First Post: Havens
by Michel Bauwens 07 Jan '16

07 Jan '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Civic Hall <info(a)civichall.org> Date: Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 9:15 PM Subject: Civicist's First Post: Havens To: Michel <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> January 7, 2016 <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> [image: First Post] <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> Micah L. Sifry *Havens* - *Today's civic tech must-read*: Like many other cities, Madison, Wisconsin decided to open up public data back in 2012, responding to the rising demand from local civic hackers. But as *Laurel White* reports <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> for The Capital Times, "Almost exactly three years later, while other cities have built thriving partnerships between civic hackers and municipal government, Madison’s civic hacking and open data communities are almost dead." As he reports, resistance from stubborn city bureaucrats about releasing useful datasets—"the city forester’s office had security concerns about the release" of data about ash trees!? (talk about covering your ash)—as well as a top-down attitudes from government officials who viewed the hackers as free labor, appears to be the cause. (h/t *Derek Eder*) - Related: GovTech.com's *Jason Shueh* profiles <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> the work of Palo Alto's CIO *Jonathan Reichental* and his new Civic Technology Center <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…>, which is part of City Hall. *Part of.* - The UK's Government Digital Service is setting up an exchange program with their counterparts in the US federal government, *Sophie Curtis* reports <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> for The Telegraph. (Oh, there's also some vaporous musings in her story as well from UK Cabinet Office minister *Matthew Hancock* about the potential of the blockchain the revolutionize government.) - Urban community problem-solving platform SeeClickFix is the "most influential and innovative company to launch in New Haven since the days of the cotton gin, the frisbee, the apizza, the hamburger, the clock, and the oyster," writes <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> veteran local journalist *Paul Bass* for the New Haven Independent. Now I know what an apizza <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> is! - *Government opening*: Set aside your cynicism and take a look at this post <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> by *Joseph Feti *from the Open Government Partnership, exploring many of the reasons why the highfaluting promises made by OGP countries to be more transparent and accountable don't get implemented. My favorite reasons: - "Start date happens after the action plan ends…Believe it or not, some commitments have a start date in 2017 for a 2013-2015 action plan." - "No one is holding anyone else responsible. IRM [Independent Reporting Mechanism] researchers are regularly surprised at how few governments have internal tracking systems (like spreadsheets) to check in with commitment leads. - "Vested interests: the Commitment would disadvantage someone high in the administration (or legislature) who would suffer loss due to commitment being completed." - Don't miss our *Christine Cupaioulo*'s round-up <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> of political debate news from around the world: did you know that Taiwan's presidential debates included questions from the public that were voted on by the public using a Google platform? Sign up here <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> to get her Rethinking Debates biweekly newsletter delivered straight to your email. - From agriculture to law-making, here's the Sunlight Foundation's *Julia Keseru* with a handy guide <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…>to the benefits of government transparency around the globe. - *Sharing economy*: Uber is paying a $20,000 fine and promising to adopt stringent privacy practices in a settlement with the New York Attorney General's office over an investigation of its use of a "God View" tool to track riders, *Johana Bhuiyan* reports <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> for BuzzFeed. - *Chris Messina*, the popularizer of the #hashtag (and old friend of Personal Democracy Media), explains <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> why he's decided to go work for Uber helping evangelize for its developer platform: "As I see and understand it, Uber exists at the beginning of the inevitable shift from an internet experienced on screens to an internet that is present in and connects the everyday things that are all around us….The question is not if, but when—and importantly, how—we will interact and engage with this emerging era of the internet." - *Andrew Golis*, the founder of This.cm (and Civic Hall member), has found an ingeniously simple way to explain "why social media is broken <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…>." (And how This is helping fix it, he might have added.) - *Tech and the presidentials*: Meet "Field the Bern," a new open-source canvassing app developed by Feel the Bern and Coders for Sanders. As *Issie Lapowsky* reports <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> for Wired, "On the app, supporters get access to information on how to canvass, including sample scripts and information on Sanders’ platforms. Volunteers can see where other canvassers have been, but they’re free to knock on any door they choose. As they move from home to home, they can enter an address and input information on people’s names, party affiliations, and how interested or disinterested they are in voting for Sanders. That information gets sent straight to the Sanders campaign. Volunteers get five points for every door they knock on and 10 points for every piece of information they update, so they can see how they rank against other volunteers." - *Alyson Krueger* explains <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> for Fast Company how *Hillary Clinton*'s campaign operation put together its diverse staff, where "each department boasts steals from impressive firms including IBM, General Assembly, Etsy, Yelp, Google, Gawker, Facebook, Kiva, and DreamWorks." - Political GIFs, helpfully defined by *Harper Reed*, former Obama campaign CTO, as "miniature movies," are having their heyday, *Nick Bilton* writes <http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> for The New York Times. <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d…> <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> [image: Forward to a Friend] <http://us9.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id=005…> ------------------------------ [image: Civic Hall] <http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> <http://civichall.us9.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> *Copyright © 2016 Civic Hall, All rights reserved.* 156 Fifth Avenue, Second Floor, New York, NY 10010 unsubscribe <http://civichall.us9.list-manage2.com/unsubscribe?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294…> update subscription <http://civichall.us9.list-manage.com/profile?u=784ac4a90c07e1e7ebbf294d4&id…> You are receiving this email because you've subscribed to First Post -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [Newsletter] New work on worker-controlled companies in Milan, Rome and Thessaloniki
by Michel Bauwens 07 Jan '16

07 Jan '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Oliver Ressler <oliver(a)ressler.at> Date: Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 5:27 PM Subject: [Newsletter] New work on worker-controlled companies in Milan, Rome and Thessaloniki To: newsletter(a)ressler.at Last chance to see the 3-channel video installation “Occupy, Resist, Produce” in the framework of my solo-exhibition “We will beg for nothing, we will ask for nothing. We will take, we will occupy” at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo – CAAC <http://www.caac.es/english/exh/projects/frame_ressler15.htm> in Seville before it closes on 10 January 2016. The next opportunity to see the installative version of “Occupy, Resist, Produce” will be at the Centre of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki (GR) from 11 to 26 March 2016 as part of 18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Best wishes Oliver * Occupy, Resist, Produce* A 3-channel video installation by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler 97 min. (combined) 2014 – 2015 The economic crisis that began in 2007-8 led to layoffs on a massive scale, leaving thousands of newly unemployed workers with little hope of another job. Their response put workers’ control back on the agenda in Europe. For many years beforehand, factories had been occupied and recuperated almost exclusively in Latin America. In most cases an occupation is not a deliberate step towards workers' control but a means of workers' struggle against the closure of a production site or company or the relocation of production to another country. The struggles often fall apart without any