thanks so much again for Pat to link the past to the present and reconnecting the dots! On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Michael Lewis <[email protected]> wrote:

I have been working on a response to this thread. Saw this thought today. I speaks volumes to many of the issues we are grappling with. Thanks to Kate Raworth.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/12/ doughnut-growth-economics-book-economic-model?CMP=share_btn_fb

On Oct 12, 2017, at 7:33 AM, Henry Tam <[email protected]> wrote:

I don’t think there is anything substantial I disagree with in what Michael, Pat or Stephen have set out. On the margins, though, there are four issues that those of us who want to keep advancing our shared agenda may consider nailing down a bit more (esp in relation to what Colm raised about the communication dimension of all this):

[1] The Finitude Boundaries: between the (a) we’ve reached the limits of resources and energy we can use on our planet, so we must use less overall from now on; and (b) renewable solar & wind energy, exponentially rising computer processing power, and new technology to recycle resources indefinitely, mean that there is zero marginal cost to keep producing more; where would we locate ourselves? Midway, much closer to (a), or closer to (b) depending on technological development?

[2] The ‘Trade-Off’ Dilemma: irrespective of [1] above, most would agree that we need more of certain things (better access to quality food for millions of undernourished people; medication for a wide range of conditions; genuinely affordable housing for everyone, etc), and less of others (addictive & harmful substances and activities; processes and products that pollute the environment; etc). But what are the core criteria for the trade-off? Do we share a moral/qualitative sense of differentiating what should be increased/decreased? Or is it down to a simple quantitative balance of – no more energy/resources to be committed to producing anything, unless there is an equivalent amount of energy/resources to be cut from current use/production?

[3] The ‘Word’ Trap: arguably for many people, terms such as ‘growth’ and ‘development’ have deep neoliberal connotations. But I’ve always maintained if we let the other side slap their take on words as they please, and we retreat from them, we’ll end up surrendering our vocabulary. Just consider words like ‘freedom’, ‘family’, ‘values’, ‘enterprise’, they have all been co-opted by the right to gloss over their policies which actually go against all these things in countless ways. Some people have come to view these words as inherently unsound. When Thatcher introduced ‘Care in the Community’, and the ‘Community Charge’, many started to dislike using the word, ‘community’; the same has happened with words like ‘empowerment’. And Cameron tried to deploy ‘well-being’ as a way of getting round the problem of rising poverty by arguing that the key measure was ‘well-being’ and not financial disadvantage (but he was sunk by the Brexit vote before he established another linguistic takeover). All I’m saying is that we must watch the encroachment of words by forces opposed to us, or else, we’d be left with words we might be content to use, but words that do not connect with most people emotionally, or even words that leave others feeling that those who use them are a breed apart.

[4] The Name Game: I noted the point about cooperative economics v cooperative economy. But contrary to Bill Clinton, it’s not just the economy. Pat has a point about the concept of ‘the Cooperative Commonwealth’, or even more simply, why not let the focus be on ‘The Cooperative Society’?

Henry

*From: *Michael Lewis <[email protected]> *Date: *Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 19:58 *To: *Stephen Yeo <[email protected]> *Cc: *Pat Conaty <[email protected]>, Michel Bauwens < [email protected]>, Henry Tam <[email protected]>, John Restakis <[email protected]>, Mikeg <[email protected]>, Tim Crabtree <[email protected]>, Stacco Troncoso < [email protected]>, Holemans Dirk <[email protected]>, Colm <[email protected]>, p2p-foundation <p2p-foundation@lists. ourproject.org>, David Bollier <[email protected]>, Cilla Ross < [email protected]>, Kevin Flanagan <[email protected]>, Margie Mendell <[email protected]> *Subject: *Re: A globa-local synthesis of a possible city-supported public-commons partnership for climate- friendly and ecologically balanced provisioning systems

An important and useful thread….

