[P2P-F] A globa-local synthesis of a possible city-supported public-commons partnership for climate- friendly and ecologically balanced provisioning systems

[Michel Bauwens]

I don't use growth myself,

degrowth, though an objective necessity, is not the right political message

so we joined the post-growth alliance, but rather focus on a positive
formulation,

that formulation is that commons-based mutualization can drastically reduce
the human footprint (hence degrowth) , but at the same time guarantees our
capacity to create more wellbeing services (hence grow happiness)

Francois Grosse has calculated that any growth of our matter/energy usage
highter than 1%,makes the very idea of a circular economy moot,

see
http://commonstransition.org/peer-peer-commons-matter-energy-thermodynamic-perspective/

christian arnsperger's new book on a perma-circular economy is also vital
in this regard

Michel

On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Henry Tam <htam.global at talk21.com> wrote:

> Pat, Michel,
>
>
>
> One thing I will chip in – and it’s something I mentioned to Michael
> recently – about is the notion of ‘growth’ itself.  ‘Growth’ encapsulated
> by more polluting vehicles, more weapons manufactured and deployed, more
> accidents and hence insurance claims, more unhealthy food consumed, etc,
> etc, is neither good nor sustainable.  And socio-economic structures
> designed to promote such ‘growth’ ought to be criticised, and the end of
> such ‘growth’ should be celebrated.  But what about growth as
> development?   For example, more and better care provisions for the sick
> and frail elderly, more leisure engagement in creative activities, better
> and more widespread access of treatment and medication, greater liberation
> from cold and dark hours through sustainable use of renewable energy, more
> projects to promote and protect biodiversity, more cultural exchanges and
> sharing of experiences across borders, etc.
>
>
>
> Having more of something, & getting it in an efficient manner, is not
> inherently undesirable.  It depends on what it is.  The presentation of
> growth and development as negative features that should be eliminated gives
> the wrong impression, and leads many who are not supporters of
> commons/multi-stakeholder coops to shy away unnecessarily out of concern
> that this is all about putting on the brakes to stay put at a static
> society.
>
>
>
> I’m more inclined towards ‘wise development’ than ‘no growth’.
>
>
>
> Henry
>
>
>
> *From: *Pat Conaty <pat.commonfutures at phonecoop.coop>
> *Reply-To: *Pat Conaty <pat.commonfutures at phonecoop.coop>
> *Date: *Sunday, 8 October 2017 at 13:00
> *To: *Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> *Cc: *Holemans Dirk <Dirk.Holemans at stad.gent>, Tim Crabtree <tim.crabtree@
> schumachercollege.org.uk>, John Restakis <restakis1 at gmail.com>, Colm <
> colm at solidarityeconomy.coop>, p2p-foundation <p2p-foundation at lists.
> ourproject.org>, David Bollier <david at bollier.org>, Stephen Yeo <
> stephen.yeo at phonecoop.coop>, Michael Lewis <Lewiscccr at shaw.ca>, TWC Group
> <htam.global at talk21.com>, <mendell at alcor.concordia.ca>, Stacco Troncoso <
> staccotroncoso at p2pfoundation.net>, Cilla Ross <Cilla at co-op.ac.uk>, <
> kev.flanagan at gmail.com>, <mikeg at athabascau.ca>
> *Subject: *Re: A globa-local synthesis of a possible city-supported
> public-commons partnership for climate- friendly and ecologically balanced
> provisioning systems
>
>
>
> Hi Michel
>
> A key question Michel, here is my attempt to answer this. Others like
> Stephen Yeo may wish to chip in that know the history.
>
> Daly argues for a shift from growth economics to steady-state economics.
> The latter implies no capitalism. His argument is based on the forecasts by
> Adam Smith, JS Mill and Keynes that in future growth will decline when the
> opportunities for it dry up. Marx called this the accumulation crisis. From
> 1776 in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith foresaw this endpoint in about
> 250 years. Keynes foresaw this in his Essay on the Future Economics of Our
> Grandchildren as happening about 2025. Mill did not give a date.
>
> The issue for Daly was what system would replace an economy without growth
> as other economists have foreseen such a state as leading to the abyss.
> Mill argued that with worker ownership of the means of production via
> worker co-ops and comprehensive land reform, this steady state could be a
> positive future for qualitative human development.
>
> Mill argued though that the ownership question was crucial to set the
> enabling circumstances for this. Hence his argument for land taxation to
> move property into common ownership or public ownership. Henry George takes
> his single tax idea directly from Mill. But Mill also argued as another
> crucial reform for worker ownership and he made the case that consumer
> co-ops were not sufficient. The reason for this Mill showed is that
> economic democracy and in fact full democracy required participative
> structures and educational reform to secure this. Only then could socialism
