<div dir="ltr">by the way, I just want to mention that the p2p foundation maintains a closed 'visioning' discussion list, in which high quality discussants are very welcome,<div><br></div><div>Stacco can add you to the list,<br><div><br></div><div>Michel</div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Holemans Dirk <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Dirk.Holemans@stad.gent" target="_blank">Dirk.Holemans@stad.gent</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="white" lang="NL" link="blue" vlink="purple">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dear all,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Many thanks for this inspiring dialogue. As ecologist (director of green foundation Oikos and city councillor in Ghent), I see I can learn a lot from your contributions, and authors
like GDH Cole and Clifford Douglas.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Being inspired by Polanyi, I am trying to connect his lines of thinking with the historical research on the three waves of commons in Europe since the Middle Ages. To reduce complex
research to this simple line, one could argue that the democratic second movement of Polanyi correspondents with the second wave of the commons. By this I am very interested in what Pat writes on the “23,000 mutual friendly societies set up over decades of
social movement struggles and almost all promoted and supported by diverse trade unions for their members”. Are there specific articles or books that documents these pre-war social movements in the UK?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Already many thanks<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dirk<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #b5c4df 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Van:
</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">pat commonfutures <<a href="mailto:pat.commonfutures@phonecoop.coop" target="_blank">pat.commonfutures@phonecoop.<wbr>coop</a>><br>
<b>Beantwoorden - Aan: </b>pat commonfutures <<a href="mailto:pat.commonfutures@phonecoop.coop" target="_blank">pat.commonfutures@phonecoop.<wbr>coop</a>><br>
<b>Datum: </b>zondag 28 januari 2018 13:31<br>
<b>Aan: </b>Alex Foti <<a href="mailto:alex.foti@gmail.com" target="_blank">alex.foti@gmail.com</a>>, Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michel@p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">michel@p2pfoundation.net</a>><br>
<b>CC: </b>Simona Levi Xnet <<a href="mailto:simona@xnet-x.net" target="_blank">simona@xnet-x.net</a>>, John Restakis <<a href="mailto:restakis@gmail.com" target="_blank">restakis@gmail.com</a>>, "<a href="mailto:david@bollier.org" target="_blank">david@bollier.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:david@bollier.org" target="_blank">david@bollier.org</a>>, Hazel Henderson <<a href="mailto:hazel.henderson@ethicalmarkets.com" target="_blank">hazel.henderson@<wbr>ethicalmarkets.com</a>>, Fiona Dove <<a href="mailto:fdove@tni.org" target="_blank">fdove@tni.org</a>>, Holemans Dirk <Dirk.Holemans@stad.gent>, "<a href="mailto:visioning@p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">visioning@p2pfoundation.net</a>"
<<a href="mailto:visioning@p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">visioning@p2pfoundation.net</a>>, emanuele braga <<a href="mailto:bragaberlino@gmail.com" target="_blank">bragaberlino@gmail.com</a>>, p2p-foundation <<a href="mailto:p2p-foundation@lists.ourproject.org" target="_blank">p2p-foundation@lists.<wbr>ourproject.org</a>>, George Papanikolaou <<a href="mailto:georgepapani@gmail.com" target="_blank">georgepapani@gmail.com</a>>, Geert Lovink <<a href="mailto:geert@xs4all.nl" target="_blank">geert@xs4all.nl</a>>, Daniel Chavez <<a href="mailto:chavez@tni.org" target="_blank">chavez@tni.org</a>>, Margie Mendell <<a href="mailto:mendell@alcor.concordia.ca" target="_blank">mendell@alcor.concordia.ca</a>>,
Michael Lewis <<a href="mailto:Lewiscccr@shaw.ca" target="_blank">Lewiscccr@shaw.ca</a>><br>
<b>Onderwerp: </b>Re: My review (bauwens) of Alex Foti's General Theory of the Precariat<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div><div><div class="h5">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Hi Michel and Alex<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">The commons work in Ghent is great to see. Also the Bologna regulations work of Christian Iaione are needed to help commons and local government partnerships and social contracts to be negotiated.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Why GDH Cole and guild socialism ideas are relevant to the present is that Cole proposed in 1919 in his book on Guild Socialism Restated that guild congresses for economic democracy should complement local government and regional and national
governments and that social economic actors involved in production and reproduction could be a co-operative economic counterpart to parliamentary democracy. Therefore economic democracy would become a separate form of democracy complementary to political democracy.