I pick up on Henry’s comments the language of growth and development and then pose questions related to the suggestion by Pat and Stephen that the defining focus of Synergia being co-operative economics for Synergia

Immediately below is a comment that suggests Resilience over Growth as a key principle for guiding our setting of priorities. I identify six others in The Next Systems Paper I wrote. Henry, who has read the essay has probed each of my assertions, which I very thankful for. (I am preparing when I have time a full response. Hopefully I will be able to share it soon.) Here I only respond to Henry’s comments on Resilience Over Growth s

*Resilience over Growth ** Your comment “do we not need growth, for example, to fund better health provisions, to treat more people, to provide better care for the elderly and frail, etc.)* *This is such an important question Henry. It cannot be addressed without broadening the contextual analysis, which I think I try to do in the Next System paper. Though the list is long, for now I set out only two that drive me to question your premise of your question regarding growth.*

*1.* *We are consuming equivalent to almost 1.6 earths natural resources each year. (* *http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/lpr_2016/* <http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/lpr_2016/>*) In short, our planetary bio-capacity is being ignored, at our collective peril.*

*2.* *Empirical evidence of climate breakdown is outstripping IPCC model predictions, the implication being that the time frame for mitigation and adaptation measures is shortening. Moreover, research seeking to determine the economic costs of climate breakdown suggest current and future costs are huge. Bloomberg reported on research suggesting that climate breakdown impacts are already close to $1 billion per DAY in the U.S. alone.*

*3.* *Research focused on whether energy and material resources can be uncoupled from growth, an assumption one finds in most political and policy positions, is not supported by the evidence in this recently published peer reviewed paper * *https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5065220/* <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5065220/>

Some food for thought re: using the language of growth and development

First, given the overwhelming weight of mounting evidence, why would we deceive ourselves and others by employing ‘growth' to describe progressive goals of any kind? Second, I worry very much that within our cultural mindset development is virtually synonymous with economic growth. Resisting extractive practices within capitalism provoke predictably angry responses - why are you against the jobs *development *brings and the taxes development generates to pay for the services and supports we need in society. Embedded in our economic and cultural DNA is that growth is the priority and development is the means to achieve it. While I agree with your interpretation of the word development being recast in ‘well-being’ terms I worry that it is so deeply embedded in capitalist culture it has lost its meaning.

Language matters a lot. How we shape and advance discourse, strategies and projects is framed around by our language. This is perhaps especially so given our goals linked to shifting the paradigm and expanding economic and political solutions that are counter to key features of capitalisms predatory logic..

I advocate resilience as a much more generative word fit for our times: it is relevant ecologically, socially, economically and culturally. This is why in the book Pat and I wrote we systematically, across every sector and many cases, offered reflections on the extent to which this manifested resilience principles and how they advanced transition.

One advantage of Resilience is that its principles are derived from how eco-systems function. The Stockholm Resilience Centre has done tremendously important work on socio-ecological systems that are local, regional and global in scope. By definition resilience grapples with the threats to health, degradation and tipping points, on the one hand, and multi-scalar restorative strategies for strengthening social, ecological and economic resilience. ‘Growth’ and ‘development’ set within a Resilience framework take on a very different meaning. Growth is by definition limited to planetary boundaries. What priorities we set for ‘growth’ look very different, for example, investmentt focused a rapid expansion/growth of ecological restoration, land fertility, agro-ecological food production,infrastructure to radically reduce water consumption, especially in agriculture, smart grids that enable maximizing resilience and democratic decentralized ownership, radically expanded retrofitting for energy conservation, non-debt based money creation for direct investment in transition priorities, etc. etc

Synergia, in my view, provides a major opportunity to position cooperative economic democracy as one strategic path for strengthening key aspects of socio-ecological resilience. Resilience thinking and related applications on the ground very much parallel our thinking around decentralized, distributed and democratic ownership, subsidiarity in the realm of governance, elevated emphasis on strengthening local/regional self-reliance etc.

I think Stephen Yeo, or perhaps it was Pat, reminded us of the entomology of the word wealth is ‘well being’. This is the goal. Given the precarious circumstances people and planet are in I suggest resilience provides a principled, science based framework more relevant to guiding our discussions and action than ‘growth’ and ‘development’ . Cooperative Economic Democracy and Cooperative Economics are strategically important sub-sets, parts of the whole, which when combined with others have the potential to advance the ‘synergy’ required if we are to achieve the radically transformative changes we need.

Michael Lewis

This is the basis for my assertion that resilience over growth is a key principle. Growth is only tenable intellectually if one disassociates the economy from the realities of a finite planet having limits.

