[P2P-F] (no subject)

[Michel Bauwens]

this proposal will appear april 2 on the p2p blog,

Michel Bauwens:

The recent success of a global mobilization (500+ participants and
collectives in 23 countries and over 50 cities) to collaborative map
P2P-driven, commons-oriented, collaboration/sharing-based initiatives in
hispanic countries, has shown a grassroots hunger for more mutual
coordination to enhance the capacity to initiate social change. I would
like to add the hypothesis that what is in the making is not just a new
social imaginery, but also a potential new political subject. To build and
obtain more civic infrastructures to enable and empower autonomous social
production, I believe we must move to mutualize our forces and create a new
set of political, social and economic institutions which can have
‘transitional’ effects, i.e. prepare the ground for a phase-transition to a
political economy and civilization in which socially and environmentally
friendly free association between autonomous producers and citizens become
the norm.

*I believe the time is there to start constructing the following three
institutional coalitions:*

** The civic/political institution: The Alliance of the Commons*

An alliance of the commons is an alliance, meeting place and network of
p2p-commons oriented networks, associations, places; who do not have
economic rationales. These alliances can be topical, local, transnational,
etc … An example is the initiative Paris Communs Urbains which is
attempting to create a common platform for urban commons intiatives in the
Paris region; another Parisian/French example is the freecultural network
Libre Savoirs, which is developing a set of policy proposals around digital
rights. (both examples were communicated to me by Lionel Maurel).

An alliance of the commons is a meeting place and platform to formulate
policy proposals that enhance civic infrastructures for the commons.

** The economic institution: the P2P/Commons Globa-local « Phyle »*

A phyle (as orgiginally proposed by lasindias.net) is a coalition of
commons-oriented, community-supportive ethical enterprises which trade and
exchange in the market to create livelyhoods for commoners and peer
producers engaged in social production. The use of a peer production
licence keeps the created exchange value within the sphere of the commons
and strengthens the existence of a more autonomous counter-economy which
refuses the destructive logic of profit-maximisation and instead works to
increase benefits for their own, but also the emerging global commons.
Phyles created integrated economies around the commons, that render them
more autonomous and insure the social reproduction of its members.
Hyperproductive global phyles that generate well-being for their members
will gradually create a counterpower to the hitherto dominant MNO’s.

** The political-economy institution: The Chamber of the Commons*

In analogy with the well-known chambers of commerce which work on the
infrastructure for for-profit enterprise, the Commons chamber exclusively
coordinates for the needs of the emergent coalitions of commons-friendly
ethical enterprises (the phyles), but with a territorial focus. Their aim
is to uncover the convergent needs of the new commons enterprises and to
interface with territorial powers to express and obtain their
infrastructural, policy and legal needs.
*In short, we need a alliance of the commons to project civil and political
power and influence at every level of society; we need phyles to strengthen
our economic autonomy from the profit-maximizing dominant system; and we
need Chambre of the Commons to achieve territorial policy; legal and
infrastructural conditions for the alternative, human and nature-friendly
political economy to thrive. Neither alone is sufficient, but together they
could be a powerful triad for the necessary phase transition.*

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

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