A system of checks and balances. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Garden city ideas where all the land would be commonly owned and economic rent captured for residents transparently was a foundational concept for Cole for the guild assemblies locally. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Remember Polanyi showed that the capitalist system is oppressive and structured historically because people, money and land have been enclosed and commodified. What was interesting about the guild socialist ideas in the early 1920s that
Bertrand Russell, RH Tawney and GDH Cole were working on is that the garden city ideas and socialist planning would take land out of the market for new housing, workspace, commons spaces etc, workplace democracy advancing then and across Europe would end wage
labour and the further step would be pursued as Clfford Douglas argued by taking money out of the market by issuing social credit as a national dividend that would be locally managed by monetary authorities that could be part and parcel of the guild economic
congresses so that underconsumption would no longer be addressed by more capitalist debt issuance by banks but by transparent monetary reform to democratise money.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Tawney and Cole did not push for what Douglas was arguing for which was a pity. Polanyi only wrote about the tripartite need to take people, money and land out of the market in his Great Transformation in 1944. But these three reforms
are the bedrock for a commons mode of production to pursue structurally the paradigm shift to advance economic democracy and to secure co-operative commonwealth. Sadly Massimo De Angelis only mentions Polanyi in passing in his latest book and missed all this.
Otherwise his book is excellent I think.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">On your query about mutuals and co-op innovations and the doubt you have Alex about the state replicating these. Keynes's gets his ideas of 'cheap money' which is not the same as social credit from Clifford Douglas and Silvio Gesell. See
the last chapter of the General Theory by Keynes. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">In 1943 when the National Health Service was being designed, co-operative and mutual health services in the UK were patchy but being then provided by 23,000 mutual friendly societies set up over decades of social movement struggles and
almost all promoted and supported by diverse trade unions for their members. There was an effort to incorporate these mutuals into the NHS but authoritarian socialists refused to allow this to happen.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Also if you look at the reconstruction of housing and new towns after 1948 in the UK, they used co-op Garden City ideas for guidance for public land and public housing design but left out the ecological dimensions and pursued post War
reconstruction from the top down. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Pat<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="EN-GB">On 27 January 2018 at 19:40 Alex Foti <<a href="mailto:alex.foti@gmail.com" target="_blank">alex.foti@gmail.com</a>> wrote:
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dear Pat, <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">thanks for your observations on mutualism and the ecological and social rights to the city. i'm a big gdh cole fan, btw. the weekend has overwhelmed me with obligations. i ll try to come back to in more detail tomorrow
with more time. however the only thing i m doubtful the fact that mutualism is replaced by the welfare state which was a way of neutralizing and institutionalizing the commonist and separatist tendencies of the working class. at least since 1919 it seems to
me social democracy opted for state intervention rather than self-reliant mutualism (or worse, syndicalism).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">best ciaos!<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">lx<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 7:27 PM, pat commonfutures <<a href="mailto:pat.commonfutures@phonecoop.coop" target="_blank">pat.commonfutures@phonecoop.<wbr>coop</a>> wrote:
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Hi Michel and Alex<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">My two cents......<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Enjoyed reading your review Michel and hearing loud and clear the comments from Alex. Glad to see you recognise strategically the role for economic democracy organisations to come together to develop commonwealth solutions. Challenge is
to animate and mobilise co-ops, trade unions, mutual aid organisations and commons movements and other actors to cross connect.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Capital needs to be on tap not on top. Labour needs to hire capital. Thus economic democracy is the operative mantra. But how.....?<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">I think the analysis of Massimo De Angelis in Omnia sunt communia that focuses on commons solutions for provisioning to address precarious housing, precarious work, precarious social services, etc. is the way to increasingly Walk the Talk.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">But so much of the infrastructure needs aligning to develop a generative system to build the new to replace the toxic old. In the period from 1910 to 1948 it was the working class self-organisations and partnerships with municipalities
that co-developed a turn key system for affordable housing, mutual insurance services for access to health care, patient finance instruments, etc. As you highlight Michel, without this proving of the possible, the Post 1945 welfare states would not have been
practical. History has airbrushed out of memory all the working class achievements leading up to social democracy's action to rebuild war torn Europe with guidance from Keynes. Keynes himself took credit for what commoners had innovated and brought into being
over many decades.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">But we are back to the same situation again.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">To pursue pluralist commonwealth post capitalist futures, the facts are similar at least as a pattern to 1945...<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Many good solutions that emerged out of commoner struggles since the 1970s now exist as viable and proven models. Examples include Community Land Trusts for housing and workspace, social co-operatives for care services, community renewable