On Oct 10, 2017, at 2:55 AM, Stephen Yeo <[email protected]> wrote:

I too think, with Pat, that: ' we should position Synergia to become a course in Co-operative Economics and talk about this rather than new political economy' Quite apart from the content, Co-operative Economics is , maybe, a more attractive 'brand ' for current students ... and more immediately challenging to dominant producers distributors and exchangers of 'Economics' ? This might come up at the forthcomin g conference in Manchester on the Co-operative University on Nov 9th ( details from Cilla Ross) solidarity from, Stephen On 09/10/2017 16:01, pat commonfutures wrote:

Hi Henry, Stephen, Michel, John, Mike, MIke and Tim Great comments. Henry if you review JS Mill in his Principles of Political Economy, when he talks about a radical interpretation of the steady state (he uses the term stationary state, but the same thing and meaning), he shows how quantitative growth could stop and the shift would be on the focus then on sharing wealth, the development of the good life for everyone and human and cultural development. Also as Stephen will know, Mill's full version of his Principles which is a huge book, has a vast section on the co-operative economy and how the then small but growing co-op movement in Great Britain and Ireland could evolve into the new economy. Mill also talks about how the stationary state could look after nature and the environment and all written in about 1850. Mill's book was the most popular textbook on economics in the second half of the nineteenth century. Herman Daly takes his steady state economics from Mill. Also he produced an incomplete book on Socialism before he died. Stephen, glad you agree with my observation that true Co-operative Economics has been repressed and not taught for since 1989. John I think we should position Synergia to become a course in Co-operative Economics and talk about this rather than new political economy (it really did mean capitalism historically because it is the nation state the determines the mode of production - today this is the hegemony of the Washington Consensus). All underscores the need for Synergia more than ever in this age of Trump and Brexit. In solidarity Pat

On 08 October 2017 at 14:22 Stephen Yeo <[email protected]> <[email protected]> wrote: A couple of thoughts: 1) re *growth*. I always liked Raymond Williams's use of the word 'livelihood'.( Was it in his *Towards 2000 *which was building on Rudolf Bahro's *The Alternative in Easter Europe *as well as on his own *The Long Revolution ?)* More, and more sustainable livelihoods. And maybe John Ruskin's *wealth *as opposed to *illth *might still help, folded into the notion of *commonwealth *as it is. And maybe the psychoanalytic ( was it Winnicott?) usage of *enough *as in *good enough *( parenting etc) might still help: as in developing an idea of *growth enough? / *wealth enough... 2) And Pat is ( as ever ...)right, re the lack of education on specifically Co-operative economics. I think this *was *taught at the Co-operative College at Stanford Hall, in the context of 'overseas development' ( and by my brother Peter Yeo) during the 1960s and 70s? And , half a century and more before that, we need to look at Plebs League and WEA and University Extension economics classes. And then, later, at Michael Barratt Brown and Royden Harrison's work with aduklt education/ industrial education/ Miners' education classes, leading into the foundation of 'the Northern Ruskin' i.e. the Northern College. But but but... , that may have been a bit more Social Democratic/Left Labour in its orientation than growing out of the Co-operative Movement. A radically co-operative economics reaches back, as Pat suggests, to the Owenite ( dismissed as Utopian) tradition ( though in *Socialism Utopian and Scientific, *particularly in an 1892 Introduction to the English edition, Engels was much less Engels-like about the 'utopians' than is often assumed) . Last thought :I have long thought that J.A Hobson may need to come back into the picture, but I am not enough of an economist to know whether 'pre-Keynesian' 'liberal' etc is enough to demote him ! He was very much influenced by John Ruskin on 'work', 'labour '. etc) anyway, solidarity from, Stephen

On 08/10/2017 13:37, Michel Bauwens wrote:

I don't use growth myself,

degrowth, though an objective necessity, is not the right political message

so we joined the post-growth alliance, but rather focus on a positive formulation,

that formulation is that commons-based mutualization can drastically reduce the human footprint (hence degrowth) , but at the same time guarantees our capacity to create more wellbeing services (hence grow happiness)

Francois Grosse has calculated that any growth of our matter/energy usage highter than 1%,makes the very idea of a circular economy moot,

see http://commonstransition.org/peer-peer-commons-matter- energy-thermodynamic-perspective/

christian arnsperger's new book on a perma-circular economy is also vital in this regard

Michel

On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Henry Tam <[email protected]> wrote:

Pat, Michel,

One thing I will chip in – and it’s something I mentioned to Michael recently – about is the notion of ‘growth’ itself. ‘Growth’ encapsulated by more polluting vehicles, more weapons manufactured and deployed, more accidents and hence insurance claims, more unhealthy food consumed, etc, etc, is neither good nor sustainable. And socio-economic structures designed to promote such ‘growth’ ought to be criticised, and the end of such ‘growth’ should be celebrated. But what about growth as development? For example, more and better care provisions for the sick and frail elderly, more leisure engagement in creative activities, better and more widespread access of treatment and medication, greater liberation from cold and dark hours through sustainable use of renewable energy, more projects to promote and protect biodiversity, more cultural exchanges and sharing of experiences across borders, etc.

