[P2P-F] new text: Proposed_Strategy_for_the_Commons_Movement_in_2015

[Michel Bauwens]

thanks for considering these proposals:

also via
http://p2pfoundation.net/Proposed_Strategy_for_the_Commons_Movement_in_2015
and next week on the blog:

Michel Bauwens, Galway, August 31, 2015:

"What do we need to work on NOW ?

We are definitely going to a period of dislocation in 2015. The Greek
debacle has shown the difficulty of any strategy based on national
sovereignty and the end of political democracy for European nations ; the
difficulties in China , Brazil and elswhere show the period of high growth
for emerging economies has come to an end; and the success of candidates
like Donald Trump, which obtains 40% approval rating by promising to deport
fifteen million people, shows the potential return of barbarism in the
heart of the over-developed world.

Do we have any realistic perspective at change right now ? In the current
conjuncture, there are still mass political mobilizations that seem to have
potential, and we are thinking here about the emergence of social justice
candidates in Spain (En Comu, Podemos), Corbyn in the UK and Sanders in the
U.S. Our CommonsTransition.org initiative, led by Stacco Troncoso, aims at
bringing commons and peer production alternatives to these movements, so as
to avoid too strong focuses on statist solutions. However, the evolution in
Greece should of course caution to any overt optimism, for example at the
level of the real openness of such movements for commons and civic
alternatives, as well as their true willingness to challenge the status quo.

But I think the more long-term focus is to work on the civic-economic
front, i.e. building alternative new modes of productions, new relations of
production, and new property and governance models, right now, i.e. to
'hurry slowly' in rebuilding a true alternative base for different
political and civic mobilizations.

I have discussed elsewhere our political proposals , i.e. our proposals for
the re-organization of emancipatory politics around the commons, through
Assemblies and Chambers of the Commons, and our wish to see Commons
Transition Circles.

Here I would like to focus on the economic proposals. How do we create a
new commons-oriented social fabric around the creation of livelihoods ?

Three strategies come to mind:

   - a first level is the work that we need to do to create commons-centric
   entrepreneurial models, based or inspired by open cooperativism, i.e.
   models in which the commoners co-own and co-govern entrepreneurial forms
   that co-create commons. Come to mind the work of lasindias.com, a more
   collectivist form; the work of Enspiral, a coalition of 250+ social
   entrepreneurs working with the Loomio open source platform for democratic
   decision-making and the co-budget enterpreneurial commons for
   re-investement; and the Ethos Foundation led by Robert Pye, who is
   experimenting with fair forms of equity


   - the second level of work is to work on territirial economic
   eco-systems in which the flows of commons-created value becomes more
   integrated ; indeed, even as we are now able to return to more crafts-like
   form of ownership of the means of production, thanks to distributed
   manufacturing, the power of control still lies in the broader systems, not
   just in the mere ownership of 3D printing machines and microfactories; so
   the efforts like the one of Stephanie Rearick and team in the Mutual Aid
   Network in Madison, Wisconsin; mapping efforts like encommuns.org in
   Lille, and initiative like SolidarityNYC are very important at this state ;
   virtual efforts at more global organizing like the FairCoop project are
   also important.


   - the third level of work, where we still see very little happening, as
   far as I know, is at the level of platforms that would challenge the
   ownership, control and value extraction models of netarchical capitalism
   (Uber, AirBnB, Facebook) ; this is the necessary work of the creation of
   platform cooperatives, and the conference organized by Trebor Scholz and
   Nathan Schneider in New York in November, will be a good start to evaluate
   the state of the art.


None of these three strategies, all of which have started but are very
emergent, will solve urgent crisis, but they will set the stage for a more
broader transition later on. I am personally convinced that progressive
strategies for resistance and change, like the ones we saw in Greece, that
have no serious commons component, are in a great danger of failure ; and
we know that neoliberal forces will use nominal commons strategies in their
strategy to destroy the solidarity mechanisms of the welfare state

In our vision, i.e. the integration of the economic work of peer
production, outlined just above, and the broader work of social and
political re-organization around commons-centric institutions, which will
set the stage for a rebirth of an offensive social and political movement
that will have a good chance to promote a phase transition to a
commons-centric political, social and economic society."



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


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

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