This is a remarkable and inspiring movement in Spain, now involving hundreds of people in what I regard as an example of The Simpler Way transition strategy… which is primarily about going underneath the conventional economy to build our own new collective economy to meet community needs, turning our backs on and deliberately undermining and eventually replacing both the capitalist system and control by the state.

The context.

It is now abundantly clear that a just and sustainable world cannot be achieved unless consumer-capitalist society is basically scrapped. It involves levels of resource use and environmental impact that are already grossly unsustainable, yet growth is the supreme goal. The basic form the alternative must take is not difficult to imagine. (For the detail see TSW: Summary Case.) The essential concept must be mostly small, highly self-sufficient and self-governing communities in which we can live frugally but well putting local resources directly into producing to meet local needs … without allowing market forces or the profit motive or the global economy to determine what happens.

Unfortunately even many green and left people do not grasp the magnitude of the De-growth that is required. We will probably have to go down to around 10% of the present rich world per capita levels of resource use. This can only be done in the kind of settlements and systems we refer to as The Simpler Way. Most of the alarming global problems now threatening our survival, especially ecological damage, resource depletion, conflict over resources and markets, and deteriorating social cohesion, cannot be solved unless we achieve a global transition to a general settlement pattern of this kind.

For some time the Eco-village and Transition Towns movements have been developing elements of the alternative we need to build, and there are impressive radically alternative development initiatives in the Third World, notably the Zapatistas and the Kurdish PKK. But the Catalan Integral Cooperative provides us with an inspiring demonstration of what can be done and what we need to take up.

The CIC response.

Although only begun in 2010 the cooperative now involves many hundreds of people and many productive ventures, 400 of them involving growing or making things. Although there are far more things going on than those within the CIC its annual budget is now $480,000! (More on the scale later.)

It is not just about enabling people to collectively provide many things for themselves underneath and despite the market system — it is explicitly, deliberately, about the long term goal of replacing both capitalism and control by the state. These people have not waited for the government to save them, they are taking control over their own fate, setting up their own productive arrangements, food supply systems, warehouses and shops, basic income schemes, information and education functions, legal and tax advice, technical R and D, and even an investment bank. Best of all is the collectivist world view and spirit, the determination to prevent the market and profit from driving the economy and to establish cooperative arrangements that benefit all people, not just co-op members. The explicit intention is to develop systems which in time will “ … overcome the state and the capitalist system.” In other words the orientation differs fundamentally from the typical “socialist” assumption that the state has to run things.

We are in an era in which the conventional economy will increasingly fail to provide for people. What we urgently need are examples where “ordinary” people, not officials or governments, just start getting together to set set up the arrangements that gear the productive capacity they have around them to meeting their collective needs. The remarkable CIC shows that people everywhere could do this, especially in the many regions Neoliberalism has condemned to poverty, stagnation and “austerity”.

Stated principles and practices.

Note that this not just a wish list of future goals or ideals, it is mostly a list of the aims and values guiding practices that have already been implemented.

• Concern for social justice, equity, diversity, mutual support, cooperation, inclusion and solidarity, and for the common good.
• Social transformation here and now, informed by utopianism.
• Focusing on transformation of the whole of society, not just on securing benefits for members of the participating cooperatives.
• Applying resources directly to meeting the needs of people in the region, as distinct from enabling prosperity for individuals or co-op members, or stimulating economic growth.
• People contribute according to their capacity to do so.
• Getting rid of materialism. Aiming at satisfaction with “non-material living standards”. Sufficiency. “Not seeking accumulation as an end.”
• …and above all, getting rid of capitalism. Dafermos (2017) says, “The main objective of the CIC is nothing less than to build an alternative economy in Catalonia capable of satisfying the needs of the local community more effectively than the existing system, thereby creating the conditions for the transition to a post-capitalist mode of organization of social and economic life.” The long term objective is “ … to be an organizational platform for the development of a self-sufficient economy that is autonomous from the State and the capitalist market.”

The CIC is not a central agency running everything; it is an umbrella organisation facilitating, supporting and advising re the activities of many and varied cooperatives. Thus it is not like typical cooperatives wherein members focus on a single mutual interest, and work only for the benefit of members.

It is important to recognise the significance of the concept ”integral”. The word “integral” refers to the concern with, “ … the radical transformation of all facets of social and economic life.” That is, they are out to eventually bring about comprehensive social revolution. Simpler Way thinking about settlement design emphasises integration, i.e., the way interconnections between functions that small scale makes possible enables synergism and huge reductions in resource use. For instance backyard and cooperative poultry production enables “wastes” to go straight to gardens, imperfect fruit to be used, chickens to clean up garden beds, and elimination of almost all energy intensive inputs such as fertilizer, trucking and super-marketing.

The CIC is establishing projects which benefit all people in the region whether or not they are members of the CIC or associated cooperatives. “Unlike most cooperatives, the CIC develops structures and tools which are not reserved just for its members, but are accessible to everyone.” For instance non-members can use the arrangements that have been set up for providing legal advice, they can use the technologies developed, and they can use the new local currency. There are about six hundred people who are not in cooperatives but are self-employed and are able to use the services the CIC has created. Similarly the machines and agricultural tools developed for small scale producers are “…freely reproducible”, i.e., their design information is available to all free, giving anyone the ability to build them on their own and customize them according to their needs.

Thus the concern is to prevent goods being treated as commodities produced to make a profit, but to see them as things that are produced to meet needs; “… basic needs like food and health care are not commodities but social goods everyone has access to.”

To be part of the CIC cooperative projects need to practise consensus decision making and to follow certain basic principles including transparency and sustainability. Once the assembly embraces a new project it enjoys legal and other provisions and its income is managed via the CIC accounting office, where a portion goes toward funding the shared infrastructure.

The huge significance of all this could be easily overlooked. In a world where capital, profit and market forces dump large numbers into “exclusion” and poverty, and governments will not deal properly with the resulting problems, these people have decided to do the job themselves. They are literally building an alternative society, not just organising the provision of basic goods and services, but moving into providing free public services like health and transport. Note again the noble and radically subversive world view and values here; people are working to meet the needs of their community, driven not by self-interest or profit but by the desire to build good social systems. This ridicules the dominant capitalist ideology that is conventional economic theory!

The Scale.

Many people in different groups participate in varying degrees. There are about six hundred self-employed members, mostly independent professionals and small producers, who use the legal and economic services made available by the cooperative, such as insurance at less than the normal rate in Spain. There are more than 2,500 who use the LETS system. Many are involved in the Catalan Supply Center (CAC), which is the CIC committee coordinating the transportation and delivery of food and other items from the producers to the “pantries”, i.e., distribution points. In addition there are several co-ops associated with the CIC.

The headquarters of the CIC is in their 1,400 square metre building, which includes space for a library and for rent. The “eco-network” has 2,634 members. The scale and numbers are also indicated by the food distribution system described below.

Economics.

As noted above the project involves creating an economic system which contradicts and rejects the mainstream economy. It is an economy that is not driven by profit, self interest or what will maximise the wealth of those with capital to invest. There is social control over their economy, that is, there are collective decisions and planning in order to set up systems to meet community needs. People work to build and run good systems, not to get rich.

Non-monetary forms of exchange are encouraged, including free goods and services, barter, direct connections between producers and consumers, and mutual giving. The CIC regulates the estimation of fair prices, and informs producers of consumers’ needs.

There is a LETS-type currency, the ECO, which cannot be converted into euros, and cannot be invested or yield interest. About 2,600 people have accounts. Anyone can see the balance in another’s account. “The currency is not just a medium of exchange; it’s a measure of the CIC’s independence from capitalism.” There is a “Social Currency Monitoring Commission whose job it is to contact members not making many transactions and to help them figure out how they can meet more of their needs using the currency.”

The CIC’s financial operations do not involve any interest payments. No interest is paid on loans made by the cooperative. In this radically subversive economy finance is about enabling the creation of socially-necessary production, not providing lucrative profits to the rich few who have capital to lend. (The US finance industry was recently making about 40% of all corporate income.) The committee entitled ‘Cooperative of Social and Network Self-financing’ deals with savings, donations and project funding in order to “ … finance self-managed individual or collective projects aiming at the common good”. It has 155 members. Contributions to this agency earn no interest, so “… it is truly remarkable that the total amount of deposits made in the last four years exceeds €250.000.”

It is especially noteworthy that emphasis is put on the sustainability of activities, Permaculture, localism, and De-growth. National and global systems are avoided as much as possible and local arrangements are set up. As advocates of the Simpler Way emphasise, unless rich world per capita levels of resource use can be cut enormously sustainability cannot be achieved, and this requires local economies and happy acceptance of frugal lifestyles. Frugality is an explicit goal of the CIC.

The creation of commons is of central importance. There is “Collective ownership of resources to generate common goods.” That is, they seek to develop common properties for the benefit of whole communities. Some lands have been purchased by cooperatives, and some donated by individuals. Included in the category of commons are non-material “assets” such as the LETS system, the software for accounting purposes, and other services made available. Each of these is managed by a committee. “We promote forms of communal property and of cooperative property as formulas that … enhance … self-management and self-organization …” Again the intent is to develop systems run entirely by citizens and that do not involve either capitalism or the state.

One participant says, “I cultivate a garden and I hardly buy any food in euros: I acquire everything I need in the eco-network and through the CIC with the ecos I earn by selling my vegetables.” Fairs and market days are organised. “Going to the markets and the fairs is like recreation, it’s meeting up with friends and family in a spiritual sense.”

Note again the remarkable anti-capitalist element that loans are extended to assist the establishment of new ventures enabling people to begin producing … but no interest is charged. (Kennedy, 1995, estimated that in the normal economy interest charges make up 40% of all prices paid.) Another radical element is the refusal to regard things like food as commodities, that is to be produced and sold to make a profit. In seeing the point of economics as producing to meet needs they are contradicting a central taken-for granted premise of the conventional mentality.

Income.

The CIC has two main expenses: the ‘basic income’ paid to the members of its committees and the funding it provides for projects. It pays half of these expenses with fees levied on the 600 member individuals, firms and co-ops (e.g., E25/month from the self employed businesses). Most of the remaining 50% of income comes from tax refunds the CIC’s legal people are able to engineer. In addition donations are received.

“Shops”: The distribution outlets.

Many goods are distributed through the “Catalan Supply Centre”, one of the most active CIC committees. It is a network for the transportation and delivery of the products of many small producers across the entire Catalonia region. These are brought to “… the self-managed pantries that the CIC has set up all over Catalonia – twenty of them … Each one of them is run autonomously by a local consumer group that wishes to have access to local products as well as products made (by producers associated with the CIC) in other parts of Catalonia. “This system cuts out middlemen, reducing costs. The CIC currently lists more than a thousand products. “The Supply Centre provides the markets throughout the region with about 4,500 pounds of goods each month, most of which come from the cooperative’s farmers and producers.”

“Of all the initiatives, by far the most successful is the one focused on food.”

Again note the scale of operations.

The technology R and D committee.

There is a technology committee responsible for the development of tools and machines adapted to the needs of member producers. They often find that devices on sale are not appropriate for the needs of small scale or commons-oriented projects. They develop machines mostly for agriculture and small firms. These devices, “…exemplify the principles of open design, appropriate technology and the integral revolution – geared to the needs of small cooperative projects.” This committee also organizes training workshops to share knowledge. The agency occupies a 4,000 square metre site, and no longer needs financial assistance from the CIC.

Example projects.

Dafermos sketches several of the settlements and projects whereby people are coming together to set up arrangements to enable communities to apply their productive capacities to providing a wide range of things for each other.

For instance the Calafou village of twenty-two people has a housing cooperative managing twenty-seven small houses. Tenants pay €175 per month for each house. The aim is to become “… a collectivist model for living and organizing the productive activities of a small self managed community.” It has “ … a multitude of productive activities and community infrastructures, including a carpentry, a mechanical workshop, a botanical garden, a community kitchen, a biolab, a hacklab, a soap production lab, a professional music studio, a guest-house for visitors, a social centre …, as well as a plethora of other productive projects.” There is a general assembly each Sunday, operating on the consensus principle.

Members of the AureaSocial cooperative can choose to live in an affiliated block of apartments in Barcelona or at a farming commune with teepees, yurts and horses, where residents organize themselves into “families”.

Macus is a group occupying a 600 square metre space hosting a close-knit group of modern as well as traditional craft producers of wooden furniture, clothes and herbal medicine, photography, sculpture and digital music, as well as fixing bicycles and repairing home electronics.

Government.