Having more of something, & getting it in an efficient manner, is not inherently undesirable. It depends on what it is. The presentation of growth and development as negative features that should be eliminated gives the wrong impression, and leads many who are not supporters of commons/multi-stakeholder coops to shy away unnecessarily out of concern that this is all about putting on the brakes to stay put at a static society.

I’m more inclined towards ‘wise development’ than ‘no growth’.

Henry

*From: *Pat Conaty <[email protected]> *Reply-To: *Pat Conaty <[email protected]> *Date: *Sunday, 8 October 2017 at 13:00 *To: *Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> *Cc: *Holemans Dirk <[email protected]> <[email protected]>, Tim Crabtree <[email protected]>, John Restakis < [email protected]>, Colm <[email protected]>, p2p-foundation < [email protected]>, David Bollier <[email protected]>, Stephen Yeo <[email protected]>, Michael Lewis <[email protected]>, TWC Group <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, Stacco Troncoso <[email protected]>, Cilla Ross <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> *Subject: *Re: A globa-local synthesis of a possible city-supported public-commons partnership for climate- friendly and ecologically balanced provisioning systems

Hi Michel A key question Michel, here is my attempt to answer this. Others like Stephen Yeo may wish to chip in that know the history. Daly argues for a shift from growth economics to steady-state economics. The latter implies no capitalism. His argument is based on the forecasts by Adam Smith, JS Mill and Keynes that in future growth will decline when the opportunities for it dry up. Marx called this the accumulation crisis. From 1776 in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith foresaw this endpoint in about 250 years. Keynes foresaw this in his Essay on the Future Economics of Our Grandchildren as happening about 2025. Mill did not give a date. The issue for Daly was what system would replace an economy without growth as other economists have foreseen such a state as leading to the abyss. Mill argued that with worker ownership of the means of production via worker co-ops and comprehensive land reform, this steady state could be a positive future for qualitative human development. Mill argued though that the ownership question was crucial to set the enabling circumstances for this. Hence his argument for land taxation to move property into common ownership or public ownership. Henry George takes his single tax idea directly from Mill. But Mill also argued as another crucial reform for worker ownership and he made the case that consumer co-ops were not sufficient. The reason for this Mill showed is that economic democracy and in fact full democracy required participative structures and educational reform to secure this. Only then could socialism be practical he felt. This was his argument against other non-democratic forms of socialism that he feared would lead to authoritarian outcomes. Polanyi is of this school of democratic socialism and Daly is a strong supporter of Polanyi in his books Beyond Growth and For the Common Good. There is a major problem with the history of socialism. Socialism was the term coined by the early Co-op movement in England from the 1820s. Robert Owen in particular called it also social science. He used the terms almost interchangeably. These socialists were also for land reform, co-operative land solutions and interest free money. Mill picked up his ideas for a democratic socialism from this original socialist movement. But Marx and Engels argued for communism and derided the early socialists as utopian and non-scientific. Sadly Marx also misunderstood money and the need for interest-free forms as the Owenite socialists, the Proudhonian socialists and other early co-op movements like these in the US understood. Polanyi followed all this and celebrates this in the Great Transformation and so did the Guild socialists who felt strongly about economic democracy (RH Tawney, GDH Cole, Bertrand Russell) and in the case of Clifford Douglas (who was very involved with the early guild socialist movement), monetary reform. Frederick Soddy picked up ideas from Douglas and Silvio Gesell in the 1920s and argued for 100% money free of interest and debt. Daly's arguments follows closely Polanyi and Soddy who he quotes and celebrates in Beyond Growth. But because Marx was muddled on the money question and weak on the need for economic democracy, Marxists are blind to the needs for really taking land, people and money out of the market as Polanyi showed the need for. A pity this as like Polanyi Marx saw labour, money and land enclosure so well and how they had been made into false commodities. I can recommend to you and others on this list an outstanding text book that should be core reading for Synergia students and the entire commons movement. It is by Mark Lutz and called Economics for the Common Good. John uses the term political economy and the need for a new political economy in relation to the partner state. I understand the reason why but I do think this is problematic historically as key words are important to be clear about. In the late 19th century, political economy and capitalism were one and the same thing. While the resisters to industrial capitalism coined the term socialism in the 1820s as the humane alternative, until the 1870s, capitalism was not a word really used. The term for it was political economy and this is why Marx wrote his Capital as a critique of political economy. It was with the publication of Capital that capitalism began to be used more widely. During the 19th century the movement against capitalism was indeed known as social economy and included the co-ops and the trade unions. Sadly the EU definition of social economy by Jacques Delor from the 1990s leaves out trade unions and only talks about Co-ops, Mutuals, Associations and Foundations (CMAF). The Lutz book traces a continuous strand of social economics from the late 18th century to today (sometimes also called co-operative economics) that is a radical strand of socialist thinking that avoids the blindspots of Marx. Also in Daly's book. For the Common Good, he talks about the work of Schumacher on innovative thinking viz. an ownership form for co-ops that could become intergenerational for securing the common good. Schumacher saw the solution as to ensure a structure of ownership in co-ops that required a strong common ownership foundation. This is very relevant to your work and to developing Social Solidarity Economy thinking. The Lutz book is vital guidance here and for how we best frame Synergia's pedagogy on these question and what this idea of Eco-socialism would look like. It would be a vitally needed synergia of social economics and ecological economics. Co-operative economics also ploughs in this direction if you look at the adherents. But there is no teaching of Co-op Economics within the international Co-op movement, though I think St. Mary's University in Halifax has run a course like this prior to an ICA meeting in Montreal not that long ago. I just heard this this week. Hope this is helpful. Pat