concrete results. “Occupy, Resist, Produce” focuses on the rare, better organized cases where the purpose of the struggle is to bring production under workers’ control. The workers do more than protest, they take the initiative and become protagonists, building horizontal social relations on the production sites and adopting mechanisms of direct democracy and collective decision-making. The recuperated workplaces often reinvent themselves, building links with local communities and social movements. The 3-channel video installation “Occupy, Resist, Produce” consists of three films on occupied factories in Milan, Rome and Thessaloniki. In these cases the workers did find ways to organize labor under their own control. Each film is based on discussion with the workers. The workers' assemblies – always the main decision-making bodies – were recorded. It is fundamental to recognize the differences between the situations, contexts and practices of the three worker-controlled companies, but it is also important to understand workers’ control or recuperation of workplaces as a socio-political action rather than a merely economic procedure. Maflow, a multinational car parts producer based in Milan, closed its production facilities in 2009, with proprietor Italian Lifestyle Partners facing bankruptcy fraud charges. The workers began a struggle to reopen the plant under workers’ control. In 2013 they occupied the plant, and since that day 20 workers have participated full-time in the project, completely reinventing themselves and the factory, which they renamed *RiMaflow*. Applying the concept of an “open factory”, the workers started recycling computers and electronic household devices, opened a bar and cafeteria, and organized a flea market and cultural activities with the local community. They also built alliances with local organic agricultural producers, creating a group for solidarity shopping. *Officine Zero*, formerly RSI (Rail Service Italia), once specialized in maintenance and repair of sleeping cars. When Italian railroads stopped running night trains in December 2011, RSI closed. Some 20 workers from a workforce of almost 60 refused to accept the closure, and in February 2012 they occupied their workplace. In 2013 Officine Zero was officially founded as an eco-social factory. Officine Zero literally means “Zero Workshops”: “zero bosses, zero exploitation, zero pollution”, as their new slogan puts it. In half a dozen workshops for carpentry, padding, metalwork and general repairs, the workers at Officine Zero focus mainly on the repair and recycling of domestic appliances, computers and furniture. The collective project aims to transform the former sleeping car repair shop into an industrial reuse and recycling center. *Vio.Me.* in Thessaloniki used to produce industrial glue, insulant and various other chemically derived construction materials. In 2010 the workers were sent on unpaid leave every 4-6 weeks. After the owner stopped paying wages at all, in July 2011 the workers decided to occupy the plant and take their future into their own hands. In February 2013 Vio.Me. began producing organic cleaning products and organic soap. Vio.Me. formed a cooperative in order to operate legally. However, Vio.Me. does not operate as a traditional cooperative. The workers do not consider the company their property but a common good that should serve the community. Vio.Me. has “solidarity supporters” paying a monthly fee in advance and getting Vio.Me. products in exchange. The solidarity assembly also supports the workers' mobilizations. For the future it is planned to produce further films on occupied factories and to expand the video installation as the workers' struggles continue. Directed and produced by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler Camera: Thomas Parb Additional camera: Rudolf Gottsberger, Bernhard Mayr Boom operators: Thanasis Apostolidis, Riccardo Arrigoni, Emanuel Balbinot, Roberto Polenta, Oliver Ressler Film editors: Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler Sound design, re-recording mix and color correction: Rudolf Gottsberger Special thanks to: Alioscia Castronuovo, Manos Cizek, Elisa Gigliarelli, Theodoros Karyotis, Gigi Malabarba, Francesco Raparelli, Marina Sitrin, Bert Theis, Pina Toscano and all the workers reclaiming work and dignity by building a democratic and self-determined workplace. Footage: Giannis Girbas, Social Waste The project was funded partly through the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) AR 183-G21, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo – CAAC, BKA, Aktion Selbstbesteuerung and the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation. Thanks to Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria for support. <http://www.ressler.at> *Excerpts of the films can be watched here:* http://www.ressler.at/occupy_resist/ _______________________________________________ Ressler_newsletter mailing list newsletter(a)ressler.at http://mailman.mediainvent.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ressler_newsletter -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Brilliant short article
by Michel Bauwens 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

a really really great article by Douglas Rushkoff explaining the strategy of movements like ours, ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael Lewis <Lewiscccr(a)shaw.ca> Date: Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 3:05 PM Subject: Brilliant short article To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net>, Stacco Troncoso < staccotroncoso(a)p2pfoundation.net>, Pat Conaty < pat.commonfutures(a)phonecoop.coop> This article helped deepen the argument for one stream of the work of the commons movement, or so it seems to me, a neophyte entering the world you are trying to create. What do you think? http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-01-05/fork-the-economy Mike -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Brilliant short article
by Michel Bauwens 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

]Dougllas Rushkoff also sent the following article through his email list: Digital and robotic technologies offer us both a bounty of productivity as well as welcome relief from myriad repeatable tasks. Unfortunately, as our economy is currently configured, both of these seeming miracles are also big problems. How do we maintain market prices in a world with surplus productivity? And, even more to the point, how do we employ people when robots are taking all the jobs? Back in the 1940’s, when computers were completing their very first cycles, the father of “cybernetics,” Norbert Wiener, began to worry about what these thinking technologies might mean for the human employees who would someday have to compete with them. His concern for “the dignity and rights of the worker” in a technologized marketplace were decried as communist sympathizing, and he was shunned from most science and policy circles. Although it may still sound like heresy today, Wiener realized that if we didn’t change the underlying operating system of our economy – the very nature and structure of employment and compensation – our technologies may not serve our economic prosperity as positively as we might hope. As we wrestle with the bounty of productivity as well as the displacement of employees by digital technologies, we may consider the greater operating system on which they’re all running. If we do, we may come to see that the values of the industrial economy are not failing under the pressures of digital technology. Rather, digital technology is expressing and amplifying the embedded values of industrialism. It’s time we have the conversation toward which Wiener was pushing us, and challenge some of the underlying assumptions of human employment. The current anxiety over the future of work may be inspired by the increasing processing power of computers and networks, or even the platform monopolies of Amazon and Uber. But it has its roots in mechanisms much older than these technologies – mechanisms set in motion at the onset of industrialism, in the 13th century. Looked at in terms of human value creation, the industrial economy appears to have been programmed to remove human beings from the value chain. Before the Industrial Age, the former peasants of feudalism were enjoying a terrific economic expansion. Yes, in spite of the way they’ve been chronicled by Renaissance court historians, the very late Middle Ages were actually a boom time. The Crusaders had just returned from their global treks, having established trade routes through which the goods of many lands could travel. They also returned with new technologies for agriculture and trade, including the bazaar – a marketplace for the exchange of crafts, crops, grain and meat, which used new financial instruments such as grain receipts and market money. But as the peasants got wealthy exchanging goods and services, the aristocracy got relatively poorer. So they re-established control over the economy by outlawing market moneys and chartering monopolies with dominion over particular industries. So now, instead of making shoes himself, the local cobbler had to get a job at