Their form of government is a direct deliberative, participatory democracy involving decentralization, self-management, voluntary committees, “town assemblies” … and no bureaucracy and no top-down ruling or domination. Note that “direct” means more than “participatory”; all individual members meet to make (or ratify) the decisions. “Each cooperative project, working commission, eco-network or local group makes its own decisions.” Committees and fortnightly general assemblies work out mutually agreed solutions, decisions are not handed down by executives, CEOs or political parties.

In all meetings the goal is consensus decision making; there is no voting. “ In case of a predicament, the proposal is reformulated until the consensus is reached, thus eliminating the minorities and the majorities. All previous agreements are revocable.” “…the quality of the agreements is a great success, and there hasn’t been any major decision-making conflict in all these years.”

All issues are handled at the lowest level possible, as distinct from being taken by higher or central agencies. This is the basic Anarchist principle of “subsidiarity.”

There are about a dozen main committees, including Reception to handle inquiries from groups wishing to join, an Economic Management Committee, a Legal Committee, an IT Committee, and one managing Common Spaces. The Productive Projects Committee facilitates ‘self-employment’ and the exchange of knowledge and skills and helps job seekers to match their skills to jobs, using an online directory of self-managed and cooperative projects in Catalonia. That is, they have set up their own employment agency, independent of the state, and its focus is on helping people to find opportunities to get into socially useful productive activity.

“CIC committee members receive a kind of salary from the cooperative, known as ‘basic income’, which has the purpose of freeing them from having to work somewhere else, thus allowing them to commit themselves full-time to their work at the CIC.”

Creating public services.

No aspect is more remarkable than the concern to set up public services. The intention is “… to displace the centrally-managed state apparatus of public services with a truly cooperative model for organizing the provision of social goods such as health, food, education, energy, housing and transport.” The legal services, the technology contribution and the currency are also in this category. Again these are projects that are not designed by or for the members of specific cooperatives; they are services for the benefit of people in general.

One of these service operations, organized by the “Productive Projects Committee” is the employment facilitation agency mentioned above. It helps people to become “self-employed, and to share knowledge and skills enabling people to increase their earning capacity.” It makes it possible for “ … job seekers to match their skills to jobs posted by productive projects associated with the CIC …” There is “…. an online directory of self-managed and cooperative projects in Catalonia…” in which people can function using the ECO currency. Thus this committee assists people who are unemployed, without many skills and likely to be poor, to find some socially useful activity they can take up in order to earn an income. “…anyone has some abilities that they can offer to people and with that acquire what they need.”

The activities of the above mentioned supply centre constitute another public service. It enables small producers to sell their produce and many to buy what they need, without having to earn normal money.

This public service providing realm is only developing slowly, which Dafermos thinks is because Spain’s service sector is relatively satisfactory.

Problems, questions, doubts?

It is important to look for problems and faults in alternative initiatives because we urgently need to clarify what the best options are. Although I have little information apart from the Dafermos report, I am not aware of any serious problems or criticisms that might detract from its potential. However, following are some of the concerns I have come across.

Does the underlying “theory of transition” lack depth? Does the rationale derive from a comprehensive global analysis of the many alarming and terminal problems consumer-capitalism is generating, (including environmental destruction, Third World poverty, resource wars…) and is the CIC seen as the solution to them all (… I firmly believe it is the beginning of the solution.) The Simpler Way analysis of our situation includes detailed argument on the global scene; does the CIC vision extend far enough beyond setting up coops?

This involves the question of long term strategy for getting rid of capitalism. This question is studiously ignored by the Transition Towns movement …at least my attempts to get them to deal with it have failed. Their strategy is just do something, anything alternative in your town and eventually it will all add up to the existence of a beautiful, sustainable and just world. The red left rightly scathes at this; they want to know how precisely are your community gardens and clothing swaps going to lead to us taking state power and eliminating the capitalist class? Simpler Way analysis has an answer to this question; whether it’s satisfactory is another issue. It could be that CIC people also have an answer but if so it’s important that they should make it clear to us.

This leads to the need for a manual. One would hope that we can all soon benefit from a document designed to assist us to set up similar projects, especially suggesting mistakes to avoid.

Some people believe the CIC was established using funds acquired via questionable financial activities. I am not able to pronounce on this but I think it is irrelevant. What I want to focus on is the fact that the CIC now seems to be an extremely effective movement and model, one that I think could be followed with little or no funds, and that I can see no reason why it cannot thrive in the wreckage neoliberalism has wrought.

There is however an associated issue that I think requires careful thought, i.e., the role and nature of alternative currencies. The CIC uses a basic LETS system and this seems to me to be the ideal. However much effort is going into establishing another system, “FairCoin”, intended to enable new alternative economies. I am uneasy about this; it seems complex, costly to set up, a “substitution” currency (requiring normal money to purchase), and not easily capable of enabling the amount of economic activity that would occur in a whole economy. It seems to be geared to longer distance trade and in the coming world of intense scarcity and localism we won’t need much of that. It seems similar to Bitcoin in being a commodity open to speculative investment and price rises. But a sacred principle on the left is that money, labour and land should not be commodities. Above all it seems to me to be unnecessary; a kind of LETS will do.

I am also uneasy about any focus on currency; I would rather see most attention being given to getting people to understand the goals and to join the co-ops.

It is not clear to me the extent to which the success of the CIC has been due to an initial access to capital. (It is said to be self funding now.) What we want are strategies that require little or no money to set up, and I believe these are available.

Spreading the revolution.

Considerable effort is being put into “spreading the model.” “The members give talks about eco-networks, the cooperative, and social currency in various parts of the country. As a result there are seeds of integrated cooperatives in Basque Country, Madrid and other regions of Spain and France.” In 2017 the Athens Integral Cooperative began.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of the CIC achievement. The scale of its activities and the good that is being done are now huge. But what is most remarkable is its subversive focus and power, and potential. To repeat, the CIC is “…an activism for the construction of alternatives to capitalism.” In my view it is one of the leading initiatives in a movement that constitutes by far the greatest threat that capitalism has ever confronted. Along with the Zapatistas, the Kurdish PKK, the Senegalese Eco-villages, and many others it is demonstrating that there is a marvellous alternative way, that it can be built by ordinary people, quickly, and without overt conflict or violence (at least not yet.). It is shredding the taken for granted TINA legitimacy and inevitability of allowing capital, market forces and profit to determine what happens to us. Above all it is showing that ordinary people can and must come together to collectively take control of their own economic and political situation, without having to depend on capital or the state.

Consider the implications for Third World development. The conventional view takes it for granted that “Development” can only mean investment of capital to crank up more business activity, more production for sale into the global economy in order to earn money to enable purchasing from it, and to create jobs. It is taken for granted that profit and the market must drive the process, meaning that it enriches the already rich and the rest must wait for trickle down…while their national resources are shipped out to rich world supermarkets. Thus about four billion are very poor and will remain so for a long time … yet the CIC is showing how quickly and easily they could implement a totally different model of development, a different path to different goals, without approval or assistance from existing state governments. Obviously even a little state assistance would make a huge difference to what could be done. In Senegal thousands of villages are moving in the Eco-village direction, assisted by the government. (St Onge, 2015.)

It is not surprising that the CIC has originated in the Catalan region. That’s where the Spanish Anarchists In the 1930’s performed miracles, establishing an entire economy on worker-cooperative lines. In the Barcelona region containing up to a million people voluntary committees of citizens ran factories, transport systems, hospitals, health clinics etc., strenuously rejecting any role for paid bureaucrats or politicians. The CIC seems to be a text book example of Anarchism … at least the variety I’m in favour of. Consider again the themes noted above; citizens coming together to turn their backs on the market system, the capitalist class and central government, and on any form of top-down rule, and resolving to govern themselves, setting up arrangements for collective benefit, using thoroughly direct and participatory processes that do not involve bureaucrats or politicians of superior authorities, striving for consensus decisions, subsidiarity and spontaneity, thereby “prefiguring” ways they want to become the norm in the new society. This is precisely what The Simper Way vision has been about for decades, and it is the only way the required revolution can come about.

Consider the built-in but easily overlooked wisdom. The inclusiveness and empowerment of all and the prioritising of arrangements that attend to the needs of all generate community morale, public spirit, enthusiasm and willingness to contribute. Thus synergism is increased; for instance giving is appreciated and generates further generosity. Motivation is positive: doing good things like joining a working bee or giving away surpluses is enjoyable, not a burdensome duty. Contrast this with present competitive, individualistic, winner-take-all society which often forces us into situations that do not bring out the best in us.

The power to release resources and spiritual energy is also easily overlooked. My study of an outer Sydney dormitory suburb (TSW: Remaking Settlements) found that by reorganising space and use of time the suburb might be able to produce a high proportion of its own food and other needs, while dramatically reducing resource and environmental impacts. Consider the fact that if people in the suburb gave only two hours a week to community working bees, rather to watching trivia on a screen, the equivalent input of 150 full time council workers would be going into community gardens etc. And they would be much more happy, conscientious and productive workers than council employees, and community familiarity and solidarity would be generated.

And then there are the consequences for the personal development of citizens. Bookchin pointed out the profound educational benefits the Ancient Greeks saw when every individual had the responsibility of participating directly in the process of government. This means that there is no government up there to do it for us and we had better take responsibility for thinking carefully, discussing ideas, considering the good of all, being well informed, …or w might make the wrong decisions and have to live with the consequences. If we take a long historical perspective it is evident that accepting being governed, ruled over, represents an immature stage of political development; we will not have grown up until we all take part in governing ourselves, in direct and participatory ways.

Also easily overlooked is the significance of empowerment. Ivan Illich stressed the passivity and lack of responsibility characteristic of consumer society. Your role is to obey the rules set by others. If something goes wrong it’s up to some official or professional to fix it. As I see it the crucial turning point in the Transition Towns process is the shift from being a passive acceptor of the system designed and run by unseen others, to seeing it as your system and if its not working well it’s a problem you worry about and want to do something about. Good citizens have the sense of owning their communities, of knowing that they share control over what’s going on and willingly sharing responsibility for making things work well. In other words they feel empowered. “This is this my town. I’m proud of it. If there’s a problem that’s my/our problem, let’s get at it.” This seems to be a strongly held orientation among CIC participants.

All this clarifies the distinction between Eco-socialist and Eco-Anarchist perspectives. Both recognise the need to transcend capitalism but the former assumes the transition must come through the taking of state power and then “leadership” by the state. But fundamental to Simpler Way analysis is the fact that when the realities of limits and scarcity are grasped it is clear that the alternative society must be extremely localised, not centralised, that it cannot be established or run by the state, and that it can only work satisfactorily if it is run by communities via participatory means. Although there will always be a role for some central agencies it will be a relatively minor one as most of the decisions and administration will (have to) be handled down at the small community level. Note again that the CIC emphatically rejects the state as a means for achieving or running the new society.

The Simpler Way vision of a workable and attractive alternative society (See TSW: The Alternative) is sometimes criticised as unachievable because it is unrealistically utopian. The existence of the CIC demolishes that criticism. Its significance cannot be exaggerated; it and related movements are showing that the path that has to be taken if we are to get to a sustainable and just world can easily be taken.

——–

• CIC website. https://cooperativa.cat/en/
• Dafermos, G., (2017), The Catalan Integral Cooperative: an organizational study of a post-capitalist cooperative”, Commons Transition, 19th Oct. https://cooperativa.cat/en/george-dafermos-publishes-his-report-about-catalan-integral-cooperative/
• Kennedy, M., (1995), Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an Exchange Medium That Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth, Seva International.
• St Onge, E., (2015), “Senegal Transforming 14,000 Villages Into Ecovillages!” Collective Evolution, http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/06/17/senegal-transforming-14000-villages-into-ecovillages/
• TSW: Remaking Settlements. thesimplerway.info/RemakingSettlements.htm
• TSW: Summary Case. thesimplerway.info/main.htm
• TSW: The Alternative. thesimplerway.info/THEALTSOCLong.htm

Photo by Rototom Sunsplash

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Ruby Irene Pratka: An intriguing blueprint for a post-capitalist world is gradually being built in a converted spa in Barcelona, Spain. Founded by the Catalan dissenter Enric Duran, who made headlines in 2008 after “borrowing” thousands of Euros from Spanish banks and donating it to social causes, the Catalan Integral Cooperative is a wide-ranging operation which encompasses diverse services: a financial co-op, a food pantry, a legal-aid desk, an open-source tool workshop, and a bed-and-breakfast for tourists in a medieval watchtower. It has developed its own local exchange currency — the eco — and launched a cooperative credit mechanism for funding social projects. A readable and eye-opening new report commissioned by the P2P Foundation and the Robin Hood Coop for Commons Transition summarizes the co-op’s numerous projects and wide-ranging ambitions.