On 08 October 2017 at 08:37 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

I did read several pieces from Daly but it seems to me he is not challenging capitalism per se,

anyone read him differently ?

On Sat, Oct 7, 2017 at 10:43 PM, pat commonfutures < [email protected]> wrote:

Hi Mike and Michel Thanks Michel for the Commons Transition reports. Very good to see these. Your reply to Mike is also helpful. Thanks also Mike for sharing the Stan Cox critique about renewable energy wishful thinking. I found the comments by David Schwartzman very persuasive about the Military Industrial Complex power elite and their focused role viz. fossil fuel geopolitics and nuclear energy. This is a very little discussed structural impediment. Also this confirms the need for Greens to focus on eco-soclalist ways forward. As Streeck argues, Growth is bound in its hands and feet with the Accumulation demands of capitalism and the money machine. Steady-state economics based on thermodynamics as Herman Daly so well articulates this necessitates a post capitalism system. Schwartzman underscores this. Pat

On 05 October 2017 at 06:09 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

dear Michael,

I will add some responses in-line

On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 11:51 PM, Michael Lewis <[email protected]> wrote:

Pat I really like the memo you sent. But I have several questions. (Michel - I wrote this and then see you have replied to Pat) I will think about and perhaps comment later. I the meantime here is my response to Pat)

I am a poor student of history, but as I have come to understand Cole his guild strategy was rooted in the work place, although relevant to other kinds of association. The role of the state was radially reduced. What emerged was a decentralized, democratic approach to provisioning, where workers were the central (but not only) actors. Advise me here what I am missing.

If this is the case there a large difference in what Michel is proposing? The foundation of his proposition is public-commons partnerships. Is this not very different? Given the radical difference in reference points - Cole with workers a the base and this 21st idea where globally mediated knowledge that enables localize production on an open-mutualized-cooperative basis; I wonder where the context renders some of Cole’s propositions less relevant.

in my interpretation, the commons are themselves multi-stakeholders, so this include the workers and the user communities ; you may be familiar with the idea of some that today the workplace has exploded and is no longer confined to the factory; but there is an obvious linkage between the commons seen as the locus of co-production, and thus a sphere of production including workers, and industrial and craft workers as they used to exist

Second, as I understand it Michel, your proposition is critically dependent of an member cities to be active at the city and global level, the latter through associations. In short, cities are organized into a body the coordinates and governs the terms under which sourcing technical solutions is build and maintained on an open source base. Question here Michel is whether access to the knowledge repository requires cities to be active members of the global mutual…??