the officially chartered monopoly company. Thus what we think of as “employment” was born – less an opportunity than a restriction on creating value. [image: ThrowingRockscover]Instead of selling his shoes, the cobbler sold his hours – a form of indenture previously known only to slaves. Worse, his skills were not valued. The owners of proto-factories saw in industrial processes a way to hire cheaper workers, with less leverage against them. Why hire a skilled craftsman when you can break down the shoe-making into tiny steps, each capable of being taught to a day laborer in 15 minutes? Viewed in this light the Industrial Age may have had no more to do with making products better or more efficiently than simply removing human beings from the value equation, and monopolizing wealth at the top. Automation reduced the economy’s dependence on the laboring classes. Those few tasks that still required humans could go to the lowest bidder – ideally in countries too far away for the human toll to be noticed by potential customers. The only business priority these companies understood was growth. That’s largely because their own solvency was based on paying interest to nobles chartering and later to the banks financing them. But today, growth has become an end in itself—the engine of the economy—and humans have come to be understood as impediments to its functioning. If only people and our idiosyncratic demands could be eliminated, business would be free to reduce costs, increase consumption, extract more value, and grow. This is one of the primary legacies of the Industrial Age, when the miraculous efficiency of machines appeared to offer us a path to infinite growth—at least to the extent that human interference could be minimized. Applying this ethos in a digital age means replacing the receptionist with a computer, the factory worker with a robot, and the manager with an algorithm. When digital companies disrupt an existing industry, they tend to offer just one new job for every 10 they render obsolete. If we want a digital economy that gets people back to work, we have to program it for something very different. The word digital itself refers to the digits—the 10 fingers – that we humans use to build, to count, and to program computers in the first place. That we should now witness a renaissance in makers, crafts and artisanal production is no coincidence. The digital landscape encourages production from the periphery, lateral trade, and the distribution of wealth. Instead of depending on centralized institutions for sustenance, we begin to depend on one another. Where the corporations of the past depended on government regulation to maintain their monopolies, today’s digital companies do it through the monopoly of the platforms themselves. Today’s digital behemoths are not factories but networks whose embedded programming controls the landscape on which interactions take place. In a sense, Uber is software designed to extract labor and capital (in the form of automobiles) from drivers and convert it into share price for its investors. It is not an opportunity to exchange value so much as to do the R&D for a future network of robotic cars, without even offering a share in the ownership. Thankfully, the remedies are varied. Unlike the one-size-fits-all solutions of the Industrial Age, distributed prosperity in a digital age won’t scale infinitely. Rather, the solutions gain their traction and power by reconnecting people and rewriting business plans from the perspective of serving human stakeholders rather than abstracted share values. Yes, on the surface most of them sound idealistic or even socialist, but they are being tried by companies and communities around the world, and with documented success. Among the many I explore in my upcoming book on the subject are letting employees share in increased productivity by reducing their workweek -- at the same rate of pay. Or contending with overproduction by implementing a guaranteed minimum income. Or retrieving the Papal concepts of “distributism” and “subsidiarity,” through which workers are required to own the means of production, and companies grow only as large as they need to in order to fulfill their purpose. Growth for growth’s sake is discouraged. Many companies today – from ridesharing app Lazooz to Walmart competitor WinCo – are implementing worker-owned “platform cooperatives” to replace platform monopolies, allowing those contributing land or labor to an enterprise to earn an ownership share equal to those contributing just capital. Finally, distributing the spoils of distributed technologies means accepting the good news: there may simply be fewer employment opportunities for people. We must remember that employment may really just be an artifact of an old system – the reactionary move of a bunch of nobles who were afraid for people to create value for themselves. Once we’re no longer conflating the idea of “work” with that of “employment,” we are free to create value in ways unrecognized by the current growth-based market economy. We can teach, farm, feed, care for and even entertain one another. The work challenge is not a problem of scarcity but a spoil of riches. It’s time we learn to deal with it that way. On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 9:05 AM, Michael Lewis <Lewiscccr(a)shaw.ca> wrote: > This article helped deepen the argument for one stream of the work of the > commons movement, or so it seems to me, a neophyte entering the world you > are trying to create. What do you think? > > http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-01-05/fork-the-economy > Mike -- - Strategic developer P2P Foundation. Director of content commonstransition.org - Co-founder guerrillatranslation.org -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Trump is Indeed a Fascist..And It's NOT Just Trump.. one expert on fascism
by Michel Bauwens 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tikkun <magazine(a)tikkun.org> Date: Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 7:39 PM Subject: Trump is Indeed a Fascist..And It's NOT Just Trump.. one expert on fascism To: Michelsub2004(a)gmail.com <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lAt6Xr74BN%2BO3jLGrhAmPAVIzlaq…> You can read this online at http:// www.tikkun.org/nextgen/one-expert-says-yes-donald-trump-is-a-fascist-and-it… <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ISDAoR7roUN00PWMwm8LQAVIzlaqYS…> January 5, 2016 Editor’s Note: Tikkun magazine is a 501-c-3 non profit that is precluded by law from endorsing political candidates or opposing them. But we are not precluded from publishing articles by our readers who take strong stands about electoral issues. We have a tiny staff and do not have the capacity to verify empirical claims made by our authors–so it’s up to you to make those inquiries on your own. On the other hand, as the magazine that came into existence as “the voice of Jewish liberals and progressives and the alternative to Commentary magazine and the voices of Jewish conservatism and conformism in American society,” even though we are now ALSO both a Jewish voice AND an INTERFAITH voice for secular humanists and militant atheists AS WELL as for Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and any other religion that cares about human rights, social justice, environmental sanity and peace, we have a special interest in challenging fascism and other anti-democratic or hate-promoting social movements whether they be in the U.S., Israel, or any other society. So we are proud to present below one such inquiry into whether we are now facing the emergence of a fascist movement in the U.S., and welcome responses from our readers and invite other analyses including those that challenge the perspective we are printing here. — Rabbi Michael Lerner RabbiLerner.Tikkun(a)gmail.com *One Expert Says, Yes, Donald Trump is a Fascist. And It’s Not Just Trump.