[P2P-F] Fwd: [New post] De Meent | The Dutch Commons Assembly

[Michel Bauwens]

*From:* P2P Foundation <donotreply at wordpress.com>
*Date:* 4 May 2017 at 15:10:20 GMT+2
*To:* ruche_alain at yahoo.fr
*Subject:* *[New post] De Meent | The Dutch Commons Assembly*

Walter Dresscher posted: "photo by John Carnemolla This article was
originally posted on our Dutch P2P Foundation blog On Thursday April 13,
2017, the second meeting was held on "De Meent" in Pakhuis de Zwijger in
Amsterdam. The subtitle of the meeting was: "Designing and bu"

New post on *P2P Foundation*
<https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?author=1609> De Meent | The Dutch
Commons Assembly
<https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/de-meent-dutch-commons-assembly/2017/05/04> by
Walter Dresscher <https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?author=1609>

*photo by John Carnemolla*

This article was originally posted on our Dutch P2P Foundation blog
<http://blognl.p2pfoundation.net/index.php/2017/05/02/de-meent-de-nederlandse-commons-assembly/>

On Thursday April 13, 2017, the second meeting was held on "De Meent" in
Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam. The subtitle of the meeting was:
"Designing and building the Dutch platform for commoners". As a
representative of the P2P Foundation I also participated to see what energy
is surrounding this important initiative. I did not know what to expect
from this gathering and made my way to the Pakhuis defying some fighting
football supporters. In this blog I mainly want to point out how I think
this initiative could develop, because during the meeting we were clearly
still searching for the exact purpose of “De Meent”. Perhaps my insights
can help to further develop the process of shaping De Meent.
What is a commoner?

Before we can think about a commoners platform, it's important to determine
what we mean by commoners and commons. During the meeting, I felt some
reluctance to define some sort of definition because people tend to let
every participant define for himself or herself what they mean by commons
and commoners. That is an admirable effort, but if we are working on a
platform for commoners, it is important to define the subject. I would like
to refer to a description based on the thoughts of Michel Bauwens as
described by Rogier de Langhe:

"... commons are not goods, it's a form of management. It is not about
common goods but about their common management. More commons doesn’t mean,
therefore, more state intervention by replacing the market, but something
else, between market and state; A "third way" between privatization and
nationalization. The specific thing about a commons is that it is not
managed from the outside, but by its users themselves. Thus, a commons is
not just a common encyclopedia, a windmill or a farm, but one of which the
users together determine how it comes about, how it looks and what it
serves.

A commons is created as soon as you define a piece of the world in
collaboration with some others and define new rules for them. That piece
can be a farm, for example, a nature reserve or a fish pond. But also a
digital encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. The rules of game lay down the
rights and duties of the users of the commons. Rights such as who gets
access, who, when and how much can be harvested, and who can take up what
roles, and duties such as repairing and sanctioning when someone breaches
the rules of the game. A commons is, as it were, a kind of island of
agreements that you make together and maintain together. "
Commonify instead of commodify

In this line of reasoning, a commoner would be somebody who retrieves goods
from the public or private management sphere to manage it by the users
themselves. Commonify as a counterpart of commodify. An example of
commonification is a pilot in The Hague where the choices of the design and
management of streets is the responsibility of the residents. People who
renounce their parking license to use shared cars will commonify a parking
space that can be redesigned by the residents of the street. Of course,
this can not be done by the residents alone, the city council plays an
important role as well.
The partner state

"The government must make it possible for citizens to work together and
create value. I call this the partner state. "(Michel Bauwens)

In order to make commonification possible, citizens and government must
work together. This is why the role of the state should be reinvented.
Michel Bauwens calls a state that facilitates commoning a "partner state".
This new role calls on the government to recognize the value that commoners
can create and to trust in these commoners that they will perform the tasks
involved with the maintenance of these commons. As we look back, we see
that what is often referred to as "bottom up" in politics has a lot of
common ground with commoning. An essential difference with the role of a
true partner state is that there is indeed an active role of government.
When facilitating bottom-up initiatives, the state often withdraws too much.
A platform

So what should a commoners platform do to enable commonification?

   - The main role of De Meent could be to facilitate the connection
   between commoners and the partner states. Collaboration is essential for
   building a new kind of society where the citizens and the partner state
   collaborate to work on the quality of life for the inhabitants of this
   earth, instead of the endlessly searching for profits, rents and economic
   growth.
   - In addition, governments and potential commoners need suggestions to
   shape this cooperation. Successful projects can be instructive for both
   parties. Think of LabGov in Bologna. The platform could thus provide
   examples of successful regulation and successful collaborations between
   commoners and partner states.
   - Facilitating the dialogue between the various commoners and
   representatives of the partner state could be a third pillar of the
   platform. In this way, members can develop and bring forward ideas on an
   online forum for instance.

Meetings

The community that will be created on the platform can also feel the need
to connect offline. This community is already in the making judging from
the participation at Pakhuis de Zwijger.
Conclusion

It is great that this process has been deployed. All people present were
packed with energy to work on new forms of living in a commons-based
society. This energy can be combined with a platform to make beautiful
initiatives come to life. My feeling is that a good definition of commoners
and commons and a defined mission statement can help keep everyone together
and indicate a common purpose.
*Walter Dresscher <https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?author=1609>* | May 4,
2017 at 3:00 pm | Tags: linguistics
<https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?taxonomy=post_tag&term=linguistics>, unions
<https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?taxonomy=post_tag&term=unions> | URL:
http://wp.me/p4csWb-gWd

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