---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: pat commonfutures <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Mar 18, 2018 at 6:24 PM Subject: Re: Alternative Economic Strategies - How to frame these? Big exclusive story today in the Observer/Guardian about Facebook security breach and Cambridge Analytica. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge- analytica-facebook-influence-us-election The Canadian whistleblower in this short video tells it all about the Trump and Brexit vote psych-ops! Pat On 10 March 2018 at 22:04 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote: I think it is a very good first initiative myself, but have not looked in details to the accounting nor the book myself, do you have a link to Re=Valuation ? Michel On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 4:59 PM, pat commonfutures < [email protected]> wrote: Hi Michel A false rumour. I spoke on a panel with Christian Felber at the Ripess conference in Berlin in 2015 and I was very impressed with his case. But I have not found the time to read his book. So I have not formed an informed view. What is your view? Some other colleagues of mine here are developing a model called Re-Valuation that has huge potential. Pat On 07 March 2018 at 15:25 Michel Bauwens < [email protected]> wrote: dear Pat, a little finger told me you or some UK colleagues were not so happy with the Common Good Economy accounting scheme, because it was "christian-inspired" or perhaps there is a more fundamental critique, they are expanding in substantial ways, and I think myself this is a good thing, Michel On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 8:26 PM, pat commonfutures < [email protected]> wrote: Mike and John So glad you liked Mike the P2P Foundation piece I shared by Jon Walker on a Jazz rock fusion of Co-ops and Commons that integrate Ostrom's and the 7 Co-op principles through the radical interpretation of Beer and the VSM. John this is really helpful for your partner state implementation. But to be clearer indeed on the application potential among a federation of co-ops locally see also Jon's analysis of how Mondragon and VSM combined analysis shows the incredible power of network governance that Mondragon has uniquely developed. This is Jon's treatment of the problems with lack of co-ordination among food co-ops in the UK. Jon wrote this in the 1990s but really so relevant indeed today to the commons, co-op and solidarity economy convergence work in Barcelona, Ghent and in other cities. http://www.esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/screen.php?page=10appfed Suma is still going strong in the UK as a worker co-op with over 200 worker owners and they are all on equal pay - they pay double the rate for rank and file workers in the food wholesale sector and they are a Union Co-op and have been since 1985 with Bakers Union. What you get with Mondragon is local density in a territory so if we are thinking about public-co-op-commons partnerships in cities and towns we need the VSM tool for moving from chaotic competition to aligned democratic governance. I have added in Michel, Stacco and David as well as Margie. Jon's two papers are very relevant also to GSEF work on solidarity economy development in cities. We need to involve Jon Walker to teach on Synergia as he is so good at teaching. He and Angela Espinosa have been working in Cuba to advance co-op development with the University of Havana. Pat On 06 March 2018 at 18:13 Michael Lewis < [email protected]> wrote: Jon is such a good writer…. I found this very helpful Pat…. the cross-comparison between Commons Principles and the systems in VSM is edifying. Certainly what is presented here is much more understandable than the VSM introduction provided by our dear friend John Waters. I will never forget the contrast between us all being together in the wonderful craziness of the village festival in Wales, and John dragging me up to his upstairs living space above the tiny office of the credit union on the main floor, where he proceeded for an hour to try and introduce me to VSM. I thought I was going to die…. Brilliant beyond measure, so much so, I left feeling blinded…. lol On Mar 6, 2018, at 6:22 AM, pat commonfutures < [email protected]> wrote: Hi Mike, John and Mike Not sure you three have seen this article by Jon Walker on ways and means to align Ostrom's governance system with that of the socialist Stafford Beer who pioneered the Cybernetics of Governance from the 1950s. http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Cybernetics_of_the_Commons Given the work by De Angelis to align Marx and Ostrom, this is a different take and I think deeper in lots of ways. Very relevant to an intermediate level course for Synergia. All the best Pat On 04 March 2018 at 19:23 pat commonfutures < [email protected] op> wrote: Hi Michel, Alex and colleagues Michel I had not read before your January review of the new book by Alex on the General Theory of the Precariat. Your book looks fabulous Alex. I must get a copy. Mike, John and colleagues, have area of Michel's review below. It is really solid and sound. Highly relevant John to contextualising the work on Synergia and the Mooc. https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/p2p-review-alex-fotis-general -theory-precariat/2018/01/30 My comments below about Rowthorn and updating the AES for today would enable us more clearly to flesh out what you argue for Michel. Ditto your ideas and arguments Alex. The need to build an alliance against National Populists is more needed than ever with the outcome of the Italian elections later today set to highlight this. Pat On 04 March 2018 at 09:44 pat commonfutures < [email protected] op> wrote: Hi Michel and Alex Thanks Michel and Alex. I would love to hear your latest perspective Alex. With Co-operatives UK, the Co-perative College and the Wales Co-op Center we are to launch on 20 March in Cardiff our third policy report on Trade union and co-op innovations for precarious work. Report is all done and we are working on the press release and summary articles for the media. Interesting to me about the Rowthorn chapter here is his SWOT analysis of the Alternative Economic Strategy (AES). http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/81_01_04.pdf AES for its time was strong on a macro-analyis but only for the UK. It did not include an appraisal of the emerging social, ecological and feminist movements and demands/innovations at that time. Though the Lucas Alternative Corporate Plan picked up on this as did the Greater London Council Industrial Strategy that was in touch with Emilia Romagna activists. Italy passed enabling legislation to advance economic democracy and