* Richard Steigmann-Gall *In ways* that immediately brought to mind dangerous parallels with the yellow Star of David patch worn by Jews during the Third Reich, Donald Trump in November suggested that Syrian refugees, posing as allegedly dangerous Fifth Columnists, should wear badges on account of their Muslim faith so that they could not infiltrate American society and carry out plots against the nation. When asked by a reporter whether he thought the comparison with Nazi Germany was a fair one, Trump responded “you tell me <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CQDl0RdRgAPEgSGSt2F1JUrcyULrrO…>.” So shocking have been these and similar statements that not just liberal voices and outlets, but even conservative ones, began to speculate whether Trump is, in fact, a capital-F fascist. This proposition had circulated on leftist websites and blogs <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=enI5322PAuwXokd9TfkySUrcyULrrO…> for months, fed by outrage at Trump’s positions (usually stated unabashedly and flippantly) regarding immigration, foreign policy or torture. At the end of November, this proposition started to enter the mainstream, with CNN.com’s article openly considering the question, interviewing published scholars of historical fascism to ask for their expert opinions <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=POrpgUyYALOrSHlg1t4FJUrcyULrrO…>. Dozens of other mainstream outlets then began to run their own <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=khZqcsAW7Lrij%2FpZ6dZYEUrcyULr…> “Is Trump a Fascist?” pieces as well. It is perhaps a reflection of their hesitance to validate the abundant overuse of the “F-word” in American public discourse that published scholars of historical fascism have shied away from concluding that Trump is a fascist. Steve Ross of the University of Southern California, while conceding that Trump’s anti-immigrant xenophobia is “very dangerous,” would not go so far as to say it is “fascist.” Stanley Payne, long given to a meticulous, phenomenological definition of fascism, argued that in no way could Trump be considered one <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=g4yTBI22Jm%2F8pXSzyEd4y0rcyULr…>. British scholars like Roger Griffin have weighed in on this question as well, coming to similar conclusions. Arguably the leading American scholar of fascism, Columbia University’s Robert Paxton, similarly denied that Trump is a fascist, but conceded that he can “understand why some people might be inclined to point out similarities between Trump and fascist leaders,” adding: “He’s good at making astonishing speeches that make people sit up and take notice. So there’s some of that manipulation of public emotions that is visible with Trump.” One sees a pattern in the analysis, in which one or two aspects of Trump that are worrisome are conceded to “look fascist,” but that other aspects of Trump’s personality or platform means the bill does not fit <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1Ss6jG1LMpdJ0TdNlcJdOUrcyULrrO…> . Whether the comparison hinges on issues of style or substance, the question of whether Trump is actually fascist or “merely” xenophobic, demagogic and populist has so much traction for American audiences because Fascism remains embedded in our history and collective memory, perceived to be the greatest historical enemy of the “American Way.” Fascism is the ultimate violation of American values, so evil that we were willing to ally ourselves with the Soviet Union in the 1940s in order to destroy it. Since then, the “F-word” has been used as a term of abuse, a kind of grammatical mud slung at one’s ideological opponent, much more than as a dispassionately applied category of analysis. But that both sides of the political aisle in American politics are now using it to describe a politician, has given us an opening to revisit the question. Aside from the political usefulness of using the word to discredit a figure whom the left detests and the right fears, does Trump actually hold up to the label of “Fascist”? Is the comparison between Trump and historical fascists at all useful? And, perhaps most importantly: aside from using “fascist” as a descriptive moniker applied to one man, what does the question tell us about the state of American politics and the American electorate? *Many scholars* have insisted that a person or a politics cannot be fascist unless it holds up against a check-list of “fascist minima,” attributes that are almost always about externals. Whether it is goose-stepping, salutes, shirts of the same color, parades, armbands, or other eye-catching props, an American public raised on cable TV documentaries regards fascism as something that must be obvious to identify visually. And occasionally fringe groups come along, most notoriously the American Nazi Party, to serve up the demand for a visually identifiable fascism. Most of the internet commentariat or scholars who have been interviewed about Trump’s fascist bona fides have avoided discounting the question on the grounds of style – though oddly, given how much he decries the search for externals in his own scholarly work, Paxton has recently emerged as something of an exception. So far most observers have looked to essential questions of substance; the “platform” that Trump seems to uphold, and that his public seems to clamor for. How fascist is this platform? In spite of his recent insistence that he’d need to see “identically colored shirts” <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zFooD1pD33KIIHqZC8DWyErcyULrrO…> to take the question of Trump seriously, Robert Paxton has been one of the most persuasive advocates for taking a deeper view. Weary of the “bestiary” approach of describing fascism by its appearances, in his magnum opus from 2004 *The Anatomy of Fascism*, Paxton seeks instead to explain how fascism understood itself; the social traction of fascism as a political movement; and what kinds of political and economic conditions were necessary for it to grow and eventually succeed. Rather than presenting a series of unalterable criteria that read like a check-list, Paxton shows how fascism develops in context, embodying and taking advantage of a series of “mobilizing passions” to build and maintain a following. The leading of these passions include: - an overwhelming sense of crisis that cannot be solved by traditional methods; - the subordination of the individual to the group and the maintenance of group purity; - the group’s belief that it is a victim; - the need for the authority of a natural chief, whose qualities and instincts rise above abstract reason; - and the use of exclusionary violence as part of an effort to reverse perceived decline. In all of these ways, Trump not only reveals that he is indeed fascist, but perhaps even more importantly that his followers – even as some of them are in the habit of describing their own enemies on the left as “fascist” and who have loudly professed their disinterest in a caudillo – are actively seeking fascist solutions to problems that ail them. *** *The perception* of national decline is one of Trump’s most persistent points on the campaign trail. Anyone who has been observing the Tea Party can see that Trump is happy to tap into a long-percolating narrative of degeneration and the ruination of great American traditions through the corruption of the political establishment. Populism in this country has historically always railed against the “plutocrats” of the nation’s capital; Trump extends this narrative of working against “rotten politics” in ways that radicalize it and open up new paths towards a “solution.” One of his most ominous declarations makes this radicalization abundantly clear <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=B7GnU%2Fi1OaaBtmI1Ls4pu0rcyULr…>: “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before … And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country.” Watch out, Trump warns; new realities mean that America must depart from its usual political methods. Observers of Trump commonly contend that this radicalization still cannot constitute fascism because of the American tradition of parliamentary democracy, one that Trump insists he wants to uphold. Merely entering electoral politics, we are assured, ensures that Trump cannot be fascist <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oYpI3PRnzoX8a6yiywVpiwVIzlaqYS…>. What such arguments fail to appreciate is that fascists all came to power, or sought to, through the democratic process. Not just by winning executive power, but also legislative power. Upon entering the legislative, they attempt to make parliamentary government so dysfunctional, so despised, that they would then be able to promote themselves as the sword that would cut through the Gordian Knot of a political chaos they helped create. The Tea Party once more provides the most compelling evidence of this fascistic tendency – one that Trump would surely extend. The failure of Kevin McCarthy’s brief gambit <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yho63MrPs2l5eOuPEoVuZErcyULrrO…> for the role of Speaker of the House in October was widely – and correctly – perceived as just one of many instances of Tea Party congressional zealotry against the “establishment.” Deliberate congressional obstruction against standing procedure illustrates a desire to create a political “revolution.” Aimed against a president whom Trump and most Tea Partiers openly believe acquired his office illegitimately <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=pJ8BUbmqVX7UsFFT1Q1%2BukrcyULr…>, such obstruction also demonstrates a need to constitute an “alternative civic authority” which defends the community’s “legitimate” interests in the face of a failed legal state – the political prerequisite of fascism, says Paxton. The replacement of McCarthy with one of the Tea Party’s own, Tim Ryan, only succeeded in an environment of complete surrender to any sense of normal parliamentary compromise. And now that he has attempted to conduct normal parliamentary business through the passing of a budget, Ryan himself <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oWnvRL%2BscMVJIaI3XabmjUrcyULr…> has become the latest target of Tea Party rage. There is no sense in which the political “conversation” that forms the core of parliamentary democracy is anything but a source of contempt to the Tea Party, their constituents, and to Trump, who happily promotes himself as a strong man who would cut through the clutter