The goal of the Catalan Integral Cooperative (“Integral” is a Spanish word best translated as “holistic”) is to build an anti-capitalist cooperative structure not just for the benefit of its own fee-paying members, but for the Commons as a whole. “The main objective of the CIC is nothing less than to build an alternative economy in Catalonia capable of satisfying the needs of the local community more effectively than the existing system, thereby creating the conditions for the transition to a post-capitalist mode of organization of social and economic life. … It is the conviction of the CIC that the goods required for satisfying the basic needs of society should be freely accessible social goods, rather than commodities,” the author George Dafermos writes.

Like many co-ops, the CIC resists hierarchical organization; about a dozen committees manage its day-to-day activities. The co-op itself has more than 2,000 members, whose levels of involvement vary from paid committee members to freelancers (auto-ocupados), to the many subscribers to the CIC’s local product exchange networks. The product exchanges provide local farmers and other producers with a market and allow the cooperative to fund its operations with a small percentage from each sale.

The cooperative was formed seven years ago and since then has enjoyed rapid growth. Dafermos spent two months in 2016 studying the CIC, its projects and its aspirations. “It’s an amazing and crazy thing, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” he says. “On paper, it doesn’t really exist, but at the same time, it creates legal entities which allow people, mostly young professionals, to do their own thing. It’s a highly ideological co-op meeting practical needs.” In other words, the CIC thinks globally and acts locally.

The nerve center of the CIC is AureaSocial, a converted spa in downtown Barcelona which serves as a co-working and workshop space and houses a CIC-run library and food pantry in addition to headquarters. Its daughter projects, including the bed-and-breakfast (called SOM Pujarnol), a tool lab (maCUS), and a self-managed cooperative community, are spread across Catalonia, attracting the interest of increasing numbers of potential members at a key time in history. The report describes it as a “network of projects” that has a long-term aim of creating a fairer world.

“Young people are seeing less hope now than in the past…if you do get a job in the corporate structure, it’s not appealing,” Dafermos says. “People want to experiment, and that’s why we’re seeing the re-emergence of co-ops in general, and of this one in particular.”

To learn more about the CIC’s activities, read the report here.

Photo by Don Meliton

The post New Report Shines Light on Groundbreaking Catalan Cooperative appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The ICH logo

ICH was born in 2015 through two local networking initiatives with an activist bent. On the one hand, the Platform for Autonomy, Self-Sufficiency and Equality, an intiative of people from the milieu of Autonomy, had been preparing the ground since 2013, propagandizing and agitating for the networking of productive projects on the basis of a framework of values inspired by the ideological principles of the CIC. During the same period, another networking initiative had begun to germinate in the bosom of the local movement of the Commons (dating back to the 1^st Festival of the Commons in 2013), which was also influenced by the cooperative model of the CIC.

Τhe two networking initiatives came close through a CommonsFest event in April 2015: in the context of this event, three core members of the CIC came to Crete for a week of workshops and meetings with local projects, which gave a strong impetus to the idea of creating a local ‘integral cooperative’. The arrival a few months later of the self-exiled charismatic leader of the CIC (who is now the driving force behind FairCoop), Enric Duran, pushed in the same direction. A visionary himself, Duran showed great zeal in propagandizing the reproduction of the CIC model in Crete. And so, the ICH emerged through the processes (in the milieu of local projects) triggered by the visit of the CIC members to the island, which resulted in the informal founding of the ICH at an open assembly in Heraklion at the end of the summer of 2015.

CommonsFest workshop by CIC members in April 2015

From the moment of its launch two years ago, the ICH has been closely integrated with the local exchange network in Heraklion, the so-called ‘Kouki’, which the ICH set up with the aim of covering the daily needs of the community. As in the case of the CIC in Catalonia, the local exchange network is a structure embedded in the operation of the Integral Cooperative and one of the main ‘tools’ it offers its members. More specifically, through the ‘kouki’ the ICH provides its members with a marketplace where they can exchange products and services by using the alternative currency of the local exchange network.

In practice, the exchange network constitutes a self-organized marketplace for the local community in which its members can buy and sell locally-available products and services. The payment can take the form of barter exchange or if that is not possible, it can be made by means of the alternative currency of the exchange network. From a technical point of view, keeping track of transactions and of members’ credit and debit balances is done through the Integral CES online platform (which, though originally developed by the CIC for its own needs, provides a plethora of local exchange networks around the world with the ‘technological infrastructure’ required for their operation); to put it simply, it is the ‘tool’ that members of local exchange networks use to manage their accounts.

Some of the stalls at the 1st ‘autonomous public market’ in April 2016

One of the most important things ICH has done to increase its visibility is the autonomous public market, which it has been organizing (in collaboration with the local exchange group) since April 2016. At this public market, which takes place once a month at Georgiadis Park in the centre of the city, members can set up their stalls and exchange products with alternative currency. In parallel, various events – such as talks by ICH members – serve the purpose of spreading the principles of the ICH and mobilizing visitors. As a true cooperatively-organized project, there is an open assembly at the end of every autonomous public market, with the aim of coordinating the tasks required for the organization of the next one after a month.

Presentation about the CIC at the 1st ‘autonomous public market’ in April 2016

The reason why this public market is called ‘autonomous’ is because it has consciously chosen to operate without the relevant license from the authorities: in that way it demonstrates in practice its autonomy from the structures of the state and exemplifies the principle of ‘economic disobedience’, that is, the conscious refusal to strengthen the state by paying taxes.

After two years of hard work, ICH believes that the time has come to scale-up its activities. Its immediate plans for the future include the development of ‘common infrastructures’ (like the cauldron ICH members could use this autumn to distil alcohol) and the provision of support for ‘partner projects’ like the retail outlet for the products made available through the local exchange network that some ICH members plan to open in the city in the coming months. Another important goal of ICH for the future is the organization of the autonomous public market on a more frequent basis and its expansion outside the city, helping thus the ICH reach out to the agrarian population in the countryside.

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A technology is considered ‘open’ when it gives users the freedom (a) to study it, (b) to use it any way they wish, (c) to reproduce it and (d) modify it according to their own needs. By contrast, closed technologies are those that restrict these freedoms, limiting users’ ability to study them, reproduce them and modify them so as to adapt them to their needs. That is precisely the advantage of open technologies from the perspective of end users: whereas closed technologies limit the spectrum of possibilities of what end users can do, open technologies ‘liberate’ them, giving them the possibility to tinker with them and evolve them. Paradoxically, despite the fact that open technologies are greatly appreciated by the global technological community because of the freedoms they offer, the technology products manufactured and marketed by the vast majority of technology firms around the world are ‘closed’. This, of course, does not happen because of technological reasons: most of these companies supply their clients with closed machines and tools simply because in that way they can easily ‘lock’ them into a relationship of dependence.

It is not hard to see why this type of client-supplier relationship is particularly harmful for SSE organizations, as it implies their dependence on economic agents with diametrically opposed values and interests. To put it simply, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for SSE organizations to evolve into a vehicle for the transition to a truly social economy when they are dependent on the above economic agents for the tools they need on a daily basis. By contrast, open technologies may well be strategic resources for their autonomy and technological sovereignty. As brazilian activist-philosopher Euclides Mance remarks, SSE organizations should turn to open design and free software tools (like the Linux operating system for computers) in order to extricate themselves from the relationship of dependence they have unwillingly developed with closed technology companies.

A documentary about Sarantaporo.gr

To find the tools which fit their needs and goals, SSE agents should turn to the ‘community’ itself: in most cases, the development and the transfer of open technology to the field of its application and end-use is carried out by collaborative technology projects with the primary aim of covering needs, rather than making a profit. A great example is that of Sarantaporo.gr in Greece, which operates a modern telecom infrastructure of wireless networking in the area of Sarantaporo since 2013, through which more than twenty villages have acquired access to the Internet. The contribution of those collaborative projects – and that is crucial – is not limited to high-technology products, but extends to all kinds of tools and machines. A characteristic example is the Catalan Integral Cooperative in Catalonia and L’Atelier Paysan in France, which develop agricultural (open design) tools geared to the particular needs of small producers of their region.

The above examples show clearly the great potential of the SSE for positive change. However, for that to happen, it should have sufficient support structures for reinforcing its entrepreneurial action. That is where it is lagging behind. The SSE does not have structures analogous to the incubators for start-ups, the ‘accelerators’ and the liaison offices operating at most universities for the transfer of know-how to capitalist firms. Addressing this need is an area in which government policy could play a strategic role: in that regard, it is extremely positive that the recent action plan of the Greek Government tries to combat this problem through the development of more than a hundred cooperatively-organized support centres for the SSE across the entire country by 2023. That is precisely the kind of impetus that the SSE needs in order to grow. Of course, the capacity of these centres to support the SSE technologically will be of decisive importance: those are the structures that can and must make open technology accessible and user-friendly at local level, supplying the SSE organizations of their region with technology tools that promote the principles of the SSE and ensure its autonomy.

The post SSE and open technologies: a synergy with great potential appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Founded by an assembly of activists in Catalonia in 2010, the CIC’s revolutionary aspiration is to antagonize Capital by building cooperative structures in the Catalan economy. Its commitment to the principles of the Commons, Open Cooperativism and P2P, make it a prototypical example of a new generation of co-ops connecting the Commons and cooperative movements. Their position is that a truly collaborative economy can only develop when it’s commons-based.

This report is a joint publication between the P2P Foundation and Robin Hood Coop. You can download the PDF or read the full text in the sections below.  You can also consult the different sections and comment on the document in the Commons Transition Wiki.

Contents

Introduction

Studying the CIC: A note on our methodology

The CIC in a nutshell

The historical, ideological and political context

Committees

Self-employed members

Territorial and economic network

The organizational core: The CIC Committees

Coordination Committee

Reception Committee

Communication Committee

IT Committee

Common Spaces Committee

Productive Projects Committee

Economic Management Committee

Legal Committee

The Catalan Supply Centre

Network of Science, Technique and Technology

Autonomous projects of collective initiative

AureaSocial

CASX

SOM Ρujarnol

Calafou

MaCUS

Concluding remarks: A project with a network or a network of projects?

CIC’s economic ecosystem: Local exchange networks and social currencies

The development of a cooperative public system

Open cooperativism

Summing up

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

The Cooperativa Integral Catalana (CIC) is one of the most interesting cooperative projects which have sprung up during the age of crisis in Europe. First of all, it is notable on account of its revolutionary character: the main objective of the CIC is nothing less than to build an alternative economy in Catalonia capable of satisfying the needs of the local community more effectively than the existing system, thereby creating the conditions for the transition to a post-capitalist mode of organization of social and economic life.

To fulfil the purpose it has set itself, the CIC is engaged in an impressive spectrum of activities: although it was formed just seven years ago, it has already been actively involved in developing infrastructures as diverse as barter markets, a network of common stores, an alternative currency called ‘eco’, a ‘Cooperative Social Fund’ for financing community projects and a ‘basic income programme’ for remunerating its members for their work. By setting up such structures, the CIC aspires to be an organizational platform for the development of a self-sufficient economy that is autonomous from the State and the capitalist market.

The CIC moto: ‘social transformation from below through self-management, self-organization and networking’

In view of its radical character, it is not surprising that the CIC has attracted the attention of the popular and radical press, which praise it as a promising prototype of the counter-structures that the so-called milieu of the social and solidarity economy is building in order to antagonize the dominant economic system.[2] Unfortunately, these reports, though interesting, have a serious limitation: they do not go into much depth in their description of the CIC and therefore do not provide a thorough overview of its activities and mode of organization. In consideration, however, of the possibility that CIC’s cooperative model holds lessons that extend well beyond the Catalan context, my colleagues from the P2P Foundation/Commons Transition and I could not help feeling that the case of the CIC merits further study to elucidate the way it is organized. With that in mind, we decided to contact the CIC with the purpose of organizing a ‘field-trip’ in Catalonia in order to study the cooperative close up. In this way, a few months later in March 2016 we came to Catalonia to carry out a field-study, whose findings are documented in the pages of this report.

2. Studying the CIC: A note on our methodology

This report is based on a field-research of an ethnographic character, using the method of participant observation from March until May 2016.

For the purpose of this research project, I arrived in Barcelona on March 2016, following consultation with some core members of the CIC with whom my colleague from the P2P Foundation, Stacco Troncoso and I had discussed, in general terms, the rationale and the aims of the research during the previous three months.