> be practical he felt. This was his argument against other non-democratic
> forms of socialism that he feared would lead to authoritarian outcomes.
>
> Polanyi is of this school of democratic socialism and Daly is a strong
> supporter of Polanyi in his books Beyond Growth and For the Common Good.
>
> There is a major problem with the history of socialism. Socialism was the
> term coined by the early Co-op movement in England from the 1820s. Robert
> Owen in particular called it also social science. He used the terms almost
> interchangeably. These socialists were also for land reform, co-operative
> land solutions and interest free money. Mill picked up his ideas for a
> democratic socialism from this original socialist movement. But Marx and
> Engels argued for communism and derided the early socialists as utopian and
> non-scientific. Sadly Marx also misunderstood money and the need for
> interest-free forms as the Owenite socialists, the Proudhonian socialists
> and other early co-op movements like these in the US understood.
>
> Polanyi followed all this and celebrates this in the Great Transformation
> and so did the Guild socialists who felt strongly about economic democracy
> (RH Tawney, GDH Cole, Bertrand Russell) and in the case of Clifford Douglas
> (who was very involved with the early guild socialist movement), monetary
> reform. Frederick Soddy picked up ideas from Douglas and Silvio Gesell in
> the 1920s and argued for 100% money free of interest and debt.
>
> Daly's arguments follows closely Polanyi and Soddy who he quotes and
> celebrates in Beyond Growth.
>
> But because Marx was muddled on the money question and weak on the need
> for economic democracy, Marxists are blind to the needs for really taking
> land, people and money out of the market as Polanyi showed the need for. A
> pity this as like Polanyi Marx saw labour, money and land enclosure so well
> and how they had been made into false commodities.
>
> I can recommend to you and others on this list an outstanding text book
> that should be core reading for Synergia students and the entire commons
> movement. It is by Mark Lutz and called Economics for the Common Good.
>
> John uses the term political economy and the need for a new political
> economy in relation to the partner state. I understand the reason why but I
> do think this is problematic historically as key words are important to be
> clear about. In the late 19th century, political economy and capitalism
> were one and the same thing.
>
> While the resisters to industrial capitalism coined the term socialism in
> the 1820s as the humane alternative, until the 1870s, capitalism was not a
> word really used. The term for it was political economy and this is why
> Marx wrote his Capital as a critique of political economy. It was with the
> publication of Capital that capitalism began to be used more widely.
>
> During the 19th century the movement against capitalism was indeed known
> as social economy and included the co-ops and the trade unions. Sadly the
> EU definition of social economy by Jacques Delor from the 1990s leaves out
> trade unions and only talks about Co-ops, Mutuals, Associations and
> Foundations (CMAF).
>
> The Lutz book traces a continuous strand of social economics from the late
> 18th century to today (sometimes also called co-operative economics) that
> is a radical strand of socialist thinking that avoids the blindspots of
> Marx.
>
> Also in Daly's book. For the Common Good, he talks about the work of
> Schumacher on innovative thinking viz. an ownership form for co-ops that
> could become intergenerational for securing the common good. Schumacher saw
> the solution as to ensure a structure of ownership in co-ops that required
> a strong common ownership foundation. This is very relevant to your work
> and to developing Social Solidarity Economy thinking. The Lutz book is
> vital guidance here and for how we best frame Synergia's pedagogy on these
> question and what this idea of Eco-socialism would look like. It would be a
> vitally needed synergia of social economics and ecological economics.
> Co-operative economics also ploughs in this direction if you look at the
> adherents.
>
> But there is no teaching of Co-op Economics within the international Co-op
> movement, though I think St. Mary's University in Halifax has run a course
> like this prior to an ICA meeting in Montreal not that long ago. I just
> heard this this week.
>
> Hope this is helpful.
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> On 08 October 2017 at 08:37 Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> wrote:
>
> I did read several pieces from Daly  but it seems to me he  is not
> challenging capitalism per se,
>
>
>
> anyone read him differently ?
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 7, 2017 at 10:43 PM, pat commonfutures <
> pat.commonfutures at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
>
> Hi Mike and Michel
>
> Thanks Michel for the Commons Transition reports. Very good to see these.
> Your reply to Mike is also helpful.
>
> Thanks also Mike for sharing the Stan Cox critique about renewable energy
