[P2P-F] [Networkedlabour] Transnational and P2P Commons Transitions

[Michel Bauwens]

agreed Brian,

a imperfect analysis that I wrote a few years ago and that jibes with the
K-wave timing, http://p2pfoundation.net/Russia_and_the_Next_Long_Wave

my opinion is that the midwave crisis point (to be compared to 1973-74 in
the last one) of the next k-wave, is when the huge opportunity will arise,
and in the meantime we have to maximalize the conditions (even if it
weren't to happen and we have to survive in something much worse than
capitalism)

here is the as yet unpublished text of our strategic agreement with the
Catalan Integral Cooperative, after a previous accord with the post-growth
alliance, we welcome other players to join these huge but necessary efforts:

Towards a first stateless commons transition plan: a partnership of P2P-F
with the Catalan Integral Cooperative
<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/towards-a-first-stateless-commons-transition-plan-a-partnership-of-p2p-f-with-the-catalan-integral-cooperative/2014/08/06>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]

Michel Bauwens
6th August 2014


*The General Assembly of the Catalan Integral Cooperative has confirmed a
proposed partnership with the P2P Foundation.*

This is an important development for several reasons.

First, the Catalan Integral Cooperative is the first new type of
cooperative that is entirely in line with the idea for a new type of coops
engaged in the co-production of the commons, and, after themselves already
embodying these ideas before we formulated them in our recent appeal
<http://p2pfoundation.net/Why_We_Need_a_New_Kind_of_Open_Cooperativism_for_the_P2P_Age>,
they are committed to continue and pioneer the path of open cooperativism.

Second, the CIC fully endorses the Commons Transition Plan
<http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan> that was formulated in
connection with the floksociety.org project in Ecuador. The FLOK experience
was important in that it was a historical first for such ideas to be
endorsed at a nation-state level, but also because that cooperation with a
government brings its own type of challenges
<http://p2pfoundation.net/FLOK_Society_Project#Evaluation_by_Michel_Bauwens>.
How to transition towards partner state practices with a state that is not
a partner state itself ?

The experience in Catalonia promises to be very different. While the CIC
endorses the Commons Transition Plan as its own development plan and
roadmap, of course to be adapted and concretized to their own needs, it
wants to apply the proposals for the commonification of public services and
the partner state, not at the state level, but at the civic level. So the
aim here is to directly create civic institutions which can, within or
outside of the CIC, carry out the same support functions and enable the
further expansion of the commons economy, in particular to stimulate
p2p-based production and manufacturing, which the CIC itself is already
pioneering. If successful, we may well have a adaptable/changeable but also
largely replicable model that could be used in other regions of the world
as well, because it will have been the experience where different pieces of
successful DNA have come together in a working model.

Here is the announcement of the CIC, translated from Catalan and Spanish:

“*CIC and P2pfoundation strategic partners*

It’s been a while now since some people in the CIC took the initiative to
start collaborating with the P2P Foundation after certifying our common
goals. Indeed, the Permanent Assembly of July 27 approved supporting this
line of strategic partnership between CIC and P2P Foundation.

In fact, the P2P Foundation itself (a foundation for the peer-to-peer
alternatives), has already expressed the need to partner strategically. You
can find more information about the purpose of the P2P Foundation on its
website <http://p2pfoundation.net/>.

Amongst it’s priorities, the P2P Foundation includes the promotion of open
cooperativism, as explained in this article. In this sense the CIC appears
as one of the ongoing initiatives with most affinity to these principles of
open cooperativism, and for both organizations it seems important to keep
on developing it and make it known.

Another priority of the P2P Foundation, and one of the areas where they
have developed more research, is to generate transitions towards open
production processes related to knowledge and towards a social, common
goods economy. In this sense, they have been collaborating with Flok
Society, a project financed by the government of Ecuador, for which the
following document was composed
<http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan>.