of the parliamentary process. In spite of observers referring to the McCarthy episode as “chaos” or a “laughing stock,” it is more accurate to say that the episode reflected the Tea Party’s methodical agenda to infiltrate parliamentary democracy in order to render it impotent. What they seek to replace it with is, at this point, an open question; but Tea Party quest for a strong man who will lead the country through plebiscitary rule <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lAt6Xr74BN%2F8GxTpSMq72AVIzlaq…>, while formally leaving the institutions of parliamentary democracy intact, must be considered a very real possibility. *The supremacy* of the group over the individual is a broad idea. It can mean economic protectionism to the point of autarky. It can mean the retention or even expansion of social paternalism for “real” members of the national community (or the *pays réel* as it was known to Fascist thinkers) at the expense of those who are deemed alien to the community and wrongly permitted inside it (the *pays légal*). Or it can mean the prohibition of the individual’s right to controlling their own bodies (ie: abortion) in the name of communal values. The American self-conception of a nation of rugged individualism would seem to immediately discount any consideration of the “group over the individual” that fascism necessitates. According to journalist Eric Levitz, among many others, Trump’s pride in deal-making at the expense of others, as well as his celebration of his own playboy lifestyle, displays too much individualism <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FTPq%2B%2B3IOFdDGO63JYBsVUrcyU…> to qualify Trump as a fascist. Historian Isabel Hull has similarly dismissed the possibility of Trump as a fascist on account of hisopportunism <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NWgg2HP0nFJJQEpBALO8R0rcyULrrO…>. What these conclusions overlook, however, is the well-documented ability of fascist leaders to line their own pockets and engage in opportunism, even as they claim to represent the selfless virtues of the people they rule. It hardly contradicts the logic of fascist communalism for some in the national community – particularly its leaders – to completely change political orientations (as did Mussolini) or to earn incredible wealth while promoting the interests of the group. Fascism, unlike socialism, has never had a problem with class inequality. There are ways in which the interests of the group finds particular expression, both in Trump’s platform and that of fascist thought, in the realm of economics. The combination of government expenditure on social programs – most obviously Social Security – with the call for strong protectionism seems, insofar as it blunts the neoliberal imperative to generate maximal wealth for the owner class, to be the traditional attributes of the progressive left. On the other hand, the most vituperative and open expression of racist, anti-immigrant sentiment seems clearly to be the provenance of the hard right. In fact, the combination has historical precedent in populist fascism. Lee Drutman points out <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BIxEiadVxRSo5MiPPpDmE0rcyULr…> that Trump’s combination of anti-immigration xenophobia – at that point concerned with expelling millions of Mexican citizens, but subsequently fortified with cultural hysteria about Muslim refugees from Syria – with strong support for upholding government entitlements and imposing tariffs on cheap Mexican and Chinese imports, earns him a unique following of disaffected Americans – white, lower-middle class, and déclassé – which no other establishment Republican can capture. Concerned as they are with tearing down all barriers to shareholder profit, establishment free-trade Republicans do not reflect the interests of a majority of their own voters, according to Drutman. A similar dynamic pertains in historical fascism, where eagerness to employ social protectionism and back-to-work government programs, even to the point of deficit spending, went hand-in-hand with economic and social exclusion of those deemed no longer part of the national community. Both these “leftist” and “rightist” programs violate the theology of laissez-faire economics, while still protecting the profit motive of community members and upholding the necessity of class difference; but the combination of the two is unique to the economic nationalism of fascism. While Trump has yet to advocate a full-on fascist autarky, in which the nation would isolate itself from the global economy and entirely sustain its own needs without dependence on international trade, like the fascists of the 1930s, in the name of protecting the national community, he is much more willing than other establishment politicians – even many Democrats – to defy the ineffable, neoliberal logic of simultaneous tax cuts and budget cuts. Indeed, not only does his vast fortune not disqualify him as a fascist; it ensures that he can run for the presidency without currying favor from fellow economic elites who bankroll the other GOP candidates and who seek the further dismantling of the welfare state. As he put it <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KM%2FRTf9%2FfjgQNr9jJ3vEN0rcyU…> on conservative talk radio while extolling the virtues of Canadian-style single-payer health care, “you have to take care of poor people.” *Trump hammers* relentlessly on the idea that his America is becoming a victim – of aggressive foreign leaders who are taking advantage of weak leadership from an illegitimate executive; of media gate-keepers of the establishment who work for elites instead of the greater whole; or more perniciously, of the decline and demise of “real” Americans themselves. As he put it in the second GOP presidential debate, “This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.” On other occasions, Trump has professed his love of the Christian Bible, and “strongly considers” the possibility of closing mosques. In such moments, Trump is happy to tap into a Tea Party preoccupation with demographic calamity brought by a higher rate of child-birth among non-whites than whites. As Harvard’s Danielle Allen has put it <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mDULFoepaM%2B6FtiYR3VLsErcyULr…>, Trump’s core constituency is based on “those whose well-being, status and self-esteem are connected to historical privileges of ‘whiteness’.” (A whiteness, it should be added, that was meant not to erase, but to transcend class difference; in this way, the billionaire can decry huge compensation packages for corporate heads as a “complete and total joke <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=v0FBoIl%2F116JmeMNPTiIUUrcyULr…>.”) Declarations from the Klan <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=a4OsKtGJ07qakvN7MKoYrkrcyULrrO…> (a group which Paxton describes in his *Anatomy* as “fascist”) and other white nationalist groups <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=bRP36ondKgYQrPBx3mN57ErcyULrrO…> reveal that they consider Trump a boon to their own cause. Trump’s rallies, while not filled with garbed Klansmen, nonetheless form a mirror image of white resentment, filled as they are with emotional, volatile crowds calling for restored national greatness, openly and unapologetically tinged with racist sentiment <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yoV95mPInvaYr%2BzCizjTS0rcyULr…>. Historical fascism also expressed the anxieties of a once-dominant, majoritarian “center” whose positions of privilege, they told themselves, were similarly being eroded by “outsiders” defined both racially and economically – except instead of Jews and Marxists then, it is Mexicans and Muslims today. *Regarding the* question of a natural leadership personality, we have the most obvious point of fascist contact. Even for those who otherwise reject the contention that Trump is fascist, his personality style and the kind of rapture he invokes in his audience are readily conceded as fascistic. The hypermasculine cult of personality he has developed around himself has, from the start, been his calling card. It is not just a matter of his blustering personal style or his charisma behind a podium. He touts his natural leadership abilities and his Elmer Gantry success story in the private sphere, his ability to do so never diminished among his constituents by his actual track record of multiple professional failures. He insists, like any good fascist leader, that his instincts will prevail <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2Bld6ed5qb8AXnQOLPwYio0rcyULr…> over the limited intellectual abilities of his rivals. His misogyny is directed not just against predictable female targets on the left, but also against those on the right who would question his credentials to lead. Whether it is mocking Carly Fiorina’s presidential candidacy by asking “Would you vote for that face?” <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=phw%2FMenOFCG4%2Fvygb2gi0ErcyU…> or describing Hillary Clinton’s bathroom break during a Democratic presidential debate as “disgusting,” Trump seeks to discredit women’s roles in the nation’s political life. Like fascist leaders of the