[P2P-F] partner state as platonian illusion

Mon Aug 10 16:10:56 CEST 2015

https://www.academia.edu/14169439/Commons_Movements_and_Progressive_Governments_as_Dual_Power_The_Potential_for_Social_Transformation_in_Europe

Not sure if it was bob or peter asking me for a comment on the critique of
the partner state proposal

I can't copy paste the one paragraph here, but do a 'find' for Bauwens and
the single paragraph will pop up

I can't imagine he has thoroughly read about our concept,

1) he believes it is platonian: can't be further from the truth since the
partner state is rooted in already really existing practice, i.e. those of
the FLOSS Foundations

2) he calls rojava and chiapas non-state institutions, but this is for me
problematic, both of them have armies that protect the carocoles (chiapas)
and comunes (rojava); since the state has also been defined as a body of
armed men existing separately from society, I believe myself these are new
state forms, i.e. they exist separately from any contract between sovereign
individuals or communities, and cover a whole territory; in other words, to
the degree they permit the autonomous existence of the councils, they are
actually the best possible example of a partner state; and if you add that
at least rojava is centered our cooperative enterprise, they are very close
to the model proposal by Vasilis and myself.

3) he believes states won't do anything responsible for their own undoing.
In essence, this is correct, which is why the partner state is about
radical transformation of the existing state form. Nevertheless, social
democrats were historically responsible for a deep transformation of the
western state, and neoliberalism actually an example of the state
dismantling itself to a large degree. What I think is realistic today are
prefigurative examples of partner state approaches , certainly at the local
level, and given a change in the political balance of power, a
transformation of the state form. Given the historical experience, which
has shown multiple examples of this, to believe this is impossible flies in
the face of historical reality.

To achieve a partner state in the context of the current market state,
seems to me illusory however,

Michel
social praxis apart from
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