For the entire period of my stay in Barcelona, I had the luck to be hosted at the building of AureaSocial, which is in a way the headquarters of the CIC in the city. Being there was extremely helpful for the research, as I was in daily contact with the many members of the cooperative who work at the building, practically living with them for two months.

As the cooperative is organized in committees, the first thing I did to collect information was to interview members of all its committees. I talked to people from all the committees that are currently active, who willingly provided me with whatever information I needed to understand what they do and how their activities are organized. Luckily for me, it was equally easy to observe some of them at work – such as the Reception Committee or the Committee of Economic Management, as their workplace is based at AureaSocial where many of their members come on a daily basis. Others I had the opportunity to follow in the ‘field’, as when I followed the CAC team with its van in order to see with my own eyes the network of self-managed pantries that the CIC has linked together across the entire Catalonia.

Naturally, as the activities of the cooperative are not confined to Barcelona, but extend across the entire Catalonia, the field-research included several visits to various places in Catalonia: I attended several assemblies and meetings of local exchange groups and visited the autonomous projects related to the CIC (the so-called ‘autonomous projects of collective initiative’) in various cities and towns in Catalonia, where I had extensive discussions with their members.

Last, though I do not believe that such a thing as an ‘objective observer’ exists, I feel obliged to confess my deep sympathy for the CIC. One of my strongest motivations for carrying out this field-research was to find out more about the work of the CIC in Catalonia and explore how that experience could be fruitfully transferred to other places.[3] I hope this report will be useful to those who are interested in learning more about what the CIC does and how it is organized, encouraging them to reflect critically upon how a new generation of cooperative projects like the CIC might change the world for the better.

3. The CIC in a nutshell

The historical, ideological and political context

Τhe Catalan Integral Cooperative was founded in Catalonia in May 2010 at an assembly of local activists. It is, as its name implies, a cooperative project focused on Catalonia.[4] It has a strongly activist and anti-capitalist character, as it is animated by the principles of the ‘integral revolution’, which means it aspires to the radical transformation of all facets of social and economic life.[5] With this goal in mind, it has launched a series of initiatives and projects around the development (at the local level) of a cooperative economy and a cooperative public system, in which basic needs like food and health care are not commodities but social goods everyone has access to.

Enric Duran (Source: Wikipedia.org)

The first time one hears the name of the CIC is usually in connection with the exploits of its charismatic leader, Enric Duran. Duran, a Catalan hacktivist involved in the local anti-globalization movement, entered the public spotlight in 2008 when he went public with his story of how he had tricked the spanish banks into giving him loans of about half a million euros, which he gave away to various activist projects. For Duran, who never had any intention of returning that money, it was a conscious act of expropriation that he planned with the aim of inspiring others to join the struggle against the capitalist banking system. As was to be expected, his story attracted a lot of media attention and Duran, who earned the sympathy of many fellow activists, soon became known as the ‘Robin Hood of the banks’. Emboldened by the success of this action, he and some like-minded activists soon began to work on a new project around the creation of cooperative structures for the transition to post-capitalism. The idea was outlined in a newspaper they distributed in 350,000 copies all over Spain in March 2009, which propagandized the development of ‘integral cooperatives’.[6] This call resonated with the feelings of many Catalan activists, triggering a wave of molecular processes in the milieu of social movements, which led to the collective founding of the CIC in May 2010.

A year later the ‘indignados’ began to occupy the squares in Spain. The emergence of the 15M movement in Catalonia found the CIC ‘prepared to battle’ and so many of its members threw themselves into the struggle against the ‘politics of austerity’. At the same time, because of the active participation of its activists in the collective processes of the movement, the CIC emerged much stronger through it, attracting a lot of new members. As Nathan Schneider says, “when the 15M movement, a precursor to Occupy Wall Street, installed itself in city squares across Spain to rail against austerity and corruption, protesters swelled the CIC’s ranks”.[7] As a result, although the ‘Movement of the Squares’ subsided, CIC’s participation in it left an important legacy, as many of the defining characteristics of the movement live through the cooperative, such as the activist character, the aim of building an alternative economic system and the primacy of the principles of self-management, inclusivity and direct-democracy in the decision-making process.

During all this time, Duran played a leading role in shaping the CIC: not only was he the one who, more decisively than anyone else, defined its vision, but he also recruited new members, organized its committees and spearheaded the development of new CIC initiatives and projects. However, in 2013 in order not to go to prison, he was forced to go underground and leave the country.[8] Since then, he has concentrated his efforts on a new project called ‘FairCoop’,[9] thus placing the responsibility for the organization and operation of the cooperative in the hands of the committees it is made up of.

Committees

The easiest way one could describe the internal organization of the CIC is as a collection of about a dozen committees, each one with its own field of responsibility. For example, the Economic Management Committee, as its name implies, is responsible for the economic management of the cooperative, the Legal Committee is entrusted with legal matters, the IT Committee deals with the IT infrastructure and so on. In consequence of this division of labour, committees work largely autonomously from each other. To coordinate their activities, the cooperative holds assemblies (the so-called ‘permanent assemblies’ which are held once a month), where committee members make decisions collectively based on consensus. In line with the principles of cooperativist and anti-authoritarian organization, these assemblies serve to collectivize the managerial process, thereby ensuring its participative and inclusive character.[10] That is, in a nutshell, the way the CIC is organized: the ‘core’ of the organization is made up of a dozen committees which coordinate their activities collectively and anti-hierarchically through frequently-held assemblies.

From close up, the first thing that stands out about committee members is how they are not motivated by reasons of financial or professional advancement. On the contrary, the character of participation in the committees is clearly activist: committee members do not consider themselves to be working members of a conventional cooperative. For them, the CIC is not just a cooperative, but an activist project in which they are heavily involved. However, in contrast to activist projects manned by unwaged volunteers, the activists of CIC committees receive a kind of salary from the cooperative, known as ‘basic income’, which has the purpose of liberating them from the need to make a living by working somewhere else, thus allowing them to commit themselves full-time to their work at the CIC.[11] An interesting feature of that form of remuneration is that it is made up of both euros and ‘ecos’, that is, the alternative currency used by the forty or so local exchange networks that exist in Catalonia (we will discuss the eco and the local exchange networks in more detail in the context of CIC’s economic ecosystem in chapter 6).[12]

Self-employed members

The CIC has a plethora of members outside its ‘core’. First of all, it has about six hundred ‘self-employed members’ (the so-called ‘auto-ocupados’), who use the legal and economic ‘tools’ of the cooperative.[13] They are mostly independent professionals and small producers (both individuals and collectives) who operate informally without having any legal hypostasis. In Spain, as a general rule, people who start a small business or set themselves up in private practice register with the Tax and Social Security Office as ‘autónomos’. The cost of becoming an ‘autónomo’, however, is prohibitive for a large number of people, given that they have to pay a minimum of around €250 a month.[14] Consequently, for many, the cost of this system precludes the possibility of operating formally. To them, the CIC offers a practical solution: the CIC has set up a series of legal entities, whose legal form its self-employed members can use in order to issue invoices. Legally speaking, therefore, auto-ocupados are not members of the CIC, but members of those organizations. In exchange for this service, auto-ocupados have to pay a (minimum) membership fee of €75 every three months.[15] Unlike ‘core members’, however, few of them tend to get involved in CIC’s organizational matters. In that sense, auto-ocupados are peripheral members, who do not participate in the collective processes of the CIC.

Oddly enough, although it has legally set up several other companies to accommodate the needs of its self-employed members, the CIC itself does not have a legal form, which means that “officially, there’s no such thing as the CIC”.[16] The advantage of operating in this way is that it makes the CIC more flexible vis-à-vis the State and its control mechanisms.

Territorial and economic network

Aside from self-employed members, the CIC has more than two and a half thousand members through the ‘local exchange network’ (which will be discussed extensively in the context of CIC’s economic ecosystem in chapter 6) that it launched in 2010. This, together with the rest of the local exchange networks operating in Catalonia, forms a crucial component of CIC’s territorial network and of the economic system that it proposes as an alternative to the dominant market.

Alongside this ecosystem of local exchange groups, CIC’s territorial and economic network encompasses the consumer groups that are responsible for the daily operation and management of twenty ‘pantries’ (the so-called ‘rebosts’) across Catalonia. These local consumer groups are connected to each other through CIC’s Catalan Supply Center (CAC), which is the CIC committee coordinating the transportation and delivery of products from the producers to the pantries. We will discuss how this network of pantries is organized in more detail in the next chapter.

Last, CIC’s territorial network includes several so-called ‘autonomous projects of collective initiative’. These are basically projects in which the CIC has been involved or is collaborating with. To better understand their organization and and how they are related to the CIC, we will look at the most prominent of them in chapter 5.

But first, let us take a closer look at the ‘core’ of CIC to explore in more detail what its committees do.

4. The organizational core: The CIC Committees

At the present time, the organizational core of the CIC consists of ten committees. In order to understand the breadth of the activities they perform and how they are organized, we shall now look at them in more detail.

Coordination Committee

The Coordination Committee deals with the internal organization of the cooperative, focusing on the coordination and evaluation of the work of its committees and working groups. An important part of its work is the formulation of the agenda of the so-called ‘permanent assemblies’ (which are held once a month and constitute the main decision-making organ of the cooperative) based on the topics for discussion submitted by the members of the other committees.

The committee is made up of three main members and two collaborators (a facilitator and a psychologist), who meet once a week at the building of AureaSocial in Barcelona (which is discussed in the context of the so-called Autonomous Projects of Collective Initiative in the next chapter). For its economic sustainability, the committee relies on the ‘basic income’ its members receive from the CIC.

Reception Committee

The Reception Committee is responsible for the induction process of new CIC members. Τhis process consists, in the first place, in providing guidance and advice to people who contact the CIC asking for information about the cooperative and the services it offers its members. For that purpose, they are invited to attend an info-event (known as ‘acollida’) organized by the committee once a week (usually every Friday) at the building of AureaSocial in Barcelona, where they are familiarized with the activities of the cooperative as well as with the legal and economic tools it provides to its members. Those who are still interested in becoming members of the cooperative are invited to a personal interview where they can discuss more extensively their needs with committee members and the way in which they wish to participate in the cooperative.

In addition to the guiding role it performs through the aforementioned ‘acollida process’, the committee’s activities include the capacitation of CIC members, the promotion and networking of affiliated projects in Catalonia as well as the development of relations of collaboration and mutual aid with collectives and projects in other countries.

The committee is made up of eight members, six of whom are based in Barcelona. For the purpose of work coordination, its members meet once or twice a week (usually at AureaSocial), whereas decisions are made collectively (based on consensus) at the committee’s assembly, which takes place once a month. For its economic sustainability, the committee relies on the ‘basic income’ received by its members.

Communication Committee

The Communication Committee is responsible for managing matters of communication related to the cooperative. In specific, it is responsible for the public promotion of CIC’s activities as well as for handling the requests for information submitted by its network and the broader community. In parallel, (like the Reception Committee) it serves as a channel of communication between the cooperative and other collectivities. In the context of its priorities, the committee emphasizes the importance of empowering actors in the CIC network and enriching their skills, so that communication-related activities (such as filming events and developing promotional material) can be performed by any member of the cooperative without the direct involvement of the committee’s core members.

Presently, the committee is made up of three members, who meet once a month at the building of AureaSocial. For its sustainability, the committee relies on the ‘basic income’ received by its members.

IT Committee

The IT Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of CIC’s information-technology infrastructure, including its mail server, its websites and social networks as well as specialized IT tools, such as the GestioCI invoice processing software used by the Committee of Economic Management and ‘self-employed members’ of the cooperative for the purpose of managing invoices and bills.[17]

The committee is made up of seven persons, four of whom are currently very active. Email is the primary means of communication among committee members, who meet twice a week at the building of AureaSocial in Barcelona in order to coordinate their work. For its sustainability, the committee relies on the ‘basic income’ received by its members.

Common Spaces Committee

The Common Spaces Committee, which is made up of five people, is responsible for the so-called ‘common spaces’ of the cooperative, that is, buildings and houses used by the cooperative and its members as a shared resource. For its sustainability, the committee relies on the ‘basic income’ its members receive from the cooperative. Presently, the only infrastructure the committee is responsible for is the building of AureaSocial in Barcelona (which is discussed in the next chapter on Autonomous Projects of Collective Initiative).