past, personally insulting women does nothing to diminish his standing among female voters who bewail the erosion of traditional gender roles and actively applaud Trump for his “manliness <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5V7nWwUQuMsjynEiaK7dAwVIzlaqYS…> .” But there is also a deeper, ontological point of convergence with fascists: Trump’s ability to sustain credibility with his audience in spite of a flagrant disrespect for empirical reality. Like fascist leaders of the 1930s whose worldviews so consistently flew in the face of observable fact, so it is with Trump: by one estimate only seven percent <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NH%2BFKA9fhPL0Nbn%2B%2Fjf5wgVI…> of what he relays as facts can be described as correct. What would normally hound a career politician in a liberal democracy – lying to or misleading one’s constituency for the sake of vote-getting – in Trump’s case does nothing to diminish his following. His base are just as drawn to an alternate worldview as he is, impervious to easy demonstrations that his claims about Muslims celebrating 9/11 in Jersey City, or the racial nature of American street violence, are patently false. *Finally, and* perhaps most vitally, we have the question of a militarist ethic of violence. Trump lacks a militia or a band of armed followers, which could augur poorly for a fascist. Fascist movements have typically formed their own parties, with their own militias or paramilitary ancillaries. Even though it would make sense for Trump and the Tea Party to formally found a third party <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JUOTWwjq8P3chI3naQCdWUrcyULrrO…>, their route to power so far has been via infiltration of a preexisting political party rather than the creation of a new one. But Trump’s embrace of violence at his own rallies still sets him far apart from anyone else in the political establishment. This has taken the form of the violent expulsion of a Black Lives Matter protester at an Alabama rally in November, which was accompanied by racist taunts. When asked about the violent nature of the encounter, Trump went so far as to endorse it <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=msDs0%2BQq%2BTa1sq%2Fh4Y6OzErc…>: ““Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” While protestors are known to disrupt nearly all political rallies, no other candidate has gone so far as to describe such interruptions as “absolutely disgusting.” This represents a radicalization of Trump’s own previous attitude to violence at his rallies, where Trump happily ginned up his public’s hostility for non-white protesters while makingnominal calls <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2FoJmmbLnLvxh2S%2FZRUsplErcyU…> (mostly ignored) that they not be hurt. While this hardly constitutes a fascist ethos of the beauty of violence, the radicalization visible at recent events – including open displays of blatant racism <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wwAOvmmIeaDFQmXmoaXxwwVIzlaqYS…> among his audience – portends of heightened violence at future Trump rallies; at his current pace, Trump looks increasingly willing to abide and even encourage this growing violence. Aside from this question of Trump encouraging violence at his own rallies, there is a comparable populist movement which articulates many of the same obsessions with political decline and illegitimacy of current government, and which have been easily the most menacing in their threat to use violence: the Oath Keepers. While the Trump campaign has not yet actively cooperated with the Oath Keepers, the shared set of ideological preoccupations between them, as well as the Tea Party, are clear. Ever since the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of America’s most visible foe, the political landscape has been dotted with paramilitary militias that stoke conspiracy theories of American greatness being undermined from within. Like the Tea Party which came after it, these groups speak to the fears of the “beleaguered” white Christian American. The Oath Keepers, in actively seeking confrontation with elected government, take this militia dynamic a step further. Like the original fascist organizations in the 1920s, the Oath Keepers are made up of veterans as well as police officers and others who feel they are truer representatives of the nation’s values than its “corrupt” and “decadent” officials. Distrustful of the *pays légal*, the Squadristi of Italy and Freikorps of Germany were similarly established by veterans after WWI to defend the interests of the *pays réel*, in the process creating a “parallel authority” in their quest for legitimacy. In doing so, these paramilitaries sought to paint actual authority as an alien force. In precisely the same progression, the disaffected, conspiratorially-minded veterans of the Oath Keepers tell themselves they have “no choice” but to “save” the American nation. Whether “patrolling” the streets of Ferguson with military-grade weaponry after the protests that gave rise to Black Lives Matter; menacingly aiming those same weapons <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uRJon1xixvHMVDa1jX6%2Fl0rcyULr…> at *pays légal* authorities at the ranch of tax-evader and racist Cliven Bundy; or promising to prevent government authorities <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BIxEiadVxRSOEhcF%2ByEoeUrcyU…> from making Kentucky civil servant Kim Davis comply with the law, the potential for extra-legal violence, while yet to be seen, is obvious. The seizure of Oregon federal property by Cliven Bundy’s son Ammon <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yo15C%2FVK60Wg01XT%2F9sNOkrcyU…> does not include the involvement of the Oath Keepers; but this most recent instance of paramilitary extremism brings with it not just the same milieu, but the same “passions”: veterans who understand the nation better than elected officials; defense of the “real nation” against illegitimate state authority; and a willingness to die for the cause <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NPfpB%2F1lQaQ9cxrCMLLwwErcyULr…>. If Oath Keeper and related radical militias have not yet engaged in full-scale vigilante violence that marked fascist paramilitaries, it is because cooler heads of government authorities have so far prevailed. They will continue to seek out confrontation when they can. *** *No compromise* over any issue. Emotionally overdetermined intransigence. Racialized fear of demographic “calamity”. A politics of socio-cultural resentment. This is the ideological content of fascism’s historical electorate, as well as Trump’s “grass roots.” It would be missing the forest for the trees to complain that Trump does not personally inhabit all of Paxton’s “passions.” The larger, much more pressing question is not whether Trump lives up to a necessary “fascist minimum”, or even whether he is a clown or false flag: It’s whether there is a significant portion of the American population who have been waiting for a Trump. With every new envelope he pushes, his audience grows more enraptured, not less. More enthralled, not less. There have been demagogues throughout American history, and the electorate has made sure they remained marginal figures. Should Trump be defeated in this election cycle, the anger and resentment he has stoked will not simply disappear. We must worry, then, about a larger fascist “mood” in the United States. The Tea Party and the Oath Keepers, as only the two most obvious exponents, together show that the answer is “yes.” Diagnosing the problem as fascist leads to the question of a solution. What becomes the utility of knowing Trump is fascist? For the historian of the 1930s, the answer seems clear: either the forces that could coalesce against it remain divided, vowing to eternal enmity, as happened in Germany on the eve of Hitler’s ascent to power; or they create a united front, however unwieldy, as happened with the Popular Front in France a few years later. In the former case, the left accused the center of being scarcely better than the right. In the latter case, a coalition of center and left, long at odds with each other over questions of ideology and strategy, looked at results in Germany as a salutary lesson to be avoided. They bridged their considerable differences and succeeded in staving off a domestic French fascism. Should the right in this country fail to coalesce around Trump, and he runs as an independent, then a victory for the Democratic candidate – even should that candidate be Bernie Sanders – becomes very likely. But should Trump win the GOP presidential nomination and rally the party around him, it will be incumbent upon those on the left, however “centrist” or “socialist,” to put aside their differences and once more defeat the forces of fascism. Richard Steigmann-Gall is Associate Professor of History at Kent State University, where he served as the director of the Jewish Studies Program from 2004 to 2010. He has published widely on fascism, Nazism and antisemitism. His book, *The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity*, came out in 2003 through Cambridge University Press. ------------------------------ Click here to unsubscribe <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uF8rLmvpPgtaYIPHIZVN5ErcyULrrO…> if you are having trouble unsubscribing Click here <kay(a)tikkun.org> Copyright 2015 Tikkun Magazine. Tikkun is a registered trademark. 2342 Shattuck Avenue, #1200 Berkeley, CA 94704 510-644-1200 Fax 510-644-1255 [image: empowered by Salsa] <http://www.salsalabs.com/?email> -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Débat public Bernard Stiegler /Pierre Laurent 12 février 19h place du Colonel Fabien 75019 Paris