multi-stakeholder co-ops like the Marcora Law in 1985 and the Social Co-op law in 1991. But Kondratiev analysis shows that an undercurrent of previous innovations (the counter movement of Polanyi) in the preceding K-wave are developed to potentially align with the next K-wave for a root and branch paradigm shift. The mixed economy welfare state post 1945 was one of these. So as we can see looking back to the last major conjuncture that renewable energy, organic farming, social co-ops, community land trusts were all embryonic and emerging in the 1970s, denied scope since then to scale up or spread, but they are all now proven systems. An updated AES could map out the potential with a shift in policy focus away from industrial methods of production to co-op commons modes of social reproduction as Massimo De Angelis shows in his blending of Ostrom with Marx. De Angelis is very weak on co-op economics and is silent on public-co-op commons partnership but we can fill all those gaps in. We need this for Synergia and for the Commons Transition Plan. Pat On 03 March 2018 at 19:02 Michel Bauwens < [email protected]> wrote: dear all, I want to introduce here Alex FOTI, who in his latest book , General Theory of the Precariat, has a very interesting insight into the social and political dynamics of the kondratieff cycle, the way I understand it, in the first high wave, which includes social redistribution, a supply crisis is created (profit too low for capital), which is inflationary, socially revolutionary, think about the seventies; at the systemic crisis at the end of the cycle, after 30 years of redistribution towards capital, a demand crisis occurs for lack of income in the producer classes, which leads to deflation, and it is socially reformist. Certainly feels right to me, as, even though we need deep structural change, the general mood of the population remains very reform oriented. Alex, perhaps you could explain this, or excerpt the passages from your book ? Michel On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 7:11 PM, pat commonfutures < [email protected]> wrote: Hi Mike, John, Michel, Mike and David A PS to my comments further below. Thinking about Synergia and how to frame the pedagogy, as I said in my previous email further below, the present capital accumulation crisis needs to be seen viz. Kondratiev technological shifts. The stagflation crisis created major political challenges from the left in the 1970s in Chile, Portugal, Italy, Spain and the UK. Tony Benn moved left in 1971 and joined the Institute for Workers Control and backed the Factory Occupation by the Clydeside Ship Builders trade unions when the Tories tried to close down the works. After the OPEC Oil Crisis and the Three Day week in 1974 the Tories lost to Labour and Benn was appointed Industry Minister and pushed through the Industrial Common Ownership Act in 1976. This was a big step to put economic democracy and common ownership solutions on the policy and action agenda. Emilia Romagna and Berlinguer were moving in the same direction then. Schumacher had written about economic democracy and regional funds for industry transfers in his last chapter in Small is Beautiful just before then. When the IMF and US bankers put the squeeze on the new Labour government to throttle this, Benn developed the Alternative Economic Strategy in 1976. It was published but not backed by Callaghan but very popular with trade union shop stewards and grassroots Labour members like Corbyn is today. This analysis by Bob Rowthorn in 1981 of the AES is really profound and relevant to our time with all the work on Next Systems ideas and plans - not fully cohesive though yet as it needs to become. This essay can help us. http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/81_01_04.pdf Rowthorn is a Cambridge U economist (highly respected by other economists and business schools) and analyses well the weaknesses of the AES, the problems with the Marxist left (oppositional not propositional) for the most part and also the strengths of the AES for pedagogical, confidence building purposes and for laying down a set of practical paradigm shifting plans to meet real needs and to rally heads, hearts and minds for a future opportunity ahead. Given that Corbyn was in the Benn group this is a relevant essay. It is only half a dozen pages. A real Gramscian quality to this analysis. I think John this essay could be useful to us viz. planning the Synergia articles for New Internationalists and how to contextualise public-co-op-commons partnerships and build links with trade unions and other movements. You will like this Mike L, note the critique of Rowthorn that AES is flawed as it did not address the women's movement, ecological and energy questions at all. Also as he shows it did not embrace the radical work of Mike Cooley and the Lucas Aerospace Alternative Corporate Plan. However Benn was supportive of Cooley's efforts. But also do note that shortly after this article was produced, the work of Robin Murray at the GLC developed Popular Planning and Technology Networks that through the hefty 600 page plus London Industrial Strategy addressed all the weaknesses Rowthorn highlights. Pat On 02 March 2018 at 08:38 pat commonfutures < [email protected] op> wrote: Hi Mike and Mike Great paper indeed Mike G. Thanks for sharing this. It is so well written and argued. I love the way you layer your argument. It makes your final section so powerful and well contextualised. Excellent crafted work. It resonates also with my paper for Henry Tam. I love your use Mike G. of revisionist history (EP Thompson, Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill and others) and the French Annales School. Interesting to note that RH Tawney was an Oxford historian and so was GDH Cole. Thus guild socialism has this bottom up history roots but also a connection to the trade union and co-op movements and the militancy leading up to the 1926 General Strike. You raise a key question for us Mike L. Mike's citation of the French historian Braudel is helpful and his three frames of examing how difference systems change over time. There is the slow change of say 250- 500 years of the longue duree of climate shifts but also mentality shifts as we saw in the voyages of Colombus/Reformation, then 250 years or so later the Industrial Revolution and today with the second Machine Age. Hobsbawm's book on the Age of Revolution 1789 to 1848 is a classic and such craftsmanship as over this period across Europe he follows in separate chapters the technical shifts, the changing ideas in resistance to industrial society, the counter movement of class struggle, the political clashes, the changes in culture, in literature in philosophy and in science.