Productive Projects Committee

The activities of the Productive Projects Committee, which has two members, centre on facilitating the process of ‘self-employment’ and the exchange of knowledge and skills. To this end, the committee is responsible for the operation of CIC’s ‘jobs portal’ (called Feina Cooperativa) aimed at facilitating job seekers to match their skills to jobs posted by productive projects associated with the CIC.[18] In parallel, it runs Mercat Cooperatiu, an online directory of self-managed and cooperative projects in Catalonia, which accept ‘social currency’ (i.e. ecos) in exchange for the products and services they offer.[19]

Economic Management Committee

As its name implies, the Comissió de Gestió Econòmica is entrusted with the economic management of the cooperative. At the same time, it is the CIC committee which is responsible for the induction process of new ‘self-employed members’ (the so-called ‘auto-ocupados’), familiarizing them with the legal and economic tools that the CIC provides them with and helping them circumnavigate the social and economic structure of CIC’s cooperative network. The committee is made up of six core members (five of whom are occupied on a full-time basis) headquartered at the building of AureaSocial in Barcelona and four more members based in other parts of Catalonia.

The Office of the Committee of Economic Management at AureaSocial. Photo by Daniel Molina (Source: Schneider 2015)

CIC has two main sources of expenses: the ‘basic income’ received by the members of its committees and the funding it provides for affiliated projects. In order to cover these expenses, like any other cooperative, CIC relies on members’ fees: the fees collected from the six hundred active ‘auto-ocupados’ (who are required to pay a fee of a minimum of €75 every three months) account for about 50% of CIC’s income. The remaining 50% of its income comes from the so-called practice of ‘economic disobedience’: that is, the tax refunds received by the cooperative for every invoice self-employed members make (using one of the legal forms through which the CIC operates). Donations from sympathizers represent an additional  – though presently insignificant – income stream.

Legal Committee

The Legal Committee is responsible for managing legal matters related to the cooperative. In parallel, it provides CIC members with legal assistance, which they can pay for by using either social currency (i.e. ecos) or euros. Crucially, the committee places a great deal of importance on delivering this legal service in such a way as to empower recipients, helping them understand the legal process and the technicalities involved in their cases.

The committee is currently made up of two lawyers based at the building of AureaSocial in Barcelona. For its sustainability, the committee relies (a) on the fees it collects from its clients, that is, CIC members to whom it provides legal assistance and (b) on the ‘basic income’ its members receive from the cooperative.

The Catalan Supply Centre

The Central d’Abastiment Catalana (CAC), which means ‘Catalan Supply Centre’, is one of the most active CIC committees.[20] It was formed in 2012 with the aim of creating a logistics network for the transportation and delivery of the products of small producers, who are ‘self-employed’ CIC members, across the entire Catalonia. In effect, it is a ‘public service’ that CIC offers to small producers and consumer-prosumer groups in Catalonia.

The main infrastructure of the network are the so-called ‘rebosts’, that is, the self-managed pantries that the CIC has set up all over Catalonia – twenty of them, to be exact – which constitute the ‘cell’ of the organizational structure of the network. Each one of them is run autonomously by a local consumer group that wishes to have access to local products as well as products made (by producers associated with the CIC) in other parts of Catalonia through the list of products provided by the CAC (which currently includes more than a thousand products). The way in which the supply chain is organized is as follows: the products go from the seventy producers that currently supply the network to the two principal rebosts in L’Arn and Villafranca and then are distributed by the CAC vans to the local rebosts, where from the local consumer groups collect them.

CAC member Vadó and the CAC van

The CAC is made up of a team of four persons, half of whom are working full-time. This team is responsible for coordinating the network of rebosts through CAC’s online platform, which the rebosts use in order to choose the products they want and submit their orders.[21] The payment for the orders can be made in euros or by using the social currency eco. In this way, the CAC platform servers as the ‘instrument’ that enables the coordination of consumption and production in such a distributed environment.

In addition to performing a coordinating role through its online platform, the CAC is also responsible for the transportation and delivery of products from the producers to the local rebosts. In this task, it is assisted by five-six more persons, who use their own vehicles to transport and deliver products to some areas of the network. To cover their expenses, these collaborators receive 21 cents for every kilometre they make.

For its sustainability, the CAC relies on income from two main sources: first, it collects 5% of the price of every product, as well as 18 cents for every kilo it delivers. At the same time, the CAC members receive a ‘basic income’ from the CIC.

For organizational matters, the CAC team has three meetings per month, which often have the character of an assembly. However, the place where they are held is not fixed: each meeting is held in a different rebost in order to facilitate the interaction between the ‘coordinating organ’ and the ‘nuclei of local self-management’, as the CIC calls the consumer groups that are responsible for the operation of each rebost. For the future, CAC’s plans focus on strengthening the links between rebosts and producers so that payments can be made directly by the rebosts to the producers without the intermediation of the CAC.

Network of Science, Technique and Technology

The Xarxa de Ciència, Tècnica i Tecnologia (XCTIT), which means ‘Network of Science, Technique and Technology’, is the committee responsible for the development of tools and machines adapted to the needs of productive projects in CIC’s cooperative network.[22] The driving force of XCTIT is its conviction that the machines developed by the industry are not appropriate for the needs of commons-oriented projects, which they imprison into a relation of dependence with capitalist firms. By contrast, XCTIT develops solutions – which exemplify the principles of open design, appropriate technology and the integral revolution – geared to the needs of small cooperative projects. In this way, XCTIT serves as a ‘vehicle’ for the re-appropriation of science, technique and technology by the new cooperative movement.

Presently, XCTIT’s activities focus on the development of various prototypes – mostly of agricultural tools and machines – and the organization of training workshops for the purpose of knowledge sharing. XCTIT is also engaged in the licensing of the technology artefacts developed by the committee and its collaborators. Its last undertaking is an open design license called ‘XCTIT-GPL’,[23] which gives end-users the right to modify and redistribute XCTIT-GPL-licensed technologies, thereby protecting legally the free sharing of knowledge.

The committee is made up of five core members (working full-time) and about twenty collaborators who are actively involved in its activities. For the coordination of the group and decision-making, XCTIT has an assembly once a week at Can Fugarolas, where its workshop has been hosted since 2014.

Can Fugarolas[24] is not just a building. It is a collectively-managed space of 4.000m2 in the seaside town of Mataró (near Barcelona) in Catalonia, which is host to the activities of about a dozen collectivities like XCTIT. For the payment of the rent, which is a thousand euros per month, each collectivity contributes according to how much space it occupies inside the building as well as based on the character of its activities – whether or nor they are profit-oriented and ‘eco-friendly’. For XCTIT, in specific, the rent of the space occupied by its workshop is a hundred euros per month.

Until recently, the activity of the committee was supported by the ‘basic income’ of four hundred ‘monetary units’ received by each of its members. However, in the context of CIC’s strategy of decentralization, the permanent assembly which was held in Barcelona in May 2016 decided to discontinue the provision of basic income to the XCTIT, thereby turning it from a committee into a financially autonomous project. Consequently, in order to ensure its sustainability, from now on XCTIT plans to rely on the following two sources of income: first, it collects 20% of the revenue from the workshops organized by other groups and collectivities at XCTIT’s space inside Can Fugarolas.[25] Furthermore, it aspires to complement its income through replicat.net, which it recently launched as an e-shop for the prototypes developed by XCTIT and its collaborators.[26]

XCTIT’s workshop at Can Fugarolas (Source: Replicat.net)

5. Autonomous projects of collective initiative

An interesting element in the organizational canvas of the CIC are the so-called ‘autonomous projects of collective initiative’ (PAICs).[27] These are cooperative projects the CIC is connected with through a relation of collaboration, solidarity and mutual aid on the basis of common values and principles. In most cases, they are projects in which CIC members have been actively involved from the early stages, thereby creating a bond between them and the CIC. As Enric Duran explains, “there’s an ongoing reciprocity [between PAICs and the CIC] as the efforts taken by the whole [CIC] are key to making these PAICs possible, allocating various kinds of resources to make them a reality. PAICs normally also respond to the strategic objectives of the CIC itself”.[28] However, even though the term PAIC itself implies that they are autonomous (from CIC in terms of their management), in fact some of these projects are embedded into the organizational structure of the CIC. In order to understand how these projects are organized and how they are related to CIC, we will look at the five most prominent of them: AureaSocial, CASX, SOM Pujarnol, Calafou and MaCUS. The former two (AureaSocial and CASX) are run by the CIC, whereas the others (Calafou, MaCUS and SOM Pujarnol) are fully autonomous with regard to their management and daily operation.

AureaSocial

AureaSocial is the informal ‘headquarters’ of the CIC in Barcelona, a 1400m2 building at the heart of the city, whose daily operation is entrusted to the Common Spaces Committee.[29]

The AureaSocial reception dimly illuminated, a few minutes before closing down for the night

The story of the building is quite interesting: the building belongs to a company, which resorted to leasing it to the CIC (in exchange for a symbolic rent) when it went bankrupt six years ago, thereby obstructing the legal process of seizure and foreclosure by the bank. This is, in short, the ‘strategy’ that has allowed the CIC to appropriate this space. Launched in 2010 as one of CIC’s so-called ‘autonomous projects of collective intiative’, AureaSocial is now a space used for a multitude of activities: such as for many of the work meetings and assemblies of the CIC committees; for public talks, seminars, conferences and films as well as for all sorts of workshops (anything from workshops about how to improve one’s humour to vegan cooking).[30] The space hosts the office of the Committee of Economic Management, a free public library, a gift shop for clothes and the central pantry of the CAC in Barcelona. Furthermore, it operates as a co-op working space: the rooms on the 1^st floor are used during the day by psychologists and physiotherapists for their professional activities, generating a monthly income of about two thousand so-called ‘monetary units’, which means that users can pay for the rooms they use either in euros or ‘ecos’. This income is then used by the Committee of Economic Management to cover various needs of the cooperative, such as the provision of the ‘basic income’ received by committee members or the payment of utility bills for AureaSocial. To ensure that nobody is excluded from making use of the working spaces, an alternative way by which users can pay for the rooms is by contributing their labour: for example, by working at the reception or helping to clean up the building.

AureaSocial’s entrance

CASX

The Cooperativa d’Autofinançament Social en Xarxa (CASX)[31] – which means ‘Cooperative of Social and Network Self-financing’ – is a savings, donations and project funding cooperative, which was set up with the purpose of providing funding for projects that are aligned with the principles of the CIC and the integral revolution, as “the deposits made to CASX are used to finance self-managed individual or collective projects aiming at the common good”.[32] To this end, since 2013 CASX has provided €59.329 of funding to eighteen projects.

The CASX logo

Launched by CIC in 2012 as an ‘autonomous project of collective initiative’, CASX has been operating legally as a co-op since 2013, using the legal form of Xarxa d’Autogestio Social SCCL, which is one of the ‘legal tools’ the CIC offers to its member-projects. Presently, CASX has 155 members, of which many represent other cooperatives and collectivities. The membership fee for individual projects is €15 and €51 for collective projects. Taking into account the activist character of the project as well as the fact that deposits to CASX are interest-free, it is truly remarkable that the total amount of deposits made in the last four years exceeds €250.000 (for a more detailed analysis, see graph below).

CASX deposits over time (Source: CASX presentation at the permanent assembly of the CIC, 2015)

The members of CASX make decisions based on consensus through its assembly, which takes place once a month at AureaSocial.[33] However, the CASX assembly is not fully autonomous, as many of its decisions must be approved by the permanent assembly of the CIC before they can be implemented. Close, for obvious reasons, is also the collaboration between CASX and the Committee of Economic Management. For its daily operation, CASX relies on two CIC members, who receive a basic income of 140 ‘monetary units’ (which, in their case, amount to 120 euros and 20 ecos) per month.

The operation of CASX has been suspended since the beginning of 2016 in order to re-engineer its organization around a deposits and funding model based exclusively on ecos, which is slated to roll out when CASX resumes its operation in the coming months. Alongside the implementation of the new business model, CASX’s main goal for the future is the decentralization of its model through its local reproduction “so that every neighborhood, town or city can start generating their own CASX assembly, redirecting the resources of their local members to local projects”.[34]

SOM  Ρujarnol

SOM Ρujarnol[35] is a group of people animated by the principles of the integral revolution and agro-ecology, who live and work in a thousand-year-old tower (known as the tower of  Ρujarnol in Banyoles) in the Catalan province of Pla de l’Estany. It was launched about four years ago as an ‘autonomous project of collective initiative’ of the CIC, with the aim of exemplifying a humane and environmentally sustainable model of living in the Catalan countryside.

The tower of Ρujarnol at night (Source: SOM Pujarnol)

The tower and the seventy acres of land surrounding it belong to a Foundation, which has leased it to the CIC for a period of fifteen years in exchange for a thousand euros per month, with the proviso that the cooperativa will repair those parts of the tower which have suffered the wear and tear of time. That is, besides, the main reason why the rent of a 600 m2 tower is that low, as the ones responsible for its restoration are the members of the group living here, which is presently made up of nine persons, including two children.

