[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] the two economic-centric priorities for commoners right now

Sun Aug 9 11:14:57 CEST 2015

reference to one of the books mentioned by pat:

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/book-of-the-day-scaling-up-the-convergence-of-social-economy-and-sustainability/2015/07/25

On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 5:09 PM, Pat Conaty <
pat.commonfutures at phonecoop.coop> wrote:

> Dear Michel and Paul
>
> What a great exchange. Congratulations Paul on your fabulous Guardian
> essay about Post Capitalism. I very much look forward to getting your next
> book in a few days.
>
> On the movement from theory into new solidarity economy practices that
> unites with the commons (happening increasingly now) and could revive
> co-operative commonwealth missions, you might find this short report of
> interest Paul. It was from a two day event held in Berlin last summer. The
> concept of Open Co-operativism as we explored together, examines some of
> the contours of  a new engaged and practical strategy and may make solid
> sense to you Paul.
>
>
> http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/the-promise-of-co-ops-connecting-with-the-commons
>
> Lots more to develop on this but we think this is a starter for 10. But
> other things are appearing…….
>
> For example, Co-operatives UK has just published the Co-operative
> Advantage based on three years of research work into co-operative
> innovation. Here is an Huffington post piece by Ed Mayo plus an overview of
> some of the books contents.
>
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ed-mayo/the-case-for-economic-coo_b_7702264.html
>
> http://www.thenews.coop/96721/news/general/co-operative-advantage/
>
> In Canada a similar book is soon to be published connected the green
> economy and the solidarity economy in work that John Restakis, Mike Lewis
> on this list and I have been involved with. This work in Canada has also
> been evolving over the past several years and good practice is all there
> but too much below the radar screen.
>
> Robin Murray’s book, Co-operatives in the Age of Google. actually began to
> kick off much of this thinking four years ago and his proposal for
> public-social partnerships as the push back to public-private partnerships
> is a helpful reconceptualisation. But within the social partnership one
> would include many smaller businesses and also ways and means to tackle the
> problems of the precariat through organising mutuals and trade unions for
> the self-employed.
>
> We just held a successful couple of events at the TUC in London that
> explored trade union and co-operatives collaboration. Both events over the
> past month had a fantastic feel about them as if we could forge soon a new
> wave.
>
> Like you Paul, several of us on this list have been in Barcelona and
> Athens speaking in recent months and we have grassroots contacts
> internationally that really get this new way of looking at problems and
> transformative solutions.
>
> Love to meet up Paul. Let us keep talking and thinking about how do we
> galvanise things.
>
> As the Welsh socialist Raymond Williams put it:  ‘Our job is to make hope
> more concrete and despair less convincing!'
>
> Pat Conaty
> Research Associate
> Co-operatives UK
>
>
> On 27 Jul 2015, at 09:15, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
>
> Thanks Paul for this intervention, some remarks inline, but first:
>
> Your proposals are very ambitious, perhaps too much so so early in the
> game ? This is why my own proposals are still more focused on getting an
> actual commons economics off the ground in civil society, so that the
> public sector can start paying attention!
>
> But of course, I am sure many people here are very grateful that you are
> pushing this, and if you can find an ear for these ambitious undertakings
> that would be a tremendous step forward!
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 2:52 PM, Paul Mason <paulmason60 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As people may know from my book Postcapitalism, I think there are several
>> areas we can innovate p2p into at once.
>>
>> 1. The accurate modelling, using agent based models, of capitalist
>> reality - so as to be able to design the transition virtually. That is:
>> suppose the Welsh Assembly opted for a 50 year transition programme to
>> sustainable post-capitalist economics. How would they validate it? So
>> that's my #1
>>
>
> I copy Louis-David Benyaher of open models for eventual input.
>
> Here is a quite advanced modelling project I discovered in Ecuador:
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Multi-Scale_Integrated_Analysis_of_Societal_and_Ecosystem_Metabolism
>
> and we're keeping track of modelling, metrics, accounting methodoligies
> here at http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Accounting
>
> Paul, any updates on your side would be welcome,
>
>
>
>>
>> 2. The design of regulation. So, for example, in places where basic
>> income is being tried out - how did the regulatory process work? How did it
>> interact with unpredictable reality? What aspects of capitalist commercial
>> law lie in wait as obstacles?
>>
>
> Is anyone doing this ? I'm only aware of initiatives like Sharelex in
> Europe, SELC in the U.S. and perhaps Neal Gorenflo  and Christian Iaione
> are following this in their urban work ?
>
> on our wiki we use http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Law,
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_State_Approaches,
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Public_Services
>
>
>> 3. Remodelling of business processes. Right now everyone is throwing at
>> me Uber and AirBnB as examples of why p2p does not have to erode
>> capitalism. I would like to throw back at them a working design for
>> creating non-rent seeking, collaborative alternatives to - say - Uber that
>> a city government could facilitate. With AirBnB, for example, where local
>> governments have intervened to tax transactions and require registration as
>> tourist landlord etc, what is the optimal level of intervention that
>> diverts the surplus rent from AirBnB into a recyclable tax that benefits
>> society?