energy, freelancer co-ops, etc but we lack the general assembly of protagonists to plan and co-ordinate them all and bring them together into a viable system. Neoliberalism continues to repress and marginalise these Cinderella Liberties that if nurtured and
united could tackle the multiplying wants that make no sense among economies of plenty perversely allocated.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">The Garden City movement pioneers developed socialist planning guidance in 1906 which played a key role to unite the fragments. We need to revive democratic planning again and make this participative to set in train evolutionary urban
and rural reconstruction and to help animate, activate and co-ordinate economic democracy in action. Garden cities were on the right road as they sought to unite urban and rural life in ecological resilient ways.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">The guild socialist ideas of GDH Cole in the early 1920s are worth revisiting. As Danny Dorling shows in his book on the 1%, between 1918 and1978 social and economic inequality reduced across developing countries and indeed as forms of
socialism advanced stage by stage.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Today socialism needs to be planned and re-implemented with deeper democracy methods and on a co-operative and ecological economics foundations to produce commonwealth via a commons mode of production. I look forward to reading your book
Alex. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Thanks to you both for the joint inspiration.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">Pat<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="EN-GB">On 26 January 2018 at 12:38 Michel Bauwens <
<a href="mailto:michel@p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">michel@p2pfoundation.net</a>> wrote:
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">hi alex, <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">very happy to engage, and I fully understand the legitimacy of your strategic choices, though your vision of a successful new new deal is also a sign of optimism in itself .... I agree we have to fight for it<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">this is a very good overiview of the other polarity, I think at the p2p foundation, we are somewhere in between, even as we are very liberally cited in this overview of commons-based relocalization:
<a href="https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Networked_Cities_as_Resilient_Platforms_for_Post-Capitalist_Transition#Excerpt" target="_blank">
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.<wbr>net/Networked_Cities_as_<wbr>Resilient_Platforms_for_Post-<wbr>Capitalist_Transition#Excerpt</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 10:34 AM, Alex Foti <
<a href="mailto:alex.foti@gmail.com" target="_blank">alex.foti@gmail.com</a>> wrote:
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="EN-GB">Dear Michel, Dear Friends,
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="EN-GB">a trillion thanks for this thoughtful and appreciative review. i look forward to co-developing a veritable post-capitalist strategy by embodying the commons-based approach and i find your
criticism of an excessive capitalist realism justified (lost a few nights' sleep about it, but i am very fearful of cryptofascist reaction, and think we can force liberal capitalism into a social compromise - which you're right would make funding and reclaiming
the commons a central feature of society - and also i guess i wanted to avoid excessive utopianism given that current historical reality is so dystopian). again thanks for taking the time to read and engage with the book's arguments.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><span lang="EN-GB">best milanese ciaos,
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">lx <u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 9:25 AM, Michel Bauwens <
<a href="mailto:michel@p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">michel@p2pfoundation.net</a>> wrote:
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">see also link here at <a href="https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/General_Theory_of_the_Precariat#Evaluation" target="_blank">
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.<wbr>net/General_Theory_of_the_<wbr>Precariat#Evaluation</a> <u></u>
<u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">"This book is essential reading for all commoners that want to think through the right strategy for social change. It squarely places itself from the point of few of
the new social groups (or class in formation, as Foti would have it) that have grown under the conditions of neoliberalism and its decline, or in other words under the emergence of cognitive capitalism or 'informationalism'. This key group are the various
constituent parts of the precariat, all the people who can no longer work with dependable classic labor contracts and the steady income and protection deriving from it.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">This book should be read through its end, i.e. chapter five, because its first four chapters on the precariat are only set in a more complex geopolitical context in
that last chapter. To be honest, I was quite reactive at times during the reading of the first four chapters, because two very important structural elements were missing in his analysis. First is the commons itself, the other side of the antagonistic struggles
of the precariat; and second is the ecological crisis, the very material conditions under which this struggle must occur today. Foti indeed calls for economic and monetary growth, and sounds like an unabashed neo-Keynesian but only in the last chapter stresses
that this growth should be thermodynamically sound (i.e. he calls for monetary growth, but not growth in material services). Foti also almost completely ignores the role of the commons and 'commonalism' in the first four chapters, only acknowledging in a few
parts of chapter 5, that it is a vital constituent part of the precarious condition. If you don't read chapter 5, you could be mistaken for seeing Foti's analysis as an exercise in re-imagining the class dynamics and compromises of the New Deal and post-WWII