For the purpose of decision-making, the group has an assembly once a week, in which its members make decisions about the management of the project based on consensus. As for routine tasks, such as cooking and cleaning up common spaces, they are assigned through a system of job rotation, so that all members participate equally in carrying them out.

The ‘wheel’ used by SOM Ρujarnol members for the purpose of job rotation (Photo by Luis David Arias Castaño)

SOM Ρujarnol’s relationship with the CIC is not a relation of economic dependency, but one of collaboration based on common principles,[36] as SOM Ρujarnol no longer receives any financial support from the cooperative. Thus, for the economic viability of the project, SOM Ρujarnol depends on income from three main sources: it produces and sells products – such as falafel, sauces (e.g. ketchup), veggie burgers and humus – through the local eco-network in Girona and CIC’s Catalan Supply Center (CAC); it organizes events, such as jam sessions on Fridays; and it provides ‘bed & breakfast’ accommodation for travellers who wish to spend a few days at the tower.

Music night at SOM Ρujarnol (Source: SOM Pujarnol)

Calafou

One of CIC’s most emblematic ‘autonomous projects of collective initiative’ is Calafou,[37] the self-proclaimed ‘post-capitalist colony’ which settled in 2011 in the ruins of an abandoned industrial village in the Catalan county of l’Anoia, about 65km away from Barcelona.

Τhe entrance to the Calafou colony (Source: calafou.org)

The colony was set up with the participation of several heavily-involved CIC members with the aim of becoming a collectivist model for living and organizing the productive activities of a small community based on the principles of self-management, ecology and sustainability. At the same time, it represents an example of the form that former industrial villages could assume in a post-capitalist era.

Calafou’s post-apocalyptic aesthetics (Source: calafou.org)

The first thing one is struck by when visiting Calafou is the aesthetics of the space, which gives the impression of a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic scene, as many of the buildings of the village remain abandoned and half-dilapidated. In reality, however, Calafou is anything but abandoned: at the moment, the colony accommodates a multitude of productive activities and community infrastructures, including a carpentry, a mechanical workshop, a botanical garden, a community kitchen, a biolab, a hacklab, a soap production lab, a professional music studio, a guest-house for visitors, a social centre with a free shop, as well as a plethora of other productive projects.[38]

The Calafou hacklab (Source: calafou.org)

As far as its property regime is concerned, the village was handed over by its owner to Calafou members based on the following agreement: the ‘colonists’ gave him a security deposit of €70.000 and committed themselves to paying a monthly rent of €2.500 for the next ten years. Presently, the colony, which has twenty-seven houses (of 60m2 each), is inhabited by twenty-two people. For the collective management of housing, Calafou members have set up a housing cooperative, which grants them as tenants only the right to use the space they inhabit. In that way, as tenants do not have the right to re-sell or lease their rights of use to others, the land and the houses of the village remain the unalienable property of the housing cooperative. Thus, based on the above agreement, tenants pay €175 per month for each house.

A bird’s-eye view of the village (Source: calafou.org)

According to some of its members, one of Calafou’s most significant accomplishments is its consensus-oriented assembly, which is held every Sunday for the purpose of making decisions as well as for the coordination of daily tasks like cleaning up common spaces, which are self-selected on a voluntary basis by ‘Calafou-ers’. However, the assembly character is not always the same, as its thematology alternates between ‘political’ (for discussion of political issues), ‘managerial’ (for management issues) and ‘monographic’ based on presentations made by Calafou’s working groups.[39]

For its economic sustainability, Calafou depends on three main sources of income: first, the revenues of the housing cooperative (based on the rent paid by residents); second, the contribution made by Calafou’s productive projects;[40] and third, the significant income generated by the various cultural events taking place at the village (like conferences, concerts and festivals).

MaCUS

MaCUS[41] (which stands for ‘Màquines collectivitzades d’us social’, that is, ‘machines collectivized for social use’) is another ‘autonomous project of collective initiative’, which began in 2012 with the aim of becoming a cooperative lab in Barcelona where both traditional machines and new technologies are used for collaborative research, development and production. The two-floor building in the area of Sant Martí, where MaCUS is based, occupies 600m2 and is host to the activities of a close-knit group of modern as well as traditional craftsmen engaged in making wooden furniture, clothes and herbal medicine, fixing bicycles and repairing home electronics as well as photography, sculpture and digital music production.

MaCUS members having a break in the carpentry (Source: MaCUS)

The business model of MaCUS is based on renting out space inside the building to collectivity members where they can set up their workshop. The rent is €10 per square metre and is inclusive of water, electricity, internet and telephone. This income is then used to pay for the building’s utility bills (about €200-300 per month) and its rent, which amounts to €1.833  per month. To strengthen the project’s economic viability, a business model that MaCUS members are currently experimenting with focuses on the development of prototypes with the aim of selling them to third parties, providing thus the collectivity with an additional revenue stream.

For managerial issues, MaCUS members have a monthly assembly where they make decisions in a direct-democratic fashion (based on consensus). Within the collectivity, organization is horizontal and anti-hierarchical: the equality of the members is ensured by the fact that those who rent space inside the building are at the same time members of the collectivity managing MaCUS and as such they can participate fully as equals in decision making.

A 3D-printer developed by one of the members (Source: MaCUS)

The MaCUS basement (Source: MaCUS)

The relationship between CIC and MaCUS is also quite interesting. MaCUS was launched upon the initiative of the CIC and initially depended upon its financial support for the payment of its rent. However, the income generated by renting out space inside the building to collectivity members has allowed MaCUS to evolve into an economically self-sustainable project, which has no need of any external financial aid. Besides, that is the goal of all ‘autonomous projects of collective initiative’: to become economically self-sustainable so that they don’t need the financial support of the CIC.

Concluding remarks: A project with a network or a network of projects?

As we have seen, PAICs differ from one another with regard to their degree of managerial autonomy: projects like CASX and AureaSocial are run by the organizational core of the CIC, whereas others, like Calafou and MaCUS, operate entirely autonomously from it. Their only common characteristic is they are all cooperative projects connected with the CIC. In fact, from the point of view of administratively autonomous PAICs like Calafou and MaCUS, the CIC is but one of the projects making up a broader cooperative network based on common values and principles. That actually is more in line with the vision of the CIC for the development of a network of self-managed projects in Catalonia, in which its role is that of providing support services and tools, akin to traditional service cooperatives. And that is very important: the CIC never tried to create a centrally controlled network of projects; on the contrary, its goal has always been the creation of an organizationally decentralized network of projects connected by the same principles, which support each other by sharing resources and capabilities. It makes, then, more sense to view PAICS as autonomous projects in a cooperative network which the CIC reinforces with support tools and services, rather than as projects run by the CIC.

6. CIC’s economic ecosystem: Local exchange networks and social currencies

A characteristic of healthy social movements is that they create the structures and the tools that are most appropriate to their needs and goals. The economic model of the CIC, which aspires to “bring together all the basic elements of an economy such as production, consumption, funding and a local currency”,[42] is paradigmatic of this empirical axiom.

The ‘kernel’ of this economic model are the so-called local exchange networks (or local exchange groups), which are usually made up of tens or hundreds of members who exchange products and services by using their own digital currencies. In essence, each exchange network constitutes a self-organized marketplace for the local community in which its members can buy and sell locally-available products and services. The payment can take the form of barter exchange or if that is not possible, it can be made by means of the local currency used by each exchange network. Transactions made by using these local currencies are based on the principle of mutual credit, which means that when a transaction between two parties occurs, one’s account is credited, the other’s debited. From a technical point of view, keeping track of transactions and of members’ credit and debit balances is done through online platforms known as community exchange systems. These constitute the tool with which the members of exchange networks manage their accounts, as well as a marketplace for buying and selling locally-available products and services.

In Catalonia, in specific, there are more than forty local exchange networks known as ‘eco-networks’ (‘ecoxarxes’ in Catalan) because of the local Catalan currency ‘eco’, some variant of which they all use.[43] Eco’s ‘birth’ in Catalonia can be traced back to 2009 – about a year before the formation of the CIC in 2010 – when the eco-networks of Tarragona and Montseny introduced their own alternative currency (CIC 2015, Flores 2015).

Total amount of transactions per month in CIC’s eco-network (Source: IntegralCES)

Although their size differs substantially, some eco-networks have thousands of members: indicatively, the eco-network launched by CIC in 2010 has 2.634 members.[44] From a technical point of view, the operation of about half of the eco-networks is based on the Community Exchange System (CES),[45] while the rest have ‘migrated’ to the IntegralCES platform,[46] which was developed upon the initiative of the CIC and several eco-networks as a modified version of CES that is adapted to their local needs.

The IntegralCES website

Despite the fact that eco-networks represent an autonomous local structure, they are not cut off from each other: first of all, the software platforms they rely on for their operation make it possible for members of different eco-networks to engage in transactions. Secondly, though each eco-network has its own autonomous assembly, they are all connected through the institutions of meta-governance evolved by the community of eco-networks, such as the ‘Space for the coordination of social currencies’ (‘Espai de coordinació de monedes socials’)[47] and the so-called ‘Bioregional assemblies’ of the South and the North of Catalonia,[48] which serve as an informally-organized coordinating organ for eco-networks across the Catalan territory.

Bioregional assembly in Ultramort in May 2016. Photo by Luis Camargo (https://bioregionalnordcic.blogspot.gr/2016/04/album-de-fotos-de-lassemblea-duitramort.html)

These are the outlines of the economic ecosystem in which the CIC is embedded and which it proposes as a tool for the transition to the post-capitalist society it envisions: a horizontally organized network of self-managed exchange networks with their own community currencies.

7. The development of a cooperative public system

In the context of its strategic aim for the development of a cooperative economy, it is the conviction of the CIC that the goods required for satisfying the basic needs of society should be freely accessible social goods, rather than commodities. For that reason, since its formation in 2010 the CIC has launched several initiatives aimed at the development of a cooperative public system, proposing to displace the centrally-managed state apparatus of public services with a truly cooperative model for organizing the provision of social goods such as health, food, education, energy, housing and transport.[49] In specific, it has set up initiatives encompassing the fields of alimentation, education,[50] health,[51] housing,[52] science & technology and transport.[53]

Of all those initiatives, by far the most successful is the one focused on food. Through the Catalan Supply Center (CAC) it set up in 2012, the CIC has successfully created a fully-functional logistics network for the transportation and delivery of (organic and biological) food produced by small producers all over Catalonia. Another important ‘public service’ that the CIC provides to small productive projects in its locality is that performed by CIC’s Network of Science, Technique and Technology (XCTIT) in the field of science and technology: by developing technologies and machines adapted to the particular needs of small producers and distributing them under ‘copyleft’ licenses which ensure that anyone can freely use and replicate them, the XCTIT practically democratizes access to tools which would have been otherwise beyond the reach of most small projects.

However, with the exception of the CAC and the XCTIT, most of the ‘components’ of the ‘cooperative public system’ envisioned by the CIC are still at an embryonic stage of development. The reason why these have not been further developed is manifold: in some cases, that is because the provision of public services by the State is, to a large degree, satisfactory for most people – as in the case of the health system in Catalonia – thus rendering the local self-organization of alternative services and infrastructures less imperative. Similarly, it is reasonable to assume that a factor holding back the development of CIC’s efforts in the field of transport is the huge success of various online ‘car sharing’ platforms, which apparently constitute a functional alternative for covering the needs of people without their own means of transport. The most important, however, of all the factors that account for the existing scale of development of CIC’s ‘cooperative public system’ has to do with the practice of self-organization itself. We should not forget that the CIC is, above all, an activist project based on the principle of self-organization: by contrast to traditional organizations which expand and scale-up their productive activities by employing more personnel, the CIC relies on the voluntary participation of the community. That means that the degree to which its strategic goals are actively pursued does not depend on managerial initiative, but on the extent of community participation. From that point of view, one should not hold the CIC accountable for the hitherto limited implementation of the ‘cooperative public system’. To achieve its goals, what the CIC does – much like any other activist project – is expend a continuous effort to communicate its strategic vision and goals with the local community in order to mobilize community actors to participate in the project and take it upon themselves to implement those goals.