>>
>
>
> copying Simon Sarazin of encommuns.org who has been thinking of
> public-commons interaction more consistently (details of what they are
> doing in Lille:
> http://p2pfoundation.net/100_Women_Who_Are_Co-Creating_the_P2P_Society#Interviews_completed_so_far
> )
>
>
>
>
>>
>> 4. Physical space. The more physical spaces that can be run along p2p
>> principles - or with a pro-p2p social dimension - the more chance there is
>> of achieving critical mass in a locality. Eisenstein points out that the
>> print shop of the 15c was a meeting place for all the disciplines that
>> would build capitalism - printer, scholar, scientist, artist, store owner,
>> radical thinker, skilled worker -  what would the equivalent be now?
>>
>
> Definitely, this is what the open source third places are doing today !!
>
> The best people monitoring this are french,
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/tilios/
>
> Dear Charles, could you share the excerpt that Paul is referring to just
> above ?
>
>
>
>> That's my two pennyworth this morning.
>> Paul Mason
>> Economics Editor, Channel 4 News
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 8:17 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net
>> > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
>>> Date: Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 2:12 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Continuing to fill in the context
>>>
>>>
>>> I'll share my perspective on this, which may not be that of the others
>>> copied in,
>>>
>>> my first inclination today is that the focus needs to be on constructing
>>> commons, immaterial and material, everywhere we can, and to create vehicles
>>> so that this allows the creation of livelihoods and the self-reproduction
>>> of the commoners. While the struggle between labor and capital remains a
>>> reality as long as the current political economy dominates, I think
>>> personally that all struggles that focus on bringing more labor into
>>> subordinate working relations in view of redistribution, are no longer
>>> operative, and that we must focus on counter-economic networks, with
>>> decommodified cooperative labor co-constructing commons. This means, as
>>> first suggested by Pat Conaty on this list, to create a in-between between
>>> the commons and capital, i.e. to focus on cooperative accumulation. But
>>> that cooperative accumulation can no longer be merely a coop that competes
>>> on the capitalist marketplace, but a coop that co-produces commons, and
>>> works with non-capitalist capital in a non-capitalist market. This means
>>> concretely working on the creation of entrepreneurial coalitions that are
>>> co-dependent and organized around the commons that they are co-creating.
>>>
>>> Concretely, at the territorial level, this looks like what Stephanie
>>> Rearick is doing in Madison,
>>> https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/100-women-who-are-co-creating-the-p2p-society-stephanie-rearick-of-the-mutual-aid-network/2015/07/18,
>>> or what Marion Rousseaux is trying to do in Lille with Encommuns.org
>>> https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/100-women-who-are-co-creating-the-p2p-society-marion-rousseaux-on-the-commons-in-lille-france/2015/07/25,
>>> i.e. create interlocking value chains for the cooperative commonwealth, at
>>> the local or the translocal level.
>>>
>>> At the more 'trans-national' level, this means a direct focus on the
>>> creation of phyles, i.e. ethical, 'generative' business networks that
>>> sustain a community and its commons. This means projects like
>>> lasindias.net, enspiral, ethos, and others. (marty, you'll find
>>> descriptions of all those in the p2pfoundation.net wiki, via the search
>>> box on the top right)
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 26, 2015 at 11:08 PM, Marty Heyman <marty.heyman at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi to the others on the list.
>>>>
>>>> My quibble, such as it is, is that Capital (Finance) pervades and
>>>> largely controls … especially “the conversation.” A program to reverse its
>>>> enclosures of the economic, political, and social spheres would appear to
>>>> need a core of equally committed and motivated strategists with the
>>>> resources to create a contrary “movement” to mobilize wealth, power, and
>>>> public sentiment. Absent the “Davos” of anti-Capitalism (most importantly
>>>> it’s “core team”), I don’t know how to unseat them and their “system.”
>>>>
>>>> We need to continue to educate me on the philosophical underpinnings of
>>>> terms like “the common good”. Language that feels like it pits “the common
>>>> good” against “the private good” most broadly seem overly broad. Certainly
>>>> the “common good” is the aggregate of the “private good”(s) of some
>>>> collection of persons (and institutions). The usage here seems to want to
>>>> exclude the “private good” of Finance, Capital, and Corrupt Politics …but
>>>> such distinctions are hard to draw accurately as the Commons (Co-operative)
>>>> and Solidarity movements rely heavily on Capital from somewhere for seed
>>>> money.
>>>>
>>>> Finally, not all the “Externalities” lead to desertification and
>>>> useless waste. Vast bodies of code, design, and  other technological
>>>> artifacts are abandoned by Capital and Finance to our “Digital Commons”. I
>>>> often think of Open Source Software as much a vast scrap-heap of discarded
>>>> and abandoned code as I do a bazaar or innovation. There is too much
>>>> redundant, self-gratifying “Innovation” and not enough refinement of the
>>>> material already just sitting there waiting to be improved. I think,
>>>> ultimately, we are seeing much the same with agricultural lands in climate
>>>> zones considered non-optimal for industrial agriculture. Opportunities
>>>> abound for self-directed, democratically governed initiatives and ventures
>>>> IMHO.
>>>>
>>>> —
>>>> Marty Heyman
>>>> 510-290-6484
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> NetworkedLabour mailing list
>>> NetworkedLabour at lists.contrast.org
>>> http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> 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/
>
>
>

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