european welfare states, and has simply replaced working class with precariat, working class parties with social populism, and the New Deal with a social compact for green capitalism.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">So, the fact that this is a remarkably thought out book about contemporary strategy for social change, should be tempered by a few paradoxes that the author has not
completely resolved.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">Indeed at the heart of the book lies also an enduring paradox: Foti calls for the most radical forms of conflict, and identifies with the more radical cultural minorities,
acknowledging their anticapitalist and anarchist ethos, yet calls for mere reformism as a focus and outcome. This is therefore not a book about transforming our societies to post-capitalist logics, this is a book about a new reformism. This is a book against
neoliberalism, not against capitalism. At times, it is plain 'capitalist realism', as Foti explicitly acknowledges he sees no dynamic value creation outside of capitalism. For Foti, it is clear, if sufficient conflict and precariat self-organisation can occur,
then a new regulation of capitalism can occur. He justifies this by a detailed analysis of the different regulatory modes of capitalism (smith-ism, fordism, jobs-ism) and how they relate to the kondratieff economic cycles, drawing on the insights of Carlota
Perez and others. Foti distinguishes crises of demand, where there is too much accumulation of capital, and not enough distribution. These crises he says, are essentially reformist crises, as people mobilize to restore balance in the redistribution, but not
against the system per se. The crisis of the 30's and the crisis after 2008, are such crises, he in my view convincingly shows. Other crises are caused by a failing supply, due to over-regulation of capital and falling profit rates, such as the crisis of the
70s, and these crises, which are inflationary, are revolutionary. This distinction between crises of accumulation and crises of regulation, is in my opinion very insightful, and true. This recognition may of course be troubling, but if true, we have to take
serious stock of it. We are simply not in revolutionary times, right now, but rather in a struggle between national populism and social populism. From this analysis, Foti then argues that the first priority is for the precariat to re-regulate for a distribution
of wealth, much like the old working class achieved after WWII.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">But even if we acknowledge this conjuncture, I would argue that Foti insufficiently balances his outlook between reforming capitalism and constructing post-capitalism,
beween antagonistic conflict and positive construction of the new. He argues that without income, there can be no such construction. This is very likely true, so we need to rebalance redistribution, in a way that income growth can lead to immaterial growth
that is compatible with the ecological limits of our planet, and use these surpluses to transform societal structures. Foti calls for social (or 'eco' populist movements and coalitions as the political means to that end, pointing to Podemos and En Comu, and
perhaps Sanders and Corbyn, as such forces, supported by to be created Precariat Syndicates. He also puts forward the thesis that the enemy is national populism, an alliance between retrograde fossil fuel capitalism and the salariat, with on the other side
a possible alliance of green capitalism (a real effort not a marketing ploy) with the precariat, with the former fighting for top-down coalition and the second for bottom-up regulation. This division of the working class is in my view way too stark, and perhaps
even defeatist. I would very strongly argue to seek alliances and develop policies that can give hope to the salariat. The thrust of our work for the Commons Transition aims at precisely that. (elsewhere in the book, Foti does call for an alliance with progressive
middle classes, but if these are not the workers with jobs, where are these then ?)<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">Now Foti correctly critiques in my view, people like Mason and Rifkin for failing to problematize the post-capitalist transition, they make it seem like an inexorable
process if not affirming that we are already post-capitalist, as some others do, but in my view then in his turn he fails to pay proper attention to it. What if the re-regulation of capitalism doesn't work for example ? Then at some point, say in about 30
years, as Kondratieff cycles would indicate, we would still face a crisis of over-regulation, and a more revolutionary moment. For Foti, we have to take it on faith that green capitalism will be a successful new regulatory mode of capitalism. What if it turns
out to be a unworkable compromise and that more drastic action is needed. But Foti has no faith in alternatives to capitalism, which means that the only alternatives would then be eco-fascism as a new feudalism with only consumption for the rich, lifeboat
eco-hacking, a situation akin to that of medieval communes, or dictatorial eco-maoism, say Cuba on a global scale.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">Contra this 'capitalist realism', our contention at the P2P Foundation is that post-capitalism is both necessary and possible, even if we recognize that today is a
possible reformist moment in that evolution/transformation. In that context, the construction of seed forms, the recognition of other forms of value creation (which can be monetized!), of other forms of self-organization is absolutely a vital side of the coin
in the dialectic of construction and conflict. Foti seems to forget that the traditional working class did not simply 'fight', but constructed cooperatives (both consumer coosp and producer coops), unions, parties, mutualities and many fraternal/sororal organizations.
The very generalization of the welfare system was an extension by means of the state, of the solidarity mechanism of the working class, which had taken decades to develop. Also vitally, the identity itself of the working class was not just as a part of capitalism,
but as a movement for another type of society, whether that was expressed through socialism, social-democracy, anarchism, and other variants. When that hope was lost terminally, that was also the end of the strength and identify of working class movements.