8. Open cooperativism

One of the most constructive critiques levelled against the cooperative movement in recent years focuses on the parsimonious participation of cooperative organizations in the production of the so-called ‘Commons’, that is, goods that are accessible to all members of society.[54] The problem is that “cooperatives that work within the capitalist marketplace tend to gradually adopt competitive mentalities, and even when they do not, they chiefly operate for the benefit of their own members. They usually have to rely on the patent and copyright system to protect their collective ownership and may often self-enclose around their local or national membership”.[55] The CIC is exactly the opposite of such cooperatives: in fact, one of the reasons setting the CIC apart from traditional cooperatives is its commitment to the Commons. Unlike most cooperatives, the CIC develops structures and tools, which are not reserved just for its members, but are accessible to everyone. For example, the alternative currency ‘eco’ (in its various forms) is used not only by the local exchange groups in Catalonia, but even in countries like Argentina, Brazil, France and Greece. The same applies to the IntegralCES platform, which can be used freely by any local exchange group around the world. Even more specialized tools, such as the ‘GestioGI’ invoice processing software which the CIC developed for its own internal use, are freely available on the Internet as free/open source software. That means anyone can download them and use them, without any obligation to become a member of the CIC. Similarly, the machines and agricultural tools developed by CIC’s XCTIT for the needs of the productive projects in CIC’s network in Catalonia are freely reproducible: their design information is freely available, giving anyone the ability to build them on their own and customize them according to their needs. In fact, even the model of CIC’s organization and operation is ‘open-source’ in the sense that the CIC actively encourages the development of autonomous projects aimed at reproducing its model in other places.

The same commitment to the Commons is reflected in CIC’s strategic goal for the development of a cooperative public system, in which health, food, education and housing are social goods that everyone has access to. Its efforts in that direction might have been partially fruitful so far, but this does not belittle their importance. Above all, it offers an example as well as a vision for the development of cooperatives which aim to benefit not only their fee-paying members, but the broader local community as well by providing it with free access to public benefit infrastructures.

However, this call for engagement with common goods should not be interpreted as a moral imperative or obligation. The motivation of cooperatives should not be philanthropy or altruism alone. As the Brazilian activist and philosopher Euclides Mance argues, common goods constitute strategic tools for the autonomy of cooperatives. A well-known example is how free software (like the Linux operating system) and open design technologies (like the agricultural machines for small producers developed by CIC’s XCTIT) can be used by cooperatives as ‘instruments of liberation’ to extricate themselves from a relationship of dependence on capitalist firms like Microsoft.[56] In fact, that is precisely the reason why the CIC places such importance on the use and development of free and open technology tools, as they ensure the technological sovereignty of the cooperative economy movement.

9. Summing up…

The CIC is without doubt an unconventional cooperative. It was created in the age of crisis by Catalan activists as an antisystemic strategy for the development of counter-structures from the bottom up. One would have to look very hard to find another cooperative, whose primary goal is not the provision of some service to its members, but the ‘creative destruction’ of the capitalist system.

As we have seen in chapter 4, the organizational core of the CIC is made up of ten committees, which cover a wide spectrum of activities. About half of them deal with the internal management and operation of the cooperative, while the rest focus on the provision of services and ‘tools’ as diverse as (a) legal assistance, (b) organizing the logistics in a Catalan-wide network of pantries run by local consumer groups, (c) providing funding (through CASX) to projects animated by the same ideological principles and (d) making tools and machines adapted to the needs of the productive projects in CIC’s network (like the agricultural tools for small farmers that have been developed by the XCTIT).

An interesting element in the organizational canvas of the CIC are the autonomous projects it collaborates with. As we remarked in chapter 5, although they are characterized by varying degrees of managerial autonomy, what is particularly important about them is the fact that they form a local network of productive projects animated by the same principles and values as the CIC, with which they collaborate in the context of the empowerment of the local cooperative economy.

Alongside these autonomous projects, the economic and territorial network of the CIC (which we discussed in chapter 6) encompasses a vibrant ecosystem of local exchange groups which are active in Catalonia. Based on direct exchange and the use of alternative community currencies, the way in which this ecosystem operates represents the model of the autonomous public market envisioned by the CIC as a means of satisfying the needs of the local community. That is, in short, the model proposed by the CIC for the transition to a post-capitalist economy: a local cooperative economy made up of a network of autonomous productive projects with common principles, which, in collaboration with local consumer groups and exchange networks, is able to provide the members of the community with the goods they need.

Acknowledgements

There are no words to adequately express my gratitude to the Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC) for its cooperation. From the very first moment I arrived in Catalonia, I was warmly received by the members of the cooperative, who did everything they could to help me in the research process. I shall not forget their hospitality and solidarity.

For the interviews they gave me, I would like to thank (in no particular order) Joel, Piquete and Xavier B. of the Communication Committee; Rakel B. and Jordi F. of the Coordination Committee; Dani N. and Luis David of the Reception Committee; Mai of the Economic Management Committee; Claudio and Mabel of the Legal Committee; Efkin and Pablo of the IT Committee; Marta S. and Hèctor M. from CASX and ΜaCUS; Miguel of the Common Spaces Committee; Αle F. of the Office of Housing and FairCoop; Elleflane from the XCTIT; Vadó of the CAC; Efkin and Maxigas from Calafou; Rosa from SOM Pujarnol and Sergio of the Productive Projects Committee.

Of the above persons, I am especially indebted to Joel of the Communication Committee. Joel organized several visits to projects related to the CIC (like SOM Pujarnol and Can Fugarolas) so that I could see them close up and devoted more time than any other CIC member to helping me understand the organizational structure of the CIC and its network. I am also hugely indebted to Luis Davis Arias Castaño for assisting me with the interviews in which I needed an interpreter. However, Luis David was not just my interpeter, but also an invaluable research collaborator. We jointly worked out the questions for the interviews we did and we thoroughly discussed the information we collected in that way.

A huge thanks is also due to my colleague from the P2P Foundation, Stacco Troncoso. Stacco’s contribution was decisive: in addition to finding funding for this research project, he was the colleague with whom I jointly worked out the ‘action plan’ for the research. I was also extremely lucky that he was in Barcelona during my first days in the city, putting me in touch with many useful contacts. I would like to thank him for everything he did for me and this project and hope he forgives me for being sometimes a rather difficult person to work with. Lastly, I would like to thank the Robin Hood Cooperative for funding this research.

Lead image by Alexandre Perotto on Unsplash

Footnotes

[1]URL: http://www.robinhoodcoop.org

[2]See, for example, Schneider, N. (2015) ‘On the Lam with Bank Robber Enric Duran’. Vice (Apr. 7), at https://www.vice.com/read/be-the-bank-you-want-to-see-in-the-world-0000626-v22n4

[3]Inspired by the CIC and its principles, initiatives to set up ‘integral cooperatives’ have been formed in countries as far away as Argentina, attempting to adapt the ‘CIC model’ to their local context: an indicative example is the ‘Heraklion Integral Cooperative’ in the author’s home-town of Heraklion in Greece (see http://cooperativas.gr).

[4]Catalonia is well-known for its strong independence movement. We should not forget that most Catalans consider Catalonia a distinct national entity, with its own language, history and national identity. They are characterized by a culture of resistance, considering themselves an enslaved nation. To put it bluntly, they view the spanish state and its government as an apparatus of domination and oppression. Thus, not expecting any assistance from the official spanish state, they are firm in their conviction that they need to rely on their own strength for the development of their local economy. That is why Catalonia has such a long history of self-organization, which, to a large extent, accounts for the rich tradition this place has in cooperative projects. In this sense, CIC is a characteristically Catalan project: it is animated by the principle of self-organization, combined with a strong anti-statist sentiment and a cooperative culture with deep local roots.

[5]URL: http://integrarevolucio.net/en/

[6]The spanish version is accessible online at https://cooperativa.cat/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/02podemos_cast.pdf

[7]Schneider, op. cit.

[8]For those who wish to delve more deeply into the story of Duran, a very interesting ‘portrait’ can be found in Schneider, op. cit.

[9]FairCoop (http://fair.coop) is animated by the same ideological principles and values as the CIC. Most importantly, it provides services and ‘tools’ that are very similar to those offered by the CIC in Catalonia. For example, like the CIC, it has developed an electronic marketplace where FairCoop members can sell the products they make (https://fair.coop/fairmarket/). What, however, clearly differentiates FairCoop from the CIC is its ‘focus’: whereas the geographical epicentre of CIC’s activities is Catalonia, FairCoop is an international project with members from all over the world, rather than from Catalonia alone.

[10]In addition to the ‘permanent assemblies’, the CIC organizes ‘assembly days’ (the so-called ‘jornades assembleàries’) in the Catalan countryside, where its members have the opportunity to discuss important issues in a more relaxed and natural environment.

[11]That was not however the case during the first years of the CIC. In the beginning all committee members were strictly volunteers: the ‘basic income programme’ was launched a few years later.

[12]Interestingly enough, the amount of basic income received by committee members is not the same for everyone, but is determined in agreement between each member and the Committee of Coordination and Economic Management. To put it simply, members can ask for whatever amount of basic income they think they need to be able to work full-time. However, none of them currently receives more than 765 euros and 135 ecos per month.

[13]See CIC (undated) ‘Self Employment’, at https://cooperativa.cat/en/economic-system/social-currency/

[14]As Sebastián Reyna, the President of the Union of Professional and Working Self-employed People (UPTA) in Spain, explains: “autónomos pay a minimum flat rate of around €250 a month…these costs can appear prohibitive given that they have to be paid every month, no matter what you earn…even if you don’t have any work” (Reyna quoted in Mills, G. (2013) ‘Think hard before going self-employed in Spain’, The Local, Jun. 24, at https://www.thelocal.es/20130624/think-carefully-before-you-register-as-self-employed)

[15]The exact amount of the fee depends on the sum total of all the invoices issued (every three months) by a member, which means that the cost of the fee may rise considerably.

[16]Schneider, op. cit.

[17]The committee’s work is characterized by a strong commitment to the (digital) commons, as all the tools it develops are freely available as free/open source software.

[18]URL: http://feina.cooperativa.cat

[19]URL: http://mercat.cooperativa.cat

[20]URL: http://cooperativa.cat/en/catalan-supply-center/

[21]URL: https://cac.cooperativa.cat

[22]URL: http://xctit.replicat.net

[23]URL: http://xctit.replicat.net/licencia-xctit-gpl/

[24]URL: https://www.canfugarolas.org

[25]So far this income has been used to fund projects in XCTIT’s network, such as Faboratory and Can Cuadres.

[26]XCTIT collects 2% of the revenue from the sales of prototypes developed by its collaborators.

[27]http://cooperativa.cat/en/territorial-network/autonomous-projects-of-collective-initiative-apci/

[28]Shareable (2014) ‘Spanish Robin Hood Enric Duran on Capitalism and “Integral Revolution”’, at http://www.shareable.net/blog/spanish-robin-hood-enric-duran-on-capitalism-and-integral-revolution

[29]URL: http://www.aureasocial.org

[30]The calendar of public activities at AureaSocial is accessible online at https://teamup.com/ks2721d89e700255bc

[31]URL: http://www.casx.cat

[32]CIC (undated) ‘Auto-financing’, at http://cooperativa.cat/en/economic-system/auto-financing/

[33]In case that consensus is not possible among CASX members as to whether a project should be funded or not, the members supporting the funding proposal can do so by using their personal CASX deposits.

[34]CIC (undated) ‘Auto-financing’, at http://cooperativa.cat/en/economic-system/auto-financing/

[35]URL: https://www.facebook.com/people/Som-Pujarnol/100010861595073

[36]As a characteristic example of that relationship, SOM Pujarnol performs the function of the CIC committee that is responsible for the recruitment and induction of new CIC members (the so-called ‘Acollida Comisión’) in the province of Garrotxa.

[37]URL: https://calafou.org

[38]For an overview of the productive projects hosted by Calafou, see https://calafou.org/en/content/projects-0

[39]Although Calafou has quite a few working groups, all of which have direct input into the assembly process, the presentations at ‘monographic’ assemblies are made only by the four most important ones (i.e. the working groups on economics, communication, renovation-restoration and productive projects).

[40]Productive projects have to pay a monthly rent of €1 for every square metre of space they occupy at Calafou.

