The commons as a common strategic perspective
“In my opinion, the commons approach, which we have discussed here repeatedly, meets all these demands. Conservatives like that it is conserving and community-oriented, liberals like its distance to the state and that it is not completely incompatible with market economies, anarchists like its focus on self-organisation, and socialists and communists embrace that it promises to control property commonly. The applicability of commons theory reaches to nearly all kinds of contemporary movements and commons play a fundamental role in all crises of today. Finally, there exists a multitude of theories around the commons, so we do not have to start from scratch.”
Thanks to Silke Helfrich for pointing out this article by Benni Bärmann at Keimform.
After discussing the failure of social movements in their reactions against the neoliberal crisis, where there otherwise healthy diversity results in impotent refusals but no real alternatives, he argues that a commons approach could lead to a strategic unity.
This goes beyond our own affirmations about the purpose of the P2P Foundation, which we expressed here in 2005, but expresses our social practice for example at the P2P Research list, where we embrace a wide variety of political views, seeking common ground.
Benni Bärmann:
“Difference is desirable on the level of woldviews, but they pose serious problems on the strategic level.
How could we possibly avoid this dilemma? I propose to seek an agreement at the strategic level in spite of different worldviews. For that we would need a strategic platform with the following characteristics:
* it allows to keep different worldviews,
* it can in principle be used in the whole of society,
* it allows application through many existing social movements and room for new ones,
* it allows the search for answers to the multiple crises of our time,
* it allows common reflection of different practices,
* … and enables therefore a common theory-practice-process within all kinds of movements and worldviews.
Impossible? Surprisingly, it is not.
In my opinion, the commons approach, which we have discussed here repeatedly, meets all these demands. Conservatives like that it is conserving and community-oriented, liberals like its distance to the state and that it is not completely incompatible with market economies, anarchists like its focus on self-organisation, and socialists and communists embrace that it promises to control property commonly. The applicability of commons theory reaches to nearly all kinds of contemporary movements and commons play a fundamental role in all crises of today. Finally, there exists a multitude of theories around the commons, so we do not have to start from scratch.
It is not essential that every single activist in every social movement can live with this platform. More important is achieve support for it through a critical mass of movements with as many different worldviews as possible. If this is accomplished, a new dynamic in the medium and long term unfolds due to productive relations between theory and practice. Commons-based movements also mix well with traditional multi-strategic movements.
I do not mean to implement a new ruling agenda or “party line” for social movements, which only would produce new exclusions. It is just meant to give social movements new strategic options and to enable better exchanges between theory and practice.
To succeed it will hardly be enough to just abstractly acknowledge that what was proposed here is a good thing and then to implement it. A commons-strategy can only work if it has convincing answers to the antagonisms of our time. It has these answers because of two reasons:
1. The commons are more threatened than ever. In my opinion this is because of the hegemonic crisis (german) of capitalism. It cannot realize enough value any longer and is therefore thrown back to primitive accumulation.
2. The commons are more powerful than ever. This is because of structural changes within the public sphere (german), which is more and more organized around commons principles and is more and more dependent on working commons.
For this reason it is not only necessary to move the strategic barrier, but also possible. This does not remove all differences of worldviews in social movements, but it makes longer lasting and more comprehensive cooperation possible without ignoring still existing barriers of different worldviews.”
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:50 am
michel, i like this post a lot. thanks for finding the article. there is indeed something about “the commons” — protecting it, expandidng it, i’m not sure exactly what — that means it can bridge all manner of emerging political philosophies/idelogies as we try to look far ahead. “stewardship” is a related bridging concept that i’ve seen crop up on both the right and the left.