The Belgian city of Ghent plays host to a broad range of projects and initiatives around the commons. But it has yet to adopt a model which really places a commons-focused approach and logic at the core of its institutions and processes. Recent work undertaken by experts on the commons provides a roadmap for the city to re-imagine and reconfigure its structures around citizen participation, the sharing of resources, and ‘translocal’ cooperation.

Michel Bauwens, one of the world’s experts on the commons and founder of the P2P Foundation, distinguishes at least three main reasons why cities would want to stimulate initiatives and projects related to the commons. First, these play an important role in the ecological transition, they allow for goods, workshops, and infrastructures to be shared. Second, they enable a faster transfer to a circular economy by sharing information about production chains, in addition to offering opportunities for local jobs and meaningful labour. And instead of outsourcing everything to private companies working with long supply chains, communal knowhow and coordination platforms allow the realisation of shorter supply and distribution chains. And finally, as the commons are based on open systems, they strengthen democracy and participation. What is still missing, however, in Ghent and elsewhere, is the ‘maker city’ model of the commons, namely a production model based on open design.

A strong commons commitment

Ghent, a city of 260,000 residents in Belgium, has a remarkable history of citizen initiatives and other forms of self-governance. In the Middle Ages it was a big, wealthy city with over 50 guilds. During the industrial revolution it was the cradle of new labour movements and cooperatives. For some ten years now there has been a third wave of activity, now comprising over 500 citizen initiatives, ranging from an energy cooperative and a digital citizens’ platform for car-sharing, to numerous local food initiatives.

At the political level, Ghent has a tradition of progressive parties, with a relatively large Green Party that has been on the scene for the last few decades. In the 2012 local election, a red-green ‘cartel list’ won the majority in the town council. It has been governing the city together with the Liberal Party on the basis of an innovative social-ecological city project. The progressive tradition translates into an open culture of policy-making, leaving Ghent’s 4,000 municipal workers quite some leeway to develop initiatives of their own and interact with citizens. All the same, Belgian cities’ scope for policy-making, as well as their fiscal autonomy, is limited compared to a country like Denmark.

It is therefore no coincidence that Ghent city council, witnessing the proliferation of citizen initiatives, is the first city in the world to ask Michel Bauwens to devise a Commons Transition Plan for Ghent. Bauwens and his colleague settled in Ghent in the spring of 2017, talked to 80 Ghent commoners (citizens leading or involved in projects around the commons), held a survey on the nature of the commons and the role of the city, and interviewed various municipal services and town councillors. This resulted in a wiki of some 500 documented citizen initiatives.

The aim however was not just to map projects, as the research question was twofold and of a political nature. It first looked at the potentially new facilitating and regulating relationship between the local Ghent government and citizens to enhance the development of commons initiatives. It then asked if cities can be actors in social, economic, and institutional change at a time when nation-states are no longer capable of regulating the transnational economy. Can networks of cities be part of a new transnational governance model?

On the basis of research into the commons in numerous cities, Bauwens, for the purpose of his Commons Transition Plan, starts from two premises. First, the town council, the commons citizen initiatives, and quite a number of Ghent’s residents are no longer purely local actors. They have become part of transnational and translocal networks, which together can exert influence on socio-economic changes worldwide. This is demonstrated notably in up-and-coming ‘global design communities’. Local projects such as fab labs^[1] are connected to global fab lab information flows, communities, and sometimes even coalitions. Second, cities can more consciously manage the way they cooperate. There are already examples in the field of climate policy or the regulation of Uber, but this can be taken much further. International coalitions of cities should be true institutions for translocal and global cooperation.

Will you be my partner (city)?

Appreciating commons initiatives is one thing, organising as a local government so as to offer structural support is quite another. This requires a fundamental shift in the culture and structure of government, for which Bauwens uses the concept of the ‘Partner State’, here transposed to the city as local government. The city is then no longer a territory which needs politicians behaving as managers; it is, first and foremost, a living community of creative citizens. This means that instead of privatising businesses or outsourcing to public-private partnerships, the aim is the development of public-civil partnerships.

In order to make Ghent a Partner City, Bauwens starts from what already exists in the city in terms of transition policy. In the context of its broader climate policy, Ghent for some years has known Gent en Garde(Ghent and whisk), a sustainable food system strategy for the city. The central organ within this transition strategy is the Voedselraad (Food Council), bringing together all food chain stakeholders, hence consolidating the many existing and new initiatives around local food and the so-called short supply chains and bringing producers and consumers into contact with each other.

The Food Council, as the representative organ, also seats people within vested structures, who cannot or do not want to negotiate on an equal footing with the new commons initiators. That’s why a second organ is needed, the contributive organ, which in this case is the existing working group on urban agriculture. This independent working group itself is a coalition of various urban agriculture projects, experts, and committed citizens. It allows for the mobilisation of expertise in civil society in a power-neutral way.

Based on this existing structure and to boost civil participation, the Commons Transition Plan can help found two new institutions. First, the States-General of the Commons, organised by sector and acting as an umbrella. This is a platform designed for citizens who care for the commons and are committed to them. The second organ is the Chamber of the Commons, analogous to the existing Chamber of Commerce. In this Chamber, citizens sit as entrepreneurs, committed to the resilience and future of the commons economy.