> wishful thinking. I found the comments by David Schwartzman very persuasive
> about the Military Industrial Complex power elite and their focused role
> viz. fossil fuel geopolitics and nuclear energy. This is a very little
> discussed structural impediment.
>
> Also this confirms the need for Greens to focus on eco-soclalist ways
> forward. As Streeck argues, Growth is bound in its hands and feet with the
> Accumulation demands of capitalism and the money machine. Steady-state
> economics based on thermodynamics as Herman Daly so well articulates this
> necessitates a post capitalism system. Schwartzman underscores this.
>
> Pat
>
> On 05 October 2017 at 06:09 Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> wrote:
>
> dear Michael,
>
>
>
> I will add some responses in-line
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 11:51 PM, Michael Lewis <Lewiscccr at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> Pat I really like the memo you sent. But I have several questions.
>  (Michel - I wrote this and then see you have replied to Pat) I will think
> about and perhaps comment later.  I the meantime here is my response to Pat)
>
>
>
> I am a poor student of history, but as I have come to understand Cole his
> guild strategy was rooted in the work place, although relevant to other
> kinds of association.  The role of the state was radially reduced. What
> emerged was a decentralized, democratic approach to provisioning, where
> workers were the central (but not only) actors.  Advise me here what I am
> missing.
>
>
>
> If this is the case there a large difference in what Michel is proposing?
> The foundation of his proposition is  public-commons partnerships. Is this
> not very different?  Given the radical difference in reference points -
> Cole with workers a the base and this 21st idea where globally mediated
> knowledge that enables localize production on an
> open-mutualized-cooperative basis; I wonder where the context renders some
> of Cole’s propositions less relevant.
>
>
>
> in my interpretation, the commons are themselves multi-stakeholders, so
> this include the workers and the user communities ; you may be familiar
> with the idea of some that today the workplace has exploded and is no
> longer confined to the factory; but there is an obvious linkage between the
> commons seen as the locus of co-production, and thus a sphere of production
> including workers, and industrial and craft workers as they used to exist
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Second, as I understand it Michel, your proposition is critically
> dependent of an member cities to be active at the city and global level,
> the latter through associations. In short, cities are organized into a body
> the coordinates and governs the terms under which sourcing technical
> solutions is build and maintained on an open source base.  Question here
> Michel is whether access to the knowledge repository requires cities to be
> active members of the global mutual…??
>
>
>
> the code is open source, and would be accessible to everybody, but the
> right to commercialization of that code may be subjected to some
> reciprocity limitatations, in my opinion (reciprocity-based licensing)
>
>
>
> Third,  the territorial platform co-operatives become critical
> infrastructure for production, distribution and governing.  Michel…a
> question about the platform co-ops; are they conceived of as being
> multi-stakeholder and, if so, what is the role of local state actors, if
> any?
>
>
>
> yes, they are conceived as multi-stakeholder and I'm open to co-governance
> by local public actors
>
>
>
>
>
> Lastly,  I am wondering about the thinking to date on whether there will
> be limits to what is gathered into the global digital open source
> repository?  Is the focus on all the critical elements to aid and
> accelerate transition? Given the absolute urgencies emerging from climate
> breakdown, this might make senses. Or is it broader?  I think these are
> important questions as they will shape the counters of the politics that
> such a proposition would provoke.   Even if it is restricted to urgent
> transition related production, I can imagine that a global manufacturers of
> say, public transit vehicles,  and their employees,  would be none to
> pleased with a strategy that could has the potential for sidelining their
> businesses and jobs..   But, then again,  I may not be capturing the
> fullness of the vision.
>
>
>
> for me, this would work for all provisioning systems, and is connected to
> the climate/ecological/resource emergency of our time, i.e. this proposal
> is one of the crucial ways to radicallly reduce our material footprint
>
>
>
> One interesting and attractive feature of what Michel is proposing is the
> bypassing of national governments. Given the growing network of cities
> collaborating on climate breakdown and transition strategies, and for those
> involved, their leadership in advancing more progressive transition
> politics,  the proposal being put forward has a strategic context where it
> can be tested.
>
>
>
> national partner-state governments could decide at a later stage to join