by Michel Bauwens 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Yann Le Pollotec <ylp(a)pcf.fr> Date: 2016-01-06 1:08 GMT+07:00 Subject: Débat public Bernard Stiegler /Pierre Laurent 12 février 19h place du Colonel Fabien 75019 Paris To: Cc: Section PCF Montreuil <pcfmontreuil(a)wanadoo.fr> *N'hésitez pas à faire circuler* -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Digital Commons panel @ IASC European Regional Conference (Bern, 10-13 May)
by Wouter Tebbens 05 Jan '16

05 Jan '16

[sorry for x-posting] Dear commoners, you'll probably know the IASC: International Association for the Study on the Commons, in particular for their global conferences on this topic. Together with the IASC conference organisers we have defined a panel on Digital Commons. We invite you to submit a paper. *Digital commons in a ‚glocal’ world* Panel Convenors: Wouter Tebbens (Free Knowledge Institute) Massimo Canevacci (University of Rome "La Sapienza" University do Sao Paulo (IEA-USP) See in the Call for Papers, http://conferences.iasc-commons.org/index.php/iasc/IASC_Europe_Bern2016/sch… We think the digital commons perspective should not miss from the very interesting conference agenda. Therefore we urge you to submit a paper. Some topics that could relate to the IASC conference in general and to this panel in particular could for example be the following: - the effects of current intellectual property regulations (mostly in the interest of multinational companies and large capitals) on the digital commons - the alternative commons-based approaches for sharing digital forms of knowledge, as pioneeered by the Free Software Movement and nowadays known in a variety of fields, from Open Standards, to Open Educational Resources, from Open Design to Open Source Hardware and Free Culture. - the local resilience based on commons based networks of peers sharing knowledge, building telecom networks, food cooperatives, etc - the return of artesanal practices enriched with digital tools - the combination of global sharing of (industrial) knowledge and designs with a growing local production - sustainability by needing less and producing less: the motivations of peers producing and sharing knowledge as commons generating an abundance economy, much more satisfying than the consumption society; planned obsolescence and mass production in general manufacture more than humans need; bottum up, pull instead of push channeling of human needs with manufacturing of really needed products - sustainability by repairing and extending product's lifetime: what legal challenges do we need to overcome? These and other topcis would be very welcome for this panel. If in doubt don't hesitate to contact us. Below follow further details of the CfP. - All paper proposals (abstract of 500 words and 5 keywords) have to be uploaded with indication of the panel they want to participate in until February 5th via the IASC-conference website http://conferences.iasc-commons.org. - The panel should contain max. 5 paper contributions (All panels will last two hours and will include a maximum of 5 paper contributions. This implies 15 minutes for each paper contribution and 5 minutes discussion at the end of each contribution. This structure allows for a discussion of 20 minutes at the end of each panel). ********* Commons in a “Glocal” World: Global Connections and Local Responses Venue: University of Bern, Main Building Date: 10-13 May 2016 Contact: Tobias Haller Main theme: Global Connections and Local Responses. Research on the commons deals either with the development of institutions for the management of the commons, or with issues related to global change. While the latter mainly focusses on drivers and effects of global expansion of capitalist modes of production, consumption, and societal reproduction, research on institutions for the management of the commons deals with collective action and the effects and reactions within local action arenas. However, the entangled institutional processes through which global and local arenas – referred to as “glocal” – interlock are not yet addressed in a systematic way. Europe has been a major driver of “glocal” processes. Therefore, the 4th Regional European Meeting of the IASC is devoted to global connections and local responses. It provides a space to advance our understanding of ongoing “glocal” processes and to analyse historically how commons in Europe have evolved and adapted to “glocal” changes. By integrating political ecology with approaches of New Institutionalism and Critical Theory in Anthropology, Human Geography, Political Science and History, we propose to investigate the impacts of external changes on the perception and evaluation of resources by actors related to the commons. This raises the question of local bargaining power, ideologies and discourses, and of the selection and crafting of institutional designs, which in turn affect the access to common-pool resources, as well as the distribution of benefits related to the management of these resources. This conference therefore aims to look at the interfaces between local and global processes in order to bring together research arenas that have often been kept quite separate until now. We therefore call for contributions focussing on: how global players such as multinational companies and organizations affect local governance of the commons worldwide the role of international law and global trade in shaping the interface between global actors and institutional processes of local commons governance the impacts of external economic and political changes on the perception and evaluation of resources and areas by actors related to the commons local resistance and the development of political strategies countering the transformation of collective into private or state-based property rights as a consequence of economic and political changes the local crafting of institutional designs in global and local arenas, and how these affect access to and distribution of natural resources and related benefits among local to global actors using the commons how the encounter of global and local processes affect bargaining power, ideologies and discourses of global and local actors in governing sustainability trade-offs. We especially welcome contributions that aim to address the above mentioned themes through novel forms of integrating theoretical approaches. In addition, the focus of the conference will be on a dialogue among representatives of different academic disciplines (e.g. geography, social anthropology, history, development studies, economics, political science, and law) and between academics and non-academic actors (e.g. practitioners, business representatives, policy makers, or NGOs). Accepted panels We are looking for papers, which refer to the following topics (for a more extensive description of each panel, click here or download the call for papers): A) Features and effects of global (e.g. European) investments on commons in the world #01 - Food system impacts on commons from a North–South Perspective #02 - Extractive and bio-political frontiers: (dense) tropical rain forests and the transformation of the commons #03 - Undermining the commons: Transnational Corporations, mining and impact on commons governance #04 - Energy and the commons #05 - The climate change dilemma: Global and local scales in climate science #06 - Transforming the commons: Business models of large-scale land Investments #07 - Land Grabbing – a phenomenon in Europe? #08 - The impacts of common enclosures on local power relations #09 - Are Large Scale Land Acquisitions leading to „commons“ and “resilience-grabbing“? New perspectives on land and water governance #10 - Large scale investments in land and Infrastructure in Africa, Asia and Latin America: what are the consequences for the commons - what is the maneuvering space for collective action? #11 - European Zoological Gardens, Conservation discourse and the Commons in the South #12 - African Farmer-led Irrigation: reframing agricultural investment B) Collective action, the commons, and sustainability: What is the role of bottom-up participatory resource governance (‘constitutionality’) in Switzerland and in other European political systems in common-resource governance #13 - All commoners are equal? The impact of different distributions of power and social inequalities within common pool institutions on sustainability and resilience within the premodern era #14 - Managing Commons: Premodern Perspecitves #15 - Switzerland as a laboratory for governance innovations in the management of common pool resources – historical approaches) #16 - Constitutionality and bottom-up institution building processes: lessons from