the code is open source, and would be accessible to everybody, but the right to commercialization of that code may be subjected to some reciprocity limitatations, in my opinion (reciprocity-based licensing)

Third, the territorial platform co-operatives become critical infrastructure for production, distribution and governing. Michel…a question about the platform co-ops; are they conceived of as being multi-stakeholder and, if so, what is the role of local state actors, if any?

yes, they are conceived as multi-stakeholder and I'm open to co-governance by local public actors

Lastly, I am wondering about the thinking to date on whether there will be limits to what is gathered into the global digital open source repository? Is the focus on all the critical elements to aid and accelerate transition? Given the absolute urgencies emerging from climate breakdown, this might make senses. Or is it broader? I think these are important questions as they will shape the counters of the politics that such a proposition would provoke. Even if it is restricted to urgent transition related production, I can imagine that a global manufacturers of say, public transit vehicles, and their employees, would be none to pleased with a strategy that could has the potential for sidelining their businesses and jobs.. But, then again, I may not be capturing the fullness of the vision.

for me, this would work for all provisioning systems, and is connected to the climate/ecological/resource emergency of our time, i.e. this proposal is one of the crucial ways to radicallly reduce our material footprint

One interesting and attractive feature of what Michel is proposing is the bypassing of national governments. Given the growing network of cities collaborating on climate breakdown and transition strategies, and for those involved, their leadership in advancing more progressive transition politics, the proposal being put forward has a strategic context where it can be tested.

national partner-state governments could decide at a later stage to join and support these global depositories

by the way, this was written in the context of urban transitions, but I realize it could be stronger in stressing the role of the cooperative sector in supporting the deployment of such infrastructure

Michel

Anyways, a bit more grist for the proverbial mill.

Michael L

On Oct 4, 2017, at 9:04 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

Dear Pat,

as I was schooled in marxism in my youth, and subsequently abandoned it, this means that much of the tradition you speak of is completely unknown to me, I had simply no idea that georgism and guild socialism even existed and where so big back then ... for me there were revolutionaries, reformists and anarchists (and stalinists <g>) ...

when I decided to embark on p2p work, I decided to make a clear break with my dogmatic past, and start constructing a 'low theory' that would be a more direct expression of what is happening and possible today. Hence in my wiki, I only include things that exist (no projects or plans) and use concepts that are born from the very movement I am observing.

as much as I think it is necessary, I don't see it as a very realistic possibility for me to dig into that history, so I am very much counting on you for this historical context and genealogy!!

one note, you will have seen in my approach a combination of the local and the global, bypassing the nation-state level.

There is both a opportunistic and strategic reason for this

Opportunistic as it appears in a report on urban transitions,

but strategic as I see coalesced cities (and bioregions/territorities) as a crucial new part of transnational governance, which can't be a inter-statist world government, but must be based on global public-commons alliances

quid with the nation-state,

I am not dissing it, but I think nation-states should now support transnational commons infrastructures

the double movement has become inoperative because of the trans-nationalization of capital; national revolutions carry great risks and dangers (syriza, venezuela), and keynesianism can only be a small part of the solution in the context of overshoot

so what is a progressive majority in a nation-state to do, for sure, let it do green new deals at the national level, but crucially, it must also understand that change today is not going to come from a frontal assault against a stronger enemy, but from a global coalition of change efforts everywhere, which are the only ones that can overwhelm the repressive capacity of the transnational empire

in other words, progressive national governments must absolute support the kind of global commoning policies we are proposing and cannot limit their vision on their own citizens

Michel

On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 10:21 PM, pat commonfutures < [email protected]> wrote:

Hi Michel Some feedback for consideration..... This is a really good summary and illustration. So much makes complete sense to me. Thanks so much for this articulation. I think it is rich and very helpful indeed. When will the report be coming out and who are the authors? I have a sense of deja vu however? So my comments are about the practical articulation and the dynamics as other forces are in play. For the past two hundred plus years, the tension and indeed struggle between authority at the political level and the striving for democratic authority from the grassroots has been continuous and constant. Polanyi's Double movement therefore has many dynamic aspects to consider. How is it best to do this to be clear about the dialectical complexity? Stephen Yeo, a very close colleague of Robin Murray's over decades, is writing a book on the Three Socialisms. These are Statism (from social democracy to communism), Collectivism and Associationism. The last form is the most forms that are participatively democratic and includes working class self-help associations for mutual aid and including of course trade unions that we should try to include in your illustration of the layers. The ideas you are advancing are a rekindling of the debates and thinking from say 1900 right up to 1947 when the Cold War kicked off and when Statism thereafter effectively crushed and suppressed associative democracy thinking and ideas. Statists East and West told co-ops and unions thank, but no thanks. We are taking over to make your bits and pieces integrated and comprehensive. But to guide this earlier struggle by commoners, In 1919 GDH Cole produced his book Guild Socialism Restated when he set out a very clear blueprint with a remarkable coincidence with what you, David B, Janelle Orsi and others are working up here. What is very creative about the Cole proposals that Bertrand Russell fully supported in his book Roads to Freedom a century ago was to recognise clearly that political socialism (social democracy shall we say) and associative socialism need to be established at the territorial level and at the national level in a system of checks and balances with a clear and agreed division of labour between the politicos and the economic democrats. Essentially the proposal of Cole set out a blue print for how economic democracy though a Guild Congress at local, regional and national levels would relate and complement Parliamentary democracy. But what was wonderful about the Cole proposals is that it considered co-operative commonwealth building in all industries, services, arts and sciences and worked out sector solutions for them. Plus Cole also proposed that cities should be based on land held in commons to capture economic rent and to stop speculation. Thus he argued for co-operative garden cities. 20 years earlier in Fields Factories and Workshops had attempted a very creative blueprint as well for economic democracy and what in practice this would look like. Okay Polanyi did not arrive in the UK until about 1933 and his way to escape fascism was paid for by crowd funding by Guild Socialist, but given that in Vienna in the 1920s Polanyi was at the forefront of associative democracy solutions and thinking, you can see the resonance. Given that democratic socialism is being rekindled in parts of Europe (Spain, Portugal, the UK and elsewhere), I think it would helpful to connect the sound thinking from the 1920s before the lights began being turned out with what you are proposing. I would suggest we are rediscovering co-operative commonwealth thinking and practice which you are doing such a brilliant job of updating to the digital age. I hope this helps. Drawing on the best practices from the past will enable us to contextualise the arguments and link these to this vernacular part of the Double Movement we should not overlook. All the best Pat

On 04 October 2017 at 06:35 Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

this is the very last section of our report which will come out soon with the Boll foundation:

3.6. Towards a global infrastructure for commons-based provisioning We have argued in this overview that we are in a conjuncture in which commons-based mutualizing is one of the keys for sustainability, fairness and global-local well-being. In this conclusion, we suggest a global infrastructure, in which cities can play a crucial role. See the graphic below for the stacked layer that we propose, which is described as follows:

- The first layer is the cosmo-local institutional layer. Imagine global for-benefit associations which support the provisioning of infrastructures for urban and territorial commoning. These are structured as global public-commons partnerships, sustained by leagues of cities which are co-dependent and co-motivated to support these new infrastructures and overcome the fragmentation of effort that benefits the most extractive and centralized ‘netarchical’ firms. Instead, these infrastructural commons organizations co-support MuniRide, MuniBnB, and other applications necessary to commonify urban provisioning systems. These are the global “protocol cooperative” governance organizations. - The second layer consists of the actual global depositories of the commons applications themselves, a global technical infrastructure for open sourcing provisioning systems. They consists of what is globally common, but allow contextualized local adaptations, which in turn can serve as innovations and examples for other locales. These are the actual ‘protocol cooperatives’, in their concrete manifestation as usable infrastructure. - The third layer are the actual local (urban, territorial, bioregional) platform cooperatives, i.e. the local commons-based mechanisms that deliver access to services and exchange platforms, for the mutualized used of these provisioning systems. This is the layer where the Amsterdam FairBnb and the MuniRide application of the city of Ghent, organize the services for the local population and their visitors. It is where houses and cars are effectively shared. - The potential fourth layer is the actual production-based open cooperatives, where distributed manufacturing of goods and services produces the actual material services that can be shared and mutualized on the platform cooperatives.

... *Error! Filename not specified.* *Figure 8: City-supported cosmo-local production infrastructure*

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Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition. org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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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Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition. org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

--

Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition. org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

--

Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition. org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

-- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition. org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

-- 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/