> and support these global depositories
>
>
>
> by the way, this was written in the context of urban transitions, but I
> realize it could be stronger in stressing the role of the cooperative
> sector in supporting the deployment of such infrastructure
>
>
>
> Michel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Anyways, a bit more grist for the proverbial mill.
>
>
>
> Michael L
>
> On Oct 4, 2017, at 9:04 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dear Pat,
>
>
>
> as I was schooled in marxism in my youth, and subsequently abandoned it,
> this means that much of the tradition you speak of is completely unknown to
> me, I had simply no idea that georgism and guild socialism even existed and
> where so big back then ... for me there were revolutionaries, reformists
> and anarchists (and stalinists <g>) ...
>
>
>
> when I decided to embark on p2p work, I decided to make a clear break with
> my dogmatic past, and start constructing a 'low theory' that would be a
> more direct expression of what is happening and possible today. Hence in my
> wiki, I only include things that exist (no projects or plans) and use
> concepts that are born from the very movement I am observing.
>
>
>
> as much as I think it is necessary, I don't see it as a very realistic
> possibility for me to dig into that history, so I am very much counting on
> you for this historical context and genealogy!!
>
>
>
> one note, you will have seen in my approach a combination of the local and
> the global, bypassing the nation-state level.
>
>
>
> There is both a opportunistic and strategic reason for this
>
>
>
> Opportunistic as it appears in a report on urban transitions,
>
>
>
> but strategic as I see coalesced cities (and bioregions/territorities) as
> a crucial new part of transnational governance, which can't be a
> inter-statist world government, but must be based on global public-commons
> alliances
>
>
>
> quid with the nation-state,
>
>
>
> I am not dissing it, but I think nation-states should now support
> transnational commons infrastructures
>
>
>
> the double movement has become inoperative because of the
> trans-nationalization of capital; national revolutions carry great risks
> and dangers (syriza, venezuela), and keynesianism can only be a small part
> of the solution in the context of overshoot
>
>
>
> so what is a progressive majority in a nation-state to do, for sure, let
> it do green  new deals at the national level, but crucially, it must also
> understand that change today is not going to come from a frontal assault
> against a stronger enemy, but from a global coalition of change efforts
> everywhere, which are the only ones that can overwhelm the repressive
> capacity of the transnational empire
>
>
>
> in other words, progressive national governments must absolute support the
> kind of global commoning policies we are proposing and cannot limit their
> vision on their own citizens
>
>
>
> Michel
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 10:21 PM, pat commonfutures <
> pat.commonfutures at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
>
> Hi Michel
>
> Some feedback for consideration.....
>
> This is a really good summary and illustration. So much makes complete
> sense to me. Thanks so much for this articulation. I think it is rich and
> very helpful indeed. When will the report be coming out and who are the
> authors?
>
> I have a sense of deja vu however? So my comments are about the practical
> articulation and the dynamics as other forces are in play.  For the past
> two hundred plus years, the tension and indeed struggle between authority
> at the political level and the striving for democratic authority from the
> grassroots has been continuous and constant. Polanyi's Double movement
> therefore has many dynamic aspects to consider. How is it best to do this
> to be clear about the dialectical complexity?
>
> Stephen Yeo, a very close colleague of Robin Murray's over decades, is
> writing a book on the Three Socialisms. These are Statism (from social
> democracy to communism), Collectivism and Associationism. The last form is
> the most forms that are participatively democratic and includes working
> class self-help associations for mutual aid and including of course trade
> unions that we should try to include in your illustration of the layers.
>
> The ideas you are advancing are a rekindling of the debates and thinking
> from say 1900 right up to 1947 when the Cold War kicked off and when
> Statism thereafter effectively crushed and suppressed associative democracy
> thinking and ideas. Statists East and West told co-ops and unions thank,
> but no thanks. We are taking over to make your bits and pieces integrated
> and comprehensive.
>
> But to guide this earlier struggle by commoners, In 1919 GDH Cole produced
> his book Guild Socialism Restated when he set out a very clear blueprint
> with a remarkable coincidence with what you, David B, Janelle Orsi and
> others are working up here.
>
> What is very creative about the Cole proposals that Bertrand Russell fully
> supported in his book Roads to Freedom a century ago was to recognise
