Interviewing Enric Duran on the Integral Revolution Part 3 & 4

Part 1 & 2 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/integral-revolution-part-1-2/2014/04/04

Original article – http://guerrillatranslation.com/2014/03/26/integral-revolution/

PART III:  FUTURE PROJECTIONS

NG: What lengths are you going to in documenting the development and design of CIC?  How can we follow along?

We have a wealth of material documenting our experience.

We’ve carried out several training courses within our integral cooperative, as well as others, to help other integral co-ops. This has been very useful in generating abundant documentation and materials that are consistently updated after every event.

The biggest disadvantage could be that many of them are only available in Catalan and Spanish, although we’re working on translating an ever-increasing amount of materials into several languages. Our webpage, for example, has been available in English and Italian since a few months ago.

We also have a number of documentaries underway which will be subtitled in several languages.

In any case, the most reliable source of continuous information for the CIC is our webpage, starting with the Spanish site, which has the most updates, followed by the English, which features part of those updates.

PART IV: CRYPTO-CURRENCIES, CAPITALISM AND THE NEXT 20 YEARS

Kidstick

MB: What is your opinion on Bitcoin?

The technology behind the blockchain, on top of the concept of a decentralized P2P currency, represents a great leap forward on the road to decentralization of power, and we think it holds the power to make the current banking and financial systems obsolete.

On the other hand, Bitcoin’s current implementation, and that of the majority of crypto currencies, generates important social differences based on their buying capacity and the control of the means of production. So, while it’s innovative as far as freedom is concerned, it’s not at the social level. But, on its own, it could uphold the status quo, by potentially attracting the most technically able among the privileged class.

Even so, these cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin do have a place in a transition model, as they are very useful in liberating usfrom banks and state control.

We also understand that they can be employed to quickly make us less dependent on the euro, which can accelerate our transition process to economic sovereignty. With this in mind, Bitcoin, Litecoin and Freicoin are accepted currencies in the CIC for the payment of various common services. In time, we may understand the possibilities technology has given us to create our own cryptocurrency, which will incorporate the features we feel are essential for any community currency.

For the time being, coming back to the present and the near future, some people in the CIC participate in Bitcoin’s development with projects like Dark Wallet. As this goes on, we expect to generate and network between a variety of tools, so our members may accept the currency and convert it to Euros if they want to, without having to go through banks.

MB: How do you interpret categories like capitalism, the market, and the state, and what do you want to see happen to them?

I understand capitalism as a system of domination by a minority that holds economic power, with which it controls access to resources and the means of production.

The state is a system of domination and population control which, after many imperialist phases, has in recent times produced a democracy which passes itself off on the citizenship as sovereignty, in order to maintain coexistence. But, as I said earlier, and as is well known and analyzed, this isn’t true. Presently, the state is in service to capitalism, which is an even bigger system based on domination. There still privileged caste who, by means of the accumulation of resources, have much greater power than any voter. This has only increased in light of globalization, which makes it much more difficult for any country to escape the mainstream.

The market is a form of business founded on liberty and equal opportunity, but which, throughout its history, has been manipulated in function of the very systems of domination using it.

I think that, in the next 20 years, we’re going to live through the loss of exclusivity in governance currently held by the state, and the disassociation of the concept of state as the exclusive managers of the territory. Individual sovereignty will reclaim its real meaning of complete positive freedom, which will lead to the summation of multiple sovereignties in great autonomous, thoroughly legitimate collective processes.”

Currently, the capitalist system produces market conditions that help create ever greater inequalities, providing competitive advantages which favor the big players over the small, effectively preventing the latter from staying in the game and trading freely.

The market, in the context of the state and capitalism, has become an excuse to promote and extend inequality.

On the other hand, regarding the integral cooperative, what we do is create a process for the development of another kind of society, a communal society.  After going through an open assembly-based process we’ve established a political criteria, based on which, certain economic activities may form part of their integral cooperative or not.

Based in this process, we could say that the integral cooperative promotes an economy “with” a market, but it’s not a “market economy”.  Within our movement, economic activity is subordinated to political process, or, put another way, the assembly takes precedence over the market.

This doesn’t mean that the assembly intervenes regularly in relation to members economic activity. Up till now are political intervention in the market has been mainly centered in criteria for accepting new productive projects and in incentives for projects which are aligned with the integral promotion… But not so much in the daily development of activities.

So, what this principle implies is that we can intervene whenever it’s suitable or necessary to do so.

MB: Where will we be in, say, 20 years ?

I don’t know where we’ll be, but I trust that we’ll be freer and more diverse, and able to choose from a great selection of life choices.

I’m convinced that we will live through a transformation of the state and capitalism as we know it today, consolidating other ways of being in society and establishing more supportive and cooperative economic relationships

I think we’re going to live through the loss of exclusivity in governance currently held by the state, and the disassociation of the concept of state as the exclusive managers of the territory. Individual sovereignty will reclaim its real meaning of complete positive freedom, which will lead to the summation of multiple sovereignties in great autonomous, thoroughly legitimate collective processes.

That very significant phrase from the Zapatistas, “for a world in which many worlds fit” will begin to materialize in the coming decades.

And, this is why we are building with so much energy right now, to get there.