Europe #17 - Common pool resource institutions in the shadow of the State #18 - Analysis of Collective action in Payment for Ecosystem Services Contexts #19 - Networking, Comparing, and Integrating Urban Commons Initiatives in Research and Action #20 - Emergence of Smart cities – a confluence of common and private resources towards a new definition of urban commons #21 - Urban commons in a ‚glocal’ world #22 - Collective action regimes, co-management and the commons #23 - Collective Action for the Survival of Forest Commons in Europe #24 - The influence of European and international forest policies, investments and discourses on local contexts and the counter-responses #25 - The spiritual dimensions of commons – missing link in scientific and policy debates? #26 - Geographical Indications as a tool for providing public goods C) Prospects of the commons ‐ Responses to triple crisis (financial, environmental, and socio-economic) #27 - Law, Commons and Sustainable Development Goals - Exploring Law’s Role in Promoting Sustainability of the Commons #28 - Trade and Commons: an Ambivalent Relationship? #29 - Environmental justice and the prospect of commons for sustainable development #30 - Music and the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Debate #31 - Commons, conservation, conflict and co-management in Europe #32 - Blue Communities, a collective action for self-declared principles of resource governance – potentials and limitations #33 - Coherence of international laws and trade treaties in respecting the rights to water and sanitation #34 - Multinational Corporations and the commons: The Role of Criminal Law #35 - "Local Knowledge" in Climate Politics: Negotiating Climate Responsibility #36 - Dissolving the Commons: Pastoral land rights, state intervention and international actors in Central Eurasia #37 - The Commons in (Post-) Conflict Zones #38 - Digital commons in a ‚glocal’ world #39 - Theoretical debates on Institutions for the management of the commons #40 - The world of finance and the commons #41 - Using evidence from the Land Matrix and other data repositories to investigate impacts of large-scale land investments on common pool resources For a more extensive description of each panel, click here or download the call for papers Deadline for submitting paper abstracts is February 5, 2016 Please submit your paper abstract (500 words) via the IASC Conference Registration Module: http://conferences.iasc-commons.org Please contact us if you have questions: iasc-europe-2016(a)cde.unibe.ch -- best regards, Wouter Tebbens -- http://freeknowledge.eu Unlocking the Knowledge Society

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Fwd: THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING - RECONSIDERED
by Michel Bauwens 05 Jan '16

05 Jan '16

- On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 10:14 AM, albert lundquist <agltucs1(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Privilege, Pathology and Power > > <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/pau…> > > Paul Krugman <http://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman> JAN. 1, 2016 > 1864 COMMENTS > > > > Wealth can be bad for your soul. That’s not just a hoary piece of folk > wisdom; it’s a conclusion from serious social science > <http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/20/wealthy-selfies-how-being-rich-increa…>, > confirmed by statistical analysis and experiment. The affluent are, on > average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely to respect norms and > even laws, more likely to cheat, than those occupying lower rungs on the > economic ladder. > > And it’s obvious, even if we don’t have statistical confirmation, that > extreme wealth can do extreme spiritual damage. Take someone whose > personality might have been merely disagreeable under normal circumstances, > and give him the kind of wealth that lets him surround himself with > sycophants and usually get whatever he wants. It’s not hard to see how he > could become almost pathologically self-regarding and unconcerned with > others.Wealth can be bad for your soul. That’s not just a hoary piece of > folk wisdom; it’s a statistical analysis and experiment. The affluent are, > on average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely to respect norms > and even laws, more likely to cheat, than those occupying lower rungs on > the economic ladder. > > So what happens to a nation that gives ever-growing political power to the > superrich? > > > Modern America is a society in which a growing share of income and wealth > is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people, and these people > have huge political influence — in the early stages of the 2016 > presidential campaign, around half the contributions > <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential…> came > from fewer than 200 wealthy families. The usual concern about this march > toward oligarchy is that the interests and policy preferences of the very > rich are quite different from those of the population at large, and that is > surely the biggest problem. > > But it’s also true that those empowered by money-driven politics include a > disproportionate number of spoiled egomaniacs. Which brings me to the > current election cycle. > > The most obvious illustration of the point I’ve been making is the man now > leading the Republican field. Donald Trump would probably have been a > blowhard and a bully whatever his social station. But his billions have > insulated him from the external checks that limit most people’s ability to > act out their narcissistic tendencies; nobody has ever been in a position > to tell him, “You’re fired!” And the result is the face you keep seeing on > your TV. > > But Mr. Trump isn’t the only awesomely self-centered billionaire playing > an outsized role in the 2016 campaign. > > There have been some interesting news reports lately about Sheldon > Adelson, the Las Vegas gambling magnate. Mr. Adelson has been involved in > some fairly complex court proceedings, which revolve around claims of > misconduct in his operations in Macau, including links to organized crime > and prostitution. Given his business, this may not be all that surprising. > What was surprising was his behavior in court > <http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/judge-adelson-lawsuit-subject-u…>, > where he refused to answer routine questions and argued with the judge, > Elizabeth Gonzales. That, as she rightly pointed out, isn’t something > witnesses get to do. > > Then Mr. Adelson bought Nevada’s largest newspaper. As the sale was being > finalized, reporters at the paper were told to drop everything and start > monitoring all activity of three judges, including Ms. Gonzales. And while > the paper never published any results from that investigation, an attack on > Judge Gonzales, with what looks like a fictitious byline, did appear in a > small Connecticut newspaper owned by one of Mr. Adelson’s associates. > > O.K., but why do we care? Because Mr. Adelson’s political spending has > made him a huge player in Republican politics — so much so that reporters > routinely talk about the “Adelson primary > <https://www.yahoo.com/politics/millions-at-stake-the-adelson-primary-is-nec…>,” > in which candidates trek to Las Vegas to pay obeisance. > > > > <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/opinion/privilege-pathology-and-power.htm…>Are > there other cases? Yes indeed, even if the egomania doesn’t rise to Adelson > levels. I find myself thinking, for example, of the hedge-fund billionaire > Paul Singer, another big power in the G.O.P., who published an investor’s > letter declaring that inflation was running rampant > <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/06/heres-the-latest-dum…> — > he could tell from the prices of Hamptons real estate and high-end art. > Economists got some laughs out of the incident, but think of the > self-absorption required to write something like that without realizing how > it would sound to non-billionaires. > 1864COMMENTS > > Or think of the various billionaires > <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/opinion/krugman-pathos-of-the-plutocrat.h…> who, > a few years ago, were declaring with straight faces, and no sign of > self-awareness, that President Obama was holding back the economy by > suggesting that some business people had misbehaved. You see, he was > hurting their feelings. > > Just to be clear, the biggest reason to oppose the power of money in > politics is the way it lets the wealthy rig the system and distort policy > priorities. And the biggest reason billionaires hate Mr. Obama is what he > did to their taxes > <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/thanks-obama-highest-earners-tax-r…>, > not their feelings. The fact that some of those buying influence are also > horrible people is secondary. > > But it’s not trivial. Oligarchy, rule by the few, also tends to become > rule by the monstrously self-centered. Narcisstocracy? Jerkigarchy? Anyway, > it’s an ugly spectacle, and it’s probably going to get even uglier over the > course of the year ahead. > > >

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