> clearly that political socialism (social democracy shall we say) and
> associative socialism need to be established at the territorial level and
> at the national level in a system of checks and balances with a clear and
> agreed division of labour between the politicos and the economic democrats.
>
> Essentially the proposal of Cole set out a blue print for how economic
> democracy though a Guild Congress at local, regional and national levels
> would relate and complement Parliamentary democracy. But what was wonderful
> about the Cole proposals is that it considered co-operative commonwealth
> building in all industries, services, arts and sciences and worked out
> sector solutions for them. Plus Cole also proposed that cities should be
> based on land held in commons to capture economic rent and to stop
> speculation. Thus he argued for co-operative garden cities.
>
> 20 years earlier in Fields Factories and Workshops had attempted a very
> creative blueprint as well for economic democracy and what in practice this
> would look like.
>
> Okay Polanyi did not arrive in the UK until about 1933 and his way to
> escape fascism was paid for by crowd funding by Guild Socialist, but given
> that in Vienna in the 1920s Polanyi was at the forefront of associative
> democracy solutions and thinking, you can see the resonance.
>
> Given that democratic socialism is being rekindled in parts of Europe
> (Spain, Portugal, the UK and elsewhere), I think it would helpful to
> connect the sound thinking from the 1920s before the lights began being
> turned out with what you are proposing.
>
> I would suggest we are rediscovering co-operative commonwealth thinking
> and practice which you are doing such a brilliant job of updating to the
> digital age.
>
> I hope this helps.  Drawing on the best practices from the past will
> enable us to contextualise the arguments and link these to this vernacular
> part of the Double Movement we should not overlook.
>
> All the best
>
> Pat
>
> On 04 October 2017 at 06:35 Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> wrote:
>
> this is the very last section of our report which will come out soon with
> the Boll foundation:
>
>
> 3.6. Towards a global infrastructure for commons-based provisioning
>
> We have argued in this overview that we are in a conjuncture in which
> commons-based mutualizing is one of the keys for sustainability, fairness
> and global-local well-being. In this conclusion, we suggest a global
> infrastructure, in which cities can play a crucial role.
>
> See the graphic below for the stacked layer that we propose, which is
> described as follows:
>
>    - The first layer is the cosmo-local institutional layer. Imagine
>    global for-benefit associations which support the provisioning of
>    infrastructures for urban and territorial commoning. These are structured
>    as global public-commons partnerships, sustained by leagues of cities which
>    are co-dependent and co-motivated to support these new infrastructures and
>    overcome the fragmentation of effort that benefits the most extractive and
>    centralized ‘netarchical’ firms. Instead, these infrastructural commons
>    organizations co-support MuniRide, MuniBnB, and other applications
>    necessary to commonify urban provisioning systems. These are the global
>    “protocol cooperative” governance organizations.
>    - The second layer consists of the actual global depositories of the
>    commons applications themselves, a global technical infrastructure for open
>    sourcing provisioning systems. They consists of what is globally common,
>    but allow contextualized local adaptations, which in turn can serve as
>    innovations and examples for other locales. These are the actual ‘protocol
>    cooperatives’, in their concrete manifestation as usable infrastructure.
>    - The third layer are the actual local (urban, territorial,
>    bioregional) platform cooperatives, i.e. the local commons-based mechanisms
>    that deliver access to services and exchange platforms, for the mutualized
>    used of these provisioning systems. This is the layer where the Amsterdam
>    FairBnb and the MuniRide application of the city of Ghent, organize the
>    services for the local population and their visitors. It is where houses
>    and cars are effectively shared.
>    - The potential fourth layer is the actual production-based open
>    cooperatives, where distributed manufacturing of goods and services
>    produces the actual material services that can be shared and mutualized on
>    the platform cooperatives.
>
> ...
>
> [image: igure 8.png]
>
> *Figure 8: City-supported cosmo-local production infrastructure*
>
>
>
> --
>
> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
> http://commonstransition.org
>
>
>
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> 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
>
> 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
>
> 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
>
> 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:
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20171008/613a52f2/attachment-0001.html>