The difference in perspective makes both institutions indispensable. By striving in this twofold way for more voice and influence, the contributive organ gains strength in its dialogue with the representative organ and the city. They make sure that there is cocreation and they erect a barrier against any long term encapsulation caused by policy-making. The whole scheme can be rolled out for many other sectors, with the public authorities being fed constantly by commons initiatives and ideas.

In addition to this, Bauwens proposes to copy successful institutions from Italian cities such as Bologna. First, a Commons City Lab, to support fresh, experimental commons initiatives, to devise commons agreements, and to disseminate successful initiatives and models. Second, the commons regulations, which endorse the right to initiate commons orientated projects and regulate the supportive role of cities and other urban actors. The ‘Right to Initiate’ is a positive right which is not aimed at the replacement of public services, but harbours the values of ‘care’ and ‘reform’.

Where the currents meet

It is a striking fact that whether it is about stimulating the commons or regulating the hyper-capitalist Airbnbs of this world, cities are taking the lead. So it’s London rather than the British government that has the nerve to take action against Uber if it violates existing rules. Cities being in the vanguard is no coincidence. Even if there are more reasons at play, the fact that a local council is more easily approachable for citizens than a national government certainly has something to do with it; conversely, for a mayor it is easier to engage local actors in policy-making.

This pragmatic response, however, conceals an ideological aspect, which in my book Vrijheid & Zekerheid (Freedom and Certainty) I describe as the ‘Land of Two Currents’.^[2] In Europe there is both a dominant neoliberal main current and an alternative countercurrent. The main current is formed by most national governments, international institutions, and big corporations. National governments find themselves in the straitjacket of the Maastricht Treaty values (placing monetary objectives before social and ecological ones). Urban governments have more autonomy in that sense; it is simply impossible for lobbyists of large corporations to be present in every city. The city is the place where a multitude of sustainable citizen initiatives start and, like small streams feeding into a larger river, come together to strengthen each other. It’s mostly the local governance level – which is closest to the citizens – which joins this undercurrent. It’s also the place where local alternatives can successfully develop into a real political alternative. The election of Ada Colau as mayor of Barcelona, running on the citizen platform Barcelona en Comú, is an illustration of how this can take place.

Joining forces

If cities want to be an active part of a novel form of transnational governance, then they have to actively found multi-city commons coalitions. This is at the same time a pragmatic proposal: as commoners and entrepreneurs take initiatives and create local standards, the need increases to make them strong enough and allow them to operate in a classical profit-orientated environment, which shifts social and ecological cost (externalities) onto society. Cities and the commons initiatives can only attain real relevance when they succeed in pooling their knowhow and infrastructure. Jointly, cities might for example support the development of open source software platforms allowing the setting-up of working commons systems for, say, car-sharing and bicycle-sharing, minting complementary coins, or the management of food production in short-chain agriculture, from seeds to online sales.

Part of this will mean sharing knowhow about the commons approach in various towns and cities. Then we can see which regulations and new institutions work most effectively in supporting commons initiatives. As a useful example, Bauwens refers to the coalition of 16 large cities signing the Barcelona Pledge and its FabCity model, which aims at relocalising half of the production of food by 2054.

The new translocal horizon

The importance of the Commons Transition Plan that Michel Bauwens devised for Ghent clearly transcends its local character. The new institutional structures that Bauwens proposes, in particular, are of crucial importance. It is clear that after a ten-year increase in citizen initiatives, Ghent needs new structures to channel this energy so as to change society and its economy in the direction of a more honest, sustainable, and shared future. All the proposed innovations at the city level will absorb a lot of time and energy from local commoners, governments, and generative entrepreneurs. There is a big danger here of everyone recognising the importance of the expansion of translocal networks, but not getting round to making them a reality. In his plan, Bauwens mentions the need for the translocal networks in addition to what has to happen in the city itself. It would be important to anchor the translocal aspect in every new institution from the start.

However, more cooperation is necessary to develop the counter-current needed. Essential in this respect are networks of cities cooperating with university networks to develop and share the necessary knowledge and design. If tomorrow 20 towns and cities allocate funds to develop, say, a digital platform for an alternative ‘Fairbnb’, and then implement it in cooperation with the urban commons actors, then there is real political leverage by a countercurrent against the neoliberal actors. That is the real struggle we are facing and the lesson to be drawn from the 1970s. In those days there was also, from the energy of what today we refer to as ‘May 68’, a broad spectrum of civilian actions and initiatives, staking a claim to more space for citizen autonomy in relation to government and economy. If this space was won in the field of, say, new rights (gay marriage, flexible career options, euthanasia…) in a number of countries, then in the field of the economy the reverse has happened – citizens have lost ground.

By organising globally, the power of the business sector has grown far above and beyond both that of the nation-state and of self-organising citizens. If the new wave of citizen movements is to acquire real power, then it will have to organise itself translocally from the beginning, whereby coalitions of cities with clear political and economic objectives take the lead. This will require an awareness and continuous attention on behalf of Green activists and politicians, which should underpin all of their actions.

Footnotes

^[1] A fab lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop providing services and equipment for digital production.
^[2]2 Vrijheid & Zekerheid. Naar een sociaalecologische samenleving (EPO, 2016, in Dutch). Dirk Holemans. An English essay with the core elements of the book will be available at the end of 2017 on the website of the Green European Foundation (Ecopro project): www.gef.eu

• Originally published in the Green European Journal
• Lead image by Matt B. Additional images by Dmitris Kamaras, Baptist Standaert, Yurek Onzia, Joren De Groof and Nathan Guy.

The post The City Taking the Commons to Heart appeared first on P2P Foundation.

From March to June 2017 peer-to-peer expert Michel Bauwens conducted a three-month research and participation project in Ghent on the ‘commons city of the future’. The result of that research is this Commons Transition Plan, describing the possibilities and role of the City of Ghent (as a local authority) in reinforcing citizen initiatives. With this, the City wishes to give further shape to a sustainable and ethical economy in Ghent.

Michel Bauwens (58) has already been working for over ten years on the theme of the commons-based economy and society. He is solicited all over the world as a speaker or to give workshops, and is the author of the bestseller ‘Saving the world: With P2P towards a postcapitalist society’. Bauwens led a similar research and transition project in Ecuador. The major French newspaper, Libération, referred to him as the leading theorist on the theme of the economy of cooperation, following the French edition of the book.

The commons is a way to describe shared, material or immaterial property that is stewarded, protected or produced by a community – in an urban context often by citizens’ collectives – and managed according to the rules and standards of that community. It is fundamentally distinct from state bodies – government, city, state – but also from market actors. The commons is independent of, but of course still holds relationships to, the government and the market. Commons as a new form of organisation is exemplified by a variety of initiatives based around production and consumption with the idea of achieving a more sustainable society. This can for example be the set-up of energy cooperatives or shared work spaces for co-working. Examples in Ghent are EnerGent, LikeBirds, Voedselteams, Wijdelen, etc.

All of these initiatives show that ‘urban commons’ is alive and kicking today in the city.

Aim of the research

For the City of Ghent, the central question of this research and participation project was: how can a city respond to this and what are the implications of this for city policy? The goal was to come up with a synthesised Commons Transition Plan that describes the possibilities for optimal public interventions while also offering answers to the question of what Ghent’s many commoners and commons projects expect from the city.

The intention of this assignment is therefore to investigate the possibility of a potentially new political, facilitative and regulatory relationship between the local government of Ghent and its citizens so as to facilitate the further development of the commons.

With this work the researchers have tried to find out what kinds of institutionalisation is fitting to handle the commons well. This means essentially a shift from a top-down approach and old organisational principles such as ‘command and control’, towards a new way of thinking and an approach as a ‘partner city’, in which the city facilitates and supports projects. Of course, sometimes the city must also regulate projects, in the role of a more facilitative government.

Structure of the Commons Transition Plan

In the first part, the report gives a general introduction to the commons which serves to explain why the commons are important in the context of urban development.

In a second part, the researchers look at the global context in which the revival of the commons is taking place, but most of all at the reality of the urban commons in a number of other European cities, which may possibly serve as a benchmark for the city of Ghent.

Part 3 presents the findings in Ghent itself.

Finally, in Part 4, the researchers give their recommendations to the city council.

At the end of this study there are a series of appendices, including an English-language overview of the commons in European cities, written by the Greek urbanist Vasilis Niaros, who was a Timelab resident during the period of our research. The authors of the report, Michel Bauwens and Yurek Onzia, are responsible for parts 1 and 4. Vasilis Niaros wrote the comparative study.

• Read the executive summaryWritten by Executive Michel Bauwens and Yurek Onzia
• Read the complete Commons Transition Plan(under revision) (2.62 MB)

Originally published in Stad.gent.

Photo by Dimitris Graffin

The post A ‘Commons Transition Plan’ for Ghent appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Dirk Holemans: When Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, started his research for the development of a “Commons Transition Plan” for the Flemish city of Ghent, he was overwhelmed by the sheer number of commons-oriented programs. In three months time, he discovered 500 initiatives. A remarkable figure, related to recent research indicating a tenfold increase in commons.

So what is happening? Is it a coincidence that Ghent is one of the frontrunner Sharing Cities? Fortunately, historical evidence gives us a clue. We are witnessing the third big “wave” of what scholars like Tine De Moor call “institutionalised forms of collective action.” The first wave developed in the late Middle Ages in a period of rapid urbanization with commons being established in great numbers. As there was no real state, people had to organize themselves to respond to the new market developments. And what about Ghent? Well, it was at that time the second biggest city north of the Alps, with more than 50 different guilds.

The second wave came during the industrial revolution, with workers and their families living in miserable conditions. People, in the midst of a market and state failure, built their own institutions like cooperatives and unions. Again, Ghent was the leading city in the region. It was the center of the textile industry and the breeding ground for a wide array of citizen associations. This leads us to the current period: Given the city’s tradition of progressive politics, present-day Ghent has a distinct political and administrative culture that is really supportive of citizens’ initiatives.

So, is Ghent really heaven on earth from a commons’ perspective? Not yet, according to Bauwens’s report. There are very promising developments, but the efforts of the city and the commons initiatives are highly fragmented. Though commons initiatives are present in every sector few activities are is aimed at real production. Also despite its historical legacy, the current cooperative sector is quite weak. To put it frankly, there is no existent support infrastructure for start-ups of the generative and cooperative economy that could work with commons infrastructures.

This is the reality: If Ghent doesn’t give the same level of institutional support to the commons as it does to the mainstream start-ups, the commons could remain marginal as an economic player. This brings us to the crucial part of the Bauwens’s report — coherent proposals for new institutions that allow the consolidation of the third wave. I see three clusters of proposals:

• The first is a clear structure that installs a supportive relationship between the city government and people running and participating in commons initiatives. Bauwens proposes the creation of a City Lab that helps people develop their proposals and prepares Commons Agreements between the city and the new initiatives, modeled after the existing Bologna Regulation on Commons.
• Second, commons should play a key role in the transition towards a resilient city. Fortunately, Ghent already has a transition food strategy — Gent en Garde — which embodies the core institutional logic needed. Central here is the Food Council, which meets regularly and brings together relevant experts. It includes representatives of the current forces at play and has the strengths and weaknesses of representative organizations. The latter have power and influence but will probably defend the existing food system. The Food Working Group is one of the members. It mobilizes those active in commons’ initiatives and works along a contributive logic. This means people are not looking to extract value (make private profit) but want to generate social value in the first place. For Bauwens, the combination of a representative and contributive logic can create a more performant Democracy. This, however, requires people participatings in the commons to have a greater voice in the city. Bauwens proposes the establishment of two new institutions: the Assembly of the Commons, for all citizens active in commons’ initiatives, and the Chamber of the Commons, for all social entrepreneurs creating livelihoods around these commons.
• Last not but least, why don’t we provide people who want to engage in the commons with the same support a mainstream profit-driven start-up gets? In Ghent (and in other cities, too), this entails at least three things: The creation of an incubator for a commons-based economy, the establishment of a public city bank, and the development of mutualized commons infrastructures through inter-city cooperation.

The task in Ghent and beyond now is to shape the institutions of the 21st century.

Here’s the executive summary of Ghent commons transition plan.

Header image of De Site, an urban agriculture commons project in the neighborhood of Rabot in Ghent, courtesy of Dirk Holemans

The post How New Institutions Can Bolster Ghent’s Commons Initiatives appeared first on P2P Foundation.

(For background on David’s framework, see this explanatory article on Tribes, Institutions, Markets and Networks!)

David Ronfeldt:

My December 2012 post about the concept of the commons (here) proposed that it might be a good idea to create a series of Chambers of Commons, including a U.S. Chamber of Commons, and network them together. This would be in keeping with TIMN’s implication that a +N sector will eventually take shape, as discussed in the first two posts in this set of three.

My TIMN-inspired forecast was that a U.S. Chamber of Commons could operate as a wedge organization plying wedge issues. This could help provide organizational impetus to pro-commons and other +N actors and ideas, while also counter-balancing negative aspects of the +M influence of the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates and allies.

My proposal gained some traction, I’m pleased to say, because the 2012 post was noticed by P2P activists Michel Bauwens and David Bollier, among others. Today’s post offers an update, prompted by news in 2015 that Chicago-area activists started working to organize a Chicago Chamber of Commons, along with a US Chamber of Commons.

Today’s post draws on my 2012 post, as well as on updates I added during 2013-2015. But for the most part, today’s post reports on new materials and other observations about the idea to create chambers of commons. The first sections are mostly reportage. I refrain from offering much TIMN analysis (or my own personal views) until the final section.

Overall, I am upbeat about people’s efforts on behalf of the chamber-of-commons idea. But I have a key concern as well: efforts to date seem aimed more at reforming +M than evolving +N. That may make sense for some anti- and post-capitalism perspectives on the Left; but from a TIMN perspective, I’d wish for a greater and sharper focus on creating +N.

Initial interest in the chamber-of-commons idea in 2013

In remarks about my 2012 post, David Bollier focused just on the chamber-of-commons idea, while Michel Bauwens emphasized its potential as one of various initiatives within a broader plan he was formulating.

Bollier greeted the proposal warmly as “a timely idea” — a way to “advance the commons paradigm” and “span the cultural barriers that divide digital and natural resource commoners”:

“Scholar of networked behavior Ronfeldt has proposed an idea whose time may have arrived: let’s create a new federated network of commons enterprises called the “Chamber of Commons.” The term is a wonderful wordplay on the more familiar group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the notoriously reactionary business lobby.

“A federation to help advance the commons paradigm and projects is a timely idea, especially in international circles and localities that enjoy a critical mass of commons projects. …

“… It would be especially exciting if a chamber of commons could begin to span the cultural barriers that divide digital and natural resource commoners, not to mention international political boundaries.” (source)

Bollier also wisely noted some organizational and membership challenges that might be faced:

“I would respectfully suggest that any parties that enter into a Chamber of Commons have a focused commitment on the commons paradigm and philosophy. It’s imperative that a group of this sort take the commons seriously, and not see the Chamber as an opportunity to wrap themselves in feel-good PR terms. …

“As this little thought-exercise suggests, clarifying the criteria for membership in a Chamber of Commons could be one of the biggest but most important challenges. …

“… The best solution, I think, lies in having serious commoners, as members, decide the criteria on an ongoing basis, and pass judgment on any new members. After all, any participants in such a project would have a big stake in protecting the integrity of the commons concept and its reputation. …

“… It’s time for various commons and commons-based businesses (coops, CSAs, etc.) to find ways to band together. We need to create a new focal point for making commoning more visible in an organized way. The mutual support, dialogue and new initiatives could only be enlivening.” (source)

Meanwhile, beginning to formulate a broad P2P-inspired plan that he and his colleagues would call the Commons Transition Plan (here), Bauwens embedded the chamber-of-commons idea in a “powerful triad” of “next steps” for “constructing three institutional coalitions”:

“The civic/political institution: The Alliance of the Commons …
“The economic institution: the P2P/Commons Globa-local Phyle …
“The political-economy institution: The Chamber of the Commons”

Of the three, Bauwens viewed the chamber-of-commons proposal as a way for “emergent coalitions of commons-friendly ethical enterprises” to form counterparts to the business-oriented chambers of commerce:

“In analogy with the well-known chambers of commerce which work on the infrastructure for for-profit enterprise, the Commons chamber exclusively coordinates for the needs of the emergent coalitions of commons-friendly ethical enterprises (the phyles), but with a territorial focus. Their aim is to uncover the convergent needs of the new commons enterprises and to interface with territorial powers to express and obtain their infrastructural, policy and legal needs.” (source)

Together, Bauwens said, these three “institutional coalitions” would provide a “powerful triad for the necessary phase transition” to a commons-oriented economy and society:

“In short, we need a alliance of the commons to project civil and political power and influence at every level of society; we need phyles to strengthen our economic autonomy from the profit-maximizing dominant system; and we need [a] Chamber of the Commons to achieve territorial policy; legal and infrastructural conditions for the alternative, human and nature-friendly political economy to thrive. Neither alone is sufficient, but together they could be a powerful triad for the necessary phase transition.” (source; also here)

And that’s how the chamber-of-commons idea began to take root in pro-commons and P2P ciircles.

Subsequent idea to create parallel assemblies and chambers of the commons

In early 2015 (at least that’s when I first read about it), Bauwens added the idea of creating “Assemblies of the Commons” alongside “Chambers of the Commons”:

“At the local level, we propose the creation of Assemblies of the Commons, institutions that bring together all those that are creating or maintaining commons, immaterial or material, but we propose to restrict membership to civic organizations and not-for-profit oriented projects.

“At the same time, we propose the creation of local Chamber of the Commons, the equivalent for the ethical economy and ‘generative’ capital, the what the Chamber of Commerce is for the for-profit economy. Our aim is to reconstruct commons-oriented social forces at the local level, and to give them voice. These assemblies and chambers could produce a social charter, that would be open for political and social forces to support, which in turn would guarantee some forms of support from these new institutions.” (source)]

Acting in parallel, the Assemblies and Chamber would reinforce each other. Yet each would have different roles, purposes, and participants; and they would operate independently:

“I am proposing the creation of two new institutions:

“1. Assembly of the Commons. This will be a place or an institution where people who actually co-create common goods can meet, create a shared culture and create social charters and demands towards the policy world.

“2. Chambers of the Commons. – Which is for all ethical entrepreneurs. People who create commons and who create livelihoods for the commons. They would also create their own institution.

“The reason why they need to be separated is a bit like the separation of church and state. When you are in business you have certain priorities, when you are a citizen you have other priorities. I think it is better not to contaminate these two institutions and let them operate independently.” (source)

As trends have developed, it appears that the assembly idea may be proving more popular in Europe, the chamber idea in America.

Elaboration in P2P and pro-commons plans throughout 2013-2015

Bauwens and his colleagues steadily reiterated these ideas in numerous additional writings and talks during 2014 and 2015 (e.g., including those cited below, plus here and here).

As I understand it — though I’m not sure how best to summarize it — their goal is a new type of post-capitalist economy (and society), organized around the commons and P2P principles. This economy (and society) would rest on “network-based peer production” and “commons-based peer production” — particularly, “open cooperativism” and “platform cooperativism”, pursuant to fostering an “ethical entrepreneurial coalition” and an “ethical market economy”. This new economy would be oriented toward benefitting civil society, and be served by a new type of state (the “Partner State”). The chambers and assemblies of the commons would be constructed as “meta-economic networks to bridge these fields of action.” (sources: writings by Bauwens and Bollier).

In Bauwens words, “The Commons transition plan is based on a simultaneous transition of civil society, the market and the state forms.” Moreover,

“In the Commons Transition Plan, we are making also very specific organizational proposals, to advance the cause of a commons-oriented politics and a ‘peer production of politics and policy’.” (source)

The organizational structures and interactions he proposes are very elaborate — more than I can convey here, but including the following points regarding the chamber-of-commons idea:

“As an alternative, we propose that we move to a commons-centric society in which a post-capitalist market and state are at the service of the citizens as commoners. …

“• Ethical market players create a territorial and sectoral network of Chamber of Commons associations to define their common needs and goals and interface with civil society, commoners and the partner state …

“• Local and sectoral commons create civil alliances of the commons to interface with the Chamber of the Commons and the Partner State …

“• Solidarity Coops form public-commons partnerships in alliance with the Partner State and the Ethical Economy sector represented by the Chamber of Commons …” (source)

Overall, then, Bauwens urged anew in 2015 what he originally urged in 2013 — a “Chamber of the Commons” as part of “a powerful triad for the necessary phase transition”:

“In short, we need an alliance of the commons to project civil and political power and influence at every level of society; we need phyles to strengthen our economic autonomy from the profit-maximizing dominant system; and we need a Chamber of the Commons to achieve territorial policy; legal and infrastructural conditions for the alternative, human and nature-friendly political economy to thrive. Neither alone is sufficient, but together they could be a powerful triad for the necessary phase transition.” (source)

Quite an ambitious ideological and organizational agenda.

Optimistic global outlook for P2P efforts at the end of 2015

As a result, 2015 closed with two optimistic wrap-up assessments. In the first — The Top Ten P2P Trends of 2015 — Bauwens noted that “It is therefore particularly heartening to see the simultaneous creation this year of several local commons groups, such as Assemblies and Chambers of the Commons.” He thus lauded:

“5. The launch of independent, commons-centric civic organisations

“I called for this about three years ago, but they are finally emerging.

“A proto-Assembly of the Commons has been operating in Ghent, Belgium, and on the occasion of a big francophone city festival on the commons (Villes en Commun), Toulouse and a few other French cities launched Assemblies of the Commons. A Europe-wide Assembly meeting is planned at the EU-level. In Chicago, a Chamber of the Commons was launched and, just this month, a Commons Transition Coalition for Melbourne and other places in Australia. This means that commoners will increasingly learn to have a political and social voice.” (source)

A related document — What the P2P Foundation did in 2015 — adds further promising details:

“Our proposals to create an independent political and social voice for commoners gained traction in 2015. Chambers of the Commons and similar were created in Chicago (USA) and several cities in France, and a local Commons Transition Coalition in Australia was formed, all following Michel’s visits.” (source)

All quite impressive and purposeful, despite some TIMN-related misgivings I have that I will raise in a concluding section (or follow-up post)

Organizational progress in Chicago

The place where activists committed to pro-commons and P2P principles have seized on the chamber-of-commons idea the most (and prospectively the best) is Chicago. In May 2015, a gathering of Chicago-area activists began to rally around Creating a Chamber of Commons (source), which raised the question Could Chicago be the first city to create a Chamber of Commons? (source), partly on grounds that a Chicago Chamber of Commons Points Way to Thrivability for All (source).

I am too removed to tell much about his innovative activity. But materials at a few sites and blogs enable me to glean the little that follows.

With support from the Chicago Community Trust, and before long a grant from the Knight Foundation, interested actvists organized a steering committee, led by Steve Ediger (as head of the newly-fielded US Chamber of Commons), and set out to generate workshops and a start-up plan, much of it inspired by Michel Bauwens and his writings (see above). They also established two websites for the project:

• one for the Chamber of Commons US (here)
• the other a Facebook site for the Chicago Chamber of Commons (here)

Their objective is to create an “umbrella” organization, an “advocacy group”, and/or a “seed” for promoting pro-commons stewardship based on P2P principles. Their current focus is on Chicago — yet their hope is that it will become a “prototype” or “template” that can spread, leading to additional new chambers across the country.

The efforts in Chicago appear to reflect some of the organizational and membership challenges that Bollier anticipated in his 2013 post (see above). While my meager knowledge doesn’t tell me to what extent the Chicago-area organizers have had to face such challenges, an October 2015 event report revealed that theirs has been “a complex task”:

“It took a long time for the group to reach consensus on the Commitment and by the time we got to Coordination, looking at the calendar and tasks to identify incongruities among dependent tasks across teams, we were almost out of time. … Whether, or not, we had true consensus remains to be seen as we execute tasks.” (source)

In general, their efforts have been oriented to addressing pro-commons matters, broadly defined, but with an emphasis on emerging economic reforms:

“We advocate and bring visibility to elements of the generative economy, partly to protect endangered areas of the Commons and partly to develop the expression of new forms and practices of Commons, such as the knowledge Commons.” (source)

“The Chamber of Commons recognizes, supports and highlights the green shoots of a budding Generative Economy. As such, we see ourselves as an advocacy group for emerging models of generative-ownership designed businesses forming around the Commons.” (source)

“Forming around these Commons is an entire economy created by new types of businesses engaged in market activities, but in an ethical way. These include fair trade organizations, solidarity organizations, B corps and social entrepreneurs, Bauwens said.” (source)

This emphasis on economic matters appears to be attended by a selective focus on new kinds of business enterprises and opportunities in particular:

“The US Chamber of Commons, a startup organization dedicated to “recognizing, supporting and highlighting the “green shoots of a budding Generative Economy,” is trying to get a new form of chamber off the ground: one to connect social entrepreneurs, L3C’s, B-Corps and other enterprises focused on triple bottom line, sharing-economy approaches to commerce and community development.

“The group sees its role as advocating for the four broad categories of organizations outlined in Marjorie Kelly’s Owning our Future: (1) Commons Ownership and Governance (2) Stakeholder Ownership (3.) Social Enterprises and (4) Mission Controlled Corporations. … The discussion will address an array of Commons-relevant topics such as the environment, public land, the food supply, public education and transportation, open-source software, the internet, arts and culture and taxpayer- funded scientific research. Unclaimed realms such as the oceans, Antarctica and outer space will also be on the agenda.” (source; also here)

Against this background, the goal is to formally announce a Chicago Chamber of Commons at a grand assembly in May 2016. I wish them well, though I have some concerns I’ll raise in the next section.

A TIMN assessment of the Chamber-of-Commons idea — my thoughts at this point

Oh gosh, as I look over this draft before tackling this final section, I see that once again, in my slowed-down condition, I have written an overly long wordy post, all the while refraining from injecting much TIMN analysis until the end. Yet TIMN is what matters most.

I can tell, now that I have started to focus on this concluding section, that my ability to finish it in a succinct timely manner is somewhat in doubt. So I’m just going to go ahead and post what exists above, plus posit the following sketchy outline of what remains to be added.

In my view, there are three key points I should make about the Chamber-of-Commons idea with regard to TIMN:

• It remains a good idea whose time is nigh, whether motivated by P2P, TIMN, or some other forward-looking framework (e.g., “cultural evolution“) — but especially if/as it becomes instructed by TIMN.

• It seems advisable to emulate historical aspects of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the better to counter-balance it — and counter-balancing it may be a key function.

• It is important to assure that the Chamber-of-Commons idea serves the creation of the prospective +N sector, more than and apart from a potential reform of the +M sector.

Whether the full version of this concluding section — the elaboration of those three key points — ends up being appended here before long, or is issued as a new post, remains to be seen.

Photo by gill.holgate

The post David Ronfeldt on the history and evolution of the Chamber of the Commons appeared first on P2P Foundation.

A special event held by our friends at the Chicago Chamber of Commons. Click here to register for the event.

Our commons are critical to our sustainability as a world and the basis for both existing and new economies. We want to educate ourselves and each other about them. At our Dec. 3  discussion on the Commons Transition Plan from CommonsTransition.org, we discussed some ideas that would deepen our  understanding of the Commons.

We agreed that it  would be beneficial to integrate Commons-think into our analysis of opportunities and challenges to create a more just and equal society here in Chicago. This analysis would help ripen and expand the landscape fo activism here.

One idea was to research  how work around the Commons is under way in the networks and organizations we are already involved in. Part of this would be outlining an issue in a before and after way, outlining it the way we currently view it vs. a Commons-think perspective.

Join us as we bring our field study and continue our discussion of the Commons Transition here in Chicago.

The post Commons Transition Plan Discussion appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Participants at the Cooperation 2015 conference in February, 2015, a precursor of the Chamber of Commons event. Photo provided by Steve Ediger.

The following article is cross-posted from our friends at Shareable.

By Nina Misuraca Ignaczak

That stalwart community institution known as the Chamber of Commerce may soon have its counterpart in the sharing economy.

The US Chamber of Commons, a startup organization dedicated to “recognizing, supporting and highlighting the “green shoots of a budding Generative Economy,” is trying to get a new form of chamber off the ground: one to connect social entrepreneurs, L3C’s, B-Corps and other enterprises focused on triple bottom line, sharing-economy approaches to commerce and community development.

The group sees its role as advocating for the four broad categories of organizations outlined in Marjorie Kelly’s Owning our Future: (1) Commons Ownership and Governance (2) Stakeholder Ownership (3.) Social Enterprises and (4) Mission Controlled Corporations.

On October 10, the group will hold an event in Chicago and in 30 other cities across the globe to call for the establishment of Chambers of Commons.

The Chicago event is designed to plant the seed for a larger movement. The day will start with a consensus workshop, with a goal of arriving at a shared definition of the Commons. Next up is an action planning workshop to develop a start-up plan for a Chicago Commons, which will be the first iteration of what organizers hope is the first of many Chambers of Commons across the nation and globe.

“We plan on discussing and coming to consensus on what we (the people in the room) mean by the Commons, both material and immaterial,” Steve Ediger, one of the project coordinators, said in an email to Shareable. “Then we will plan the startup of the first chapter of a ‘Chamber of Commons’, an organization that will work to bring other commons-oriented entities together in development and protection of the Commons.”

The discussion will address an array of Commons-relevant topics such as the environment, public land, the food supply, public education and transportation, open-source software, the internet, arts and culture and taxpayer-funded scientific research. Unclaimed realms such as the oceans, Antarctica and outer space will also be on the agenda.

Organizations, projects and individuals in the Chicago area working on Commons-oriented initiatives in the economic, environmental, community, and cultural sustainability spheres are invited to participate. National and international organizations with a Chicago presence are also invited to participate.

In an article for the Huffington Post, writer Sally Duros quotes Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, on the need for a Chamber of Commons:

“The old way is this. Here’s a problem. We need resources to solve that problem. We create a hierarchy to direct resources at the problem,” Bauwens says.

“Here’s another way. There are enough people in the world with time, skills and energy who would be willing to work to solve that problem. The new solution is to create a commons and a platform that allows people to self-aggregate and collaborate to solve that problem.”

You can register for the Chicago event here.

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So what might a commons-based economy actually look like in its broadest dimensions, and how might we achieve it?  My colleague Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation offers a remarkably thoughtful and detailed explanation in a just-released YouTube talk, produced by FutureSharp. It’s not really a video – just Michel’s voiceover and a simple schematic chart – but the 20-minute talk does a great job of sketching the big-picture strategies that must be pursued if we are going to invent a new type of post-capitalist economy.

Michel focuses on the importance of three specific realms that are crucial to this new vision – ecological sustainability, open knowledge and social solidarity. Each is critical as a field of action for overturning the existing logic of market capitalism.

Fortunately, there are many promising developments in each of these realms. Many parts of the environmental movement seek to go beyond the standard “market-oriented solutions.” There is a growing body of open source-inspired projects for software code, information, design and physical production, which is now spawning new types of global sharing of information with distributed local production. And there are many advocates and initiatives for social justice and fairness in the economy, such as cooperatives and the solidarity economy movement.

The problem, says Bauwens, is that these movements do not generally connect with each other or coordinate internationally. He therefore sees the need for “meta-economic networks” to bridge these fields of action. So, for example, we need “open cooperativism” enterprises to bridge open knowledge systems and cooperatives, so that open-licensed systems are not simply dominated by large corporations in the way that Google, Uber and Airbnb have done. We also need to develop an “open source circular economy” to bridge the worlds of eco-sustainability and open knowledge.  We will never address major environmental problems if the technological and product solutions are based on proprietary knowledge; open circulation of knowledge can change that.

Bauwens also sketches a compelling scenario by which commons-based projects can begin to develop a new politics through such vehicles as a new “ethical entrepreneurial coalition,” a “Chamber of Commons,” and “Commons Assemblies.”  He calls for new types of cooperative finance that can support sustainable production (based on the idea of sufficiency shared by all) as well as the mutualizing of knowledge (vs. its privatization via patents and copyright) and social solidarity (to ensure just and fair distribution of any surplus value created).

While the overall vision may strike skeptics as utopian, the truth is that many of the ideas in Bauwen’s scenario are already underway, if not well-developed.  What’s mostly missing is a wider orientation and commitment to a coherent, shared vision such as this one.  There is also a need for new bridges of social practice and coordination among the three key fields of action.

You can also check out several short short videos introducing the basic concepts of peer production here.

Anyone who is especially interested in this topic should know that the P2P Foundation plans to host a three-day summer school on “The Art of Commoning,” from August 25-27, in Cloughjordan ecovillage in Tipperary, Ireland.  Details here and here.

Originally published at Bollier.org

The post Here’s What a Commons-Based Economy Looks Like appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In short, we need a alliance of the commons to project civil and political power and influence at every level of society; we need phyles to strengthen our economic autonomy from the profit-maximizing dominant system; and we need Chambre of the Commons to achieve territorial policy; legal and infrastructural conditions for the alternative, human and nature-friendly political economy to thrive. Neither alone is sufficient, but together they could be a powerful triad for the necessary phase transition.

Michel Bauwens:

Image by Seier Seier

The recent success of a global mobilization (500+ participants and collectives in 23 countries and over 50 cities) to collaborative map P2P-driven, commons-oriented, collaboration/sharing-based initiatives in hispanic countries, has shown a grassroots hunger for more mutual coordination to enhance the capacity to initiate social change. I would like to add the hypothesis that what is in the making is not just a new social imaginery, but also a potential new political subject. To build and obtain more civic infrastructures to enable and empower autonomous social production, I believe we must move to mutualize our forces and create a new set of political, social and economic institutions which can have ‘transitional’ effects, i.e. prepare the ground for a phase-transition to a political economy and civilization in which socially and environmentally friendly free association between autonomous producers and citizens become the norm.

I believe the time is there to start constructing the following three institutional coalitions:

* The civic/political institution: The Alliance of the Commons

An alliance of the commons is an alliance, meeting place and network of p2p-commons oriented networks, associations, places; who do not have economic rationales. These alliances can be topical, local, transnational, etc … An example is the initiative Paris Communs Urbains which is attempting to create a common platform for urban commons intiatives in the Paris region; another Parisian/French example is the freecultural network Libre Savoirs, which is developing a set of policy proposals around digital rights. (both examples were communicated to me by Lionel Maurel).

An alliance of the commons is a meeting place and platform to formulate policy proposals that enhance civic infrastructures for the commons.

* The economic institution: the P2P/Commons Globa-local « Phyle »

A phyle (as originally proposed by lasindias.net) is a coalition of commons-oriented, community-supportive ethical enterprises which trade and exchange in the market to create livelyhoods for commoners and peer producers engaged in social production. The use of a peer production licence keeps the created exchange value within the sphere of the commons and strengthens the existence of a more autonomous counter-economy which refuses the destructive logic of profit-maximisation and instead works to increase benefits for their own, but also the emerging global commons. Phyles created integrated economies around the commons, that render them more autonomous and insure the social reproduction of its members. Hyperproductive global phyles that generate well-being for their members will gradually create a counterpower to the hitherto dominant MNO’s.

* The political-economy institution: The Chamber of the Commons

In analogy with the well-known chambers of commerce which work on the infrastructure for for-profit enterprise, the Commons chamber exclusively coordinates for the needs of the emergent coalitions of commons-friendly ethical enterprises (the phyles), but with a territorial focus. Their aim is to uncover the convergent needs of the new commons enterprises and to interface with territorial powers to express and obtain their infrastructural, policy and legal needs.

In short, we need a alliance of the commons to project civil and political power and influence at every level of society; we need phyles to strengthen our economic autonomy from the profit-maximizing dominant system; and we need Chambre of the Commons to achieve territorial policy; legal and infrastructural conditions for the alternative, human and nature-friendly political economy to thrive. Neither alone is sufficient, but together they could be a powerful triad for the necessary phase transition.

The post Proposed Next Steps for the emerging P2P and Commons networks appeared first on P2P Foundation.