There can be no offensive social strategy without a strong social imaginary, and mere reformist designs won’t do. So commonalism is not just something that we do when we come home from work, or tired from our conflictual organizing against an enemy from whom
we want mere redistribution. On the contrary, it is vital part of the class formation and identity, this is why we stress our identity not just as precariat, which is a negative formulation that characterizes us as the weaker victims of the capitalist class,
but as commoners, the multitude of co-constructors of viable futures that correspond to contemporary emancipatory desires. We cannot just trust green capitalism, we vitally need to build thermodynamically sound and mutualized provisioning systems as commons
even if we have to compromise with capitalism. Post-capitalism should not be essentialized as something occuring 'after the revolution', but as an ongoing process, dynamically inter-linked with political self-organizing and conflict. Foti in this book, is
only really good at conflict. Even if we look at conflict, I would argue that the strength of the reformist compromise after WWII was very much linked to the fear of the however flawed alternative that existed, and that the forms of compromise were the result
of decades of invention of new forms.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">If we take that view, then I believe the contradiction in Foti's book can be resolved. Indeed in that case we do not have to ask the radical precariat to give up it's
values for a reformist compromise, but to productively combine radically transformative post-capitalist practice.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">There is another issue with Foti's book. He very much stresses the superdiversity of the precariat, and the key role of gender and race/migration unity in their struggles.
He also mentions en passant the need for a potential eurasian alignment between Europe and China , now that the Atlantic unity has been broken by Trump. But , at the same time, this is really a very eurocentric book, calling for a new compromise in Europe
and 'advanced western states'. Obviously, since in the Global South it is the salariat and proletariat which is growing, there is a theoretical difficulty here. But what if a thermo-dynamically sound economy would require a cosmo-localization of our global
economy, as we contend at the P2P Foundation, combining global sharing of knowledge with substantial relocalization of physical production (as even big bank reports now recognize) ? Only if we recognize this, can we actually have a new global view of solidarity,
as both elements benefit workers, salaried and precarious, in the whole world.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">So, in conclusion, I find Foti's book to be an excellent first half of a book, which would have been much better and sound, if it had more extensively struggled with
the commons equation of the precariat. The commons is not something we do 'afterwards' , after a successful New Green Deal, it is is something that is as ongoing and vital. Theoretically, in a few paragraphs at the end of the book, Foti seems to recognize
it, but it is not integrated in his strategic vision, or only marginally.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">Readers who miss this aspect, could look at the ten years of research and analysis we have conducted on that other half of the equation, at the P2P Foundation. We may
have the other weakness though, and in fact we purposely have focused not on the conflict part, which is the natural inclination of the left and needs no help, but in pointing out how any self-organization, and construction of the commons, which inevitable
comes with conflict, is just an essential part of the programmatic alternatives of the precariat. Not just as proposals of electoral parties and syndicates, but as expressions of actual practice. Our orientation is to try to achieve a greater understanding
by emancipatory forces, of both the salariat, the precariat, and progressive entrepreneurial groups, of the importance of integrating the commons as a programmatic element in their struggles, and their proposals. We will probably stick to this bias towards
the constructive side of the equation, tempered by a full awareness that this is by itself insuffient, and requires the kind of understanding of struggle, and its attendant strategies, as provided by Foti.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:0cm">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:#252525">In conclusion, Foti's enduring quality is to have worked out systematically, what the conflict part of the equation entails, and that is a very important achievement.
Bearing in mind what we think is missing in this book, there is much to be learned, and I believe the different perspectives and different weaknesses in the approaches of people like Foti and the P2P Foundation (and other) commons-centric approaches, there
is room for a lot of convergence and mutual enrichment."<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="m_8226502305713139586ox-5ea8690ca2-m619642119303438853ox-27add68f8a-m8155409727072467595hoenzb"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:#888888">--
</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
<a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">
http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
<br>
Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>;
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr>mbauwens</a>
<br>
<br>
#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">
http://enrichlist.org/the-<wbr>complete-list/</a> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br>
<br clear="all">
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">-- <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
<a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">
http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
<br>
Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>;
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr>mbauwens</a>
<br>
<br>
#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">
http://enrichlist.org/the-<wbr>complete-list/</a> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div></div></div>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: <a href="http://commonstransition.org" target="_blank">http://commonstransition.org</a> </div><div><br></div>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br><br><a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank"></a>Updates: <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br><br>#82 on the (En)Rich list: <a href="http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/" target="_blank">http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/</a> <br></div></div></div></div>
</div>