From this book you can see Braudel's Moyen, medium term, shifts of 40-60 years and this is where the analysis by first Kondratiev and then shortly later Schumpeter looked more analytically at the long term business cycles of capitalism (K-waves named afer Kondratiev) when the conjunctures occur. To consider here Marx who informed Kondratiev and Schumpeter, these are the periods in my paper and linked to changes in what Marx called the accumulation crisis of capitalism when the system is breaking down and out of gas. You then have a contest of Way Forward being expressed and contested. The counter movement of Polanyi rises to the surface. The fight is on over the mix of productive forces (technical methods, technological infrastructure, science, financial methods, sources of energy, etc). As Mike G shows so well, these are also tied up by shifts in policy, power elite decisions etc that are responding to class struggle.
In the 1920s Italian ruling class backed fascism and authoritarian planning, German ruling class follows in 1933 while US elite back FDR then and ideas from Keynes. So to take my paper, Bertrand Russell and RH Tawney pushed for Guild Socialism as a deeper form of democracy, ownership and control but also against the hire purchase, consumer culture emerging in the 1920s. They lost out to the centralising and controlling forces of Fordism. Shift forward 50 years and you have the end of a colossal expensive war for the USA, Vietnam, a revolt like in the post 1918 period from 1968, and also an accumulation crisis of capital. Trade unions are two strong and want to maintain and extend their equitable share. Working class and middle class women are not so much in the workplace.Then the Opec oil crisis hits in 1974, the accumulation of Arab petrodollars in London and Wall Street banks become a rising wall of money and Kissenger does a deal with the King of Saudi Arabia to buy arms for oil to recycle them and the concept of Financialisation is hatched with the help of Hayek and Friedman's deregulation policies to open widely the debt driven consumer, credit card, homeownership and privatisation of public industries boom. The miners had to be defeated and Thatcher did this and after 1989 trade unionism and democratic socialism and more radical post Keynesian ideas are all repressed until they begin to resurface from 2010. Thatcherism also shuts down a reviving form of guild socialism and the work of Robin Murray and the GLC. All highly inspired by Ivan Illich, Schumacher mixed up with an updated cultural Marxism - aka Stuart Hall and his cultural studies work at the University of Birmingham in the 1970s and 1980s. All the above for contextualisation is highly relevant to Synergia. In the past five years before he died, Robin Murray was teaching at the LSE with Carlota Perez (a Schumpeterian) on how to analyse the present by using K-Wave theory. Kondratiev is really important for us. He was not a Bolshevik but a Socialist Revolutionary and more of a Russian equivalent of a guild socialist. The Bolsheviks brought back ideas like Kondratiev's to develop their New Economic Policy and Lenin had to revive the co-ops to get the Russian economy going again after War Communism strangled any economic democracy ideas. My further two cents as you asked for Mike L. Pat On 01 March 2018 at 05:27 Michael Lewis < [email protected]> wrote: Hi Mike G - Your paper prompted some reflections. Take a look. A question at the end for you. I think your raising of the usefulness of history to transition planning and my note below are reflective of why we need to keep working at the reframing issues. I would be interested to hear your perspective Pat and John on how the thinking and writing of Polanyi and Schumpeter relates to my point in the reflection below and the question I pose re: the role of physics and energy in the arc of recent history and transition in the decades ahead. Nice paper Mike - and very well written. Thanks for sharing it. Feb 28, 2018, at 3:46 PM, Dr. Mike Gismondi <mikeg@athabas cau.ca> wrote: Hi Guys This may be of interest... I wrote it for some academics to encourage them to read history. I enjoyed your chapter today Pat... 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