[41]URL: https://www.facebook.com/MaCUS-527463237312344/

[42]CIC (undated) ‘What’s CIC?’, at http://cooperativa.cat/en/4390-2/

[43]URL: http://ecoxarxes.cat/ecoxarxes/

[44]URL: https://integralces.net/el/ces/bank/exchange/otherexchanges/COOP/statistics (accessed on April 24, 2017)

[45]URL: https://www.community-exchange.org

[46]URL: http://integralces.net

[47]URL: http://www.monedasocial.cat

[48]URL: https://bioregionalnordcic.blogspot.gr and http://bioregiosud.cooperativa.cat

[49]CIC (undated) ‘Cooperative public system’, at http://cooperativa.cat/en/cooperative-public-system/

[50]For CIC’s ‘Office of Education’, see https://cooperativa.cat/en/cooperative-public-system/6014-2/

[51]For CIC’s ‘Cooperative Public Health System’, see https://cooperativa.cat/en/cooperative-public-system/health/

[52]For CIC’s ‘Office of Housing’, see http://www.habitatgesocial.cat and https://cooperativa.cat/en/cooperative-public-system/housing/

[53]For CIC’s ‘Office of Transport’, see https://cooperativa.cat/sistema-public-cooperatiu-2/oficina-de-transport/

[54]See, for example, Bauwens, M. & Kostakis, V. (2014)  ‘From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons: Towards an Open Co-operativism’. TripleC 12(1), at http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/561

[55]Pazaitis, A., Kostakis, V. & Bauwens, M. (2017). ‘Digital Economy and the Rise of Open Cooperativism: The Case of the Enspiral Network’. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 23(2), at http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/cQtJrUauKHrIGGYmMZtq/full

[56]Mance, E. & Stallman, R. (2013) Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance, at https://stallman.org/solidarity-economy.html

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The CIC moto: ‘social transformation from below through self-management, self-organization and networking’

My colleagues at the P2P Foundation and I have long been interested in exploring the ‘CIC model’ as an organizational template for the transition to a commons-oriented economy: with that purpose in mind, Michel Bauwens and some colleagues from the P2PF had visited the CIC for two weeks in 2015. This experience prove to be very fruitful, convincing them that the case of the CIC merits further study. So, when the opportunity arose, the P2PF asked me to travel to Catalonia in order to study the CIC more extensively, with the aim of documenting its organizational model.

Doing fieldwork in the CIC means I lived with CIC activists for about two months so as to familiarize myself with their activities. Using the building of AureaSocial – the unofficial headquarters of the CIC in Barcelona, where I had the luck to be hosted – as my ‘base’, I embedded myself in the cooperativa, taking part in its daily life and visited many exciting projects which are connected to the CIC, like the Calafou post-capitalist colony and the MaCUS makerspace.

Chatting with CIC members at the ‘Bioregional’ assembly in Ultramort in May 2016. Photo by Luis Camargo (https://bioregionalnordcic.blogspot.gr/2016/04/album-de-fotos-de-lassemblea-duitramort.html)

The result of this research experience is this special report, which has just been published by the P2P Foundation and the Robin Hood Coop on the Commons Transition website. I hope that fellow commoners and co-operators will find it interesting!

Photo by cuboctahedron

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The post Autogestió: adventures into the new economies of Catalonia appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Christopher D. Cook: In 2008, Alanna Krause hit a wall. Just 25 years old and already rising through the corporate ranks as a global technical support team leader at Bloomberg in London, Krause began to feel that her work was “meaningless.”

“No matter how well I did my job or how much I improved things, ultimately what I was doing was moving numbers from one column to another column,” Krause said.

A year later, amid a rousing protest against the G-20 Summit near her office, Krause had a deeper epiphany. “I was climbing this ladder, but I looked ahead of myself and I saw that no matter how far up it I climbed, there was nowhere up there I wanted to go,” Krause recalled in a speech at the New Frontiers 2016 conference in New Zealand.

Embarking on a journey many might dream of, Krause quit her job and traveled through Spain, India, and the U.S., looking for meaning and fulfillment. She eventually landed in Wellington, New Zealand, where she joined the decentralized, entrepreneurial collective Enspiral.

Functioning as a supportive umbrella for freelancers and social enterprises, Enspiral offers its members creative independence and a strong sense of community. Members pool and invest a portion of the profits from their work into new social-impact projects.

Alanna Krause shows how collective funds can be used at Enspiral.

Enspiral is “a bubble within which we can make our own economy, where we get to set the rules,” Krause says. “We don’t have to wait for the world out there to change for us to start living in the transition economy, right now.”

While Enspiral may operate in a bit of a bubble because its core members are highly paid independent software programmers, it is part of a growing movement forging new paths for freelancers in an increasingly unstable work world.

An emerging collectivist movement

Like an extended smashing of atoms, the 9-to-5 job market has shattered and splintered over the past 25 years in ways that have both liberated and trapped millions of workers.

Uber drivers, ditch-digging day laborers, adjunct professors, freelance software designers, temp attorneys, domestic workers, and often woefully underpaid “task rabbits” hired online at a moment’s notice, wouldn’t appear to have much in common. Their pay and working conditions vary wildly, and some push paper while others handle steering wheels, mops, diapers, or sledge hammers — but what unites them is a gig economy marked by flexibility, instability, innovation, and legal and financial uncertainty.

As the gig economy proliferates, growing numbers are breaking away and creating their own work communities, based on a mix of autonomy and interdependence. Combating precarious economics and social isolation, freelancers are using new open-source technology and old-fashioned shoe leather organizing to create new ways to work and to work together.

Enspiral, for instance, uses a mix of physical meeting spaces, open-source technology, and digital organizing to help workers build creative and economic independence as well as community. The collective is just one piece of a burgeoning global freelancers’ movement that is helping independent workers to reposition power and ownership in a platform-driven age.

Scanning the freelancing terrain, Steve King, a partner at Emergent Research, says he finds loose-knit “guild-like groups informally banding together to help each other” who are sharing their networks and resources for mutual gain. From coworking spaces to platform-based support groups, these freelancers’ networks have cropped up organically, King says.

The constellation of freelancer organizing ranges from Enspiral-type freelancer collectives to newfangled unions for gig workers such as Uber drivers. Whether fighting for living wages and basic rights, or collaborating on projects with fellow freelancers, these initiatives share the larger aim of creating meaning, dignity, and power in their work together.

The gig economy’s roots

As more goods and services are sold via the web and mobile apps on an as-needed (or wanted) basis, the freelance and gig workforce has exploded. In the U.S. alone, 55 million people — about 35 percent of the total labor force — worked on a freelance basis in 2016, according to a newly released study by the New York City-based Freelancers Union and digital freelancing platform Upwork. The ranks of freelancers jumped by 700,000 in just one year, from 2014-2015. Roughly two-thirds of freelancers, 63 percent, are working independently by choice rather than sheer necessity, the study found.

Just in time for the elections, the study also concluded that 67 percent of freelancers “are more likely to vote for candidates who say they support them having ‘a strong voice in deciding issues about their work’ or ‘having access to health and retirement benefits regardless of their employment status.’”

Now that everything else is scalable, modular, liquid and temporary, shouldn’t your benefits be portable? Photo: Freelancers Union, Flickr.

“Independent professionals are an increasingly integral part of the U.S. workforce,” Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel says. “We should be addressing their interests or America will fall behind countries that are better equipping their evolving workforces.”

Sara Horwitz, founder and executive director of the Freelancers Union, echoes that sentiment.

Freelancers “are a diverse but vital part of the U.S. economy, contributing over $1 trillion in freelance earnings to the economy,” Horowitz says. “Now’s the time for business leaders, policy makers and candidates alike to stand up and take notice of their potential influence and to start developing ways to help them overcome the most pressing issues impacting their lives.”

Beyond the coffee shop: freelancers go from “working alone together” to working collectively. Photo by Tim Gouw, Unsplash.

The complex and evolving landscape of freelancing includes compelling success stories but also deep disparities, just as in the larger labor market. “Because contingent work can be unstable or afford fewer worker protections, it tends to lead to lower earnings, fewer benefits, and a greater reliance on public assistance than standard work,” a 2015 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office stated.

Despite vast ranges in worker empowerment and income, this is a precarious group, the GAO found. Contingent workers are more likely than full-time employees to be people of color, women, low-income, and with less education and class mobility.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the ranks of Britain’s self-employed workers have risen by 732,000 since 2008, while permanent conventional jobs rose by 339,000, according to an in-depth report published by Co-operatives UK and partners titled “Not Alone.” But while this may seem a sign of spirited entrepreneurialism, the report found that low-income workers in the self-employed sector are now the norm.

This upheaval has its roots in a deeper power struggle over the terms and conditions of labor. “There is a long-term shift of power from workers to employers since the 1970s,” says Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston University.

Schor says plunging rates of unionization, increased corporate power, anti-labor policies since the Reagan era in the U.S., and a move to producing goods on an as-needed basis globally, have led to a “weakening of workers” — a key reason behind today’s precarious labor. This steady diminishing of workers’ rights has placed even more power in the hands of corporations.

Amid a more volatile global market, “companies don’t want to be locked into providing income security for their workers,” says Gerald Friedman, professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

This volatility is one of the driving factors behind the freelancers’ collectives cropping up today. But it’s not a new phenomenon. “In the nineteenth century, working class self-help organisations included craftsmen’s guilds, co-operatives, friendly societies and the first unions,” the authors of the “Not Alone” report noted.

In today’s “age of economic insecurity and rapid changes in technology there is now the opportunity to reinvent democratic self-help for the twenty-first century in order to widen participation on a fair basis for all in work,” the report added.

Freelancers get collective

Today’s freelancer collectives are driven not just by fancy technology and well-remunerated innovation — they’re sometimes driven by a passion for social change at community and societal levels.

In Spain’s Catalonia region, the Cooperativa Integral Catalana (CIC) offers everything from common meeting places and community dialogues on economic alternatives, to income tax benefits and community pantries where people share local food.

The cooperative strives to be an autonomous community and is building its own kind of political-cultural-economic commons. Once every two weeks, the cooperative hosts open assemblies to discuss ongoing and new projects, ranging from reports and documentaries on capitalism, to developing independent currencies to conduct trade outside of the larger economic system.

The CIC has set its sights on a wider transformation of society — a vision that spans personal autonomy, community sovereignty, and creative exploration of new ways of living and working.

Cooperativa Integral Catalana members with a co-op produced energy drink, which can also be purchased using social currency. Photo by Luis Camargo, CiC, Flickr.

“It is one of our tasks, empowering us to explore other forms of reciprocity, use of so­­­­­­­­cial currencies, fair coins, direct barter and exchange, un-monetized economies, and gift economies,” CIC member Raquel Benedicto says.

Other collectives may not be as explicitly political, yet are forging new collaborative communities that are slowly but surely democratizing the economics of creativity.

In Berlin, the Agora Collective provides artists and other creative workers with a shared space and collaborative formats for developing their work. Agora, which was founded as a coworking space in 2011, provides studios for artists and dancers, collaborative artist workshop programs, residencies, and programs that support international artist collaborations.

“Our coworking floors accommodate professionals of all fields, and allow a diverse and active community to flourish in our building,” the group describes on its website.

With strategic partnerships across Europe, and financial assistance from the Nordic Culture Fund and the Swiss Foundation among others, Agora has been able to think big — providing not only coworking spaces and collaborations, but ongoing dialogues and projects that invite new ways of thinking about work and how it should be valued. Agora’s Circular Economy project, for instance, is an extended conversation about ways to re-organize production and consumption to eliminate waste.

Similarly, Netherlands-based Seats2Meet (S2M) blends shared workspaces and social networking, tapping an immense desire among freelancers to expand opportunities and social connections. Since its launch with just 10 people in 2005, S2M has grown steadily, connecting tens of thousands of independent workers to thousands of free, shared workspaces around the world — and to each other. As Shareable reported in 2013, S2M links freelancers up with diverse kinds of physical spaces, including ice cream shops, libraries, theatres, and even hospitals.

S2M president Ronald van den Hoff says what began as an experiment in sharing physical spaces evolved into a knowledge exchange, peer support network, and community for oft-isolated indie workers. “The rise of the numbers of people using the ‘free workplaces and catering’ was staggering,” Van den Hoff says. “Within months we had hundreds of independent workers daily visiting us, filling up the public lounge, and logistically we were completely overwhelmed.”

Seats2Meet headquarters in Utrecht, Netherlands. Photo: Neal Gorenflo.

Freelancers, “started to co-work almost automatically and share their knowledge and network, [and] somehow the reciprocity flourished,” he says. “So we decided to use ‘the willingness to share’ as a form of payment.” In other words, people could co-work for free as long as they agreed to help each other.

Although S2M is a for-profit company, Van den Hoff says its detachment from venture capital and other forms of investment return imperatives has empowered this model of sharing work among freelancers.

“The main limit is people themselves: the moment startups are financed by VC’s, they are protecting their assets — ‘it is my database, my network, my clients’ — and they lose their ability to share,” he says.

S2M is redefining work and workers’ relationship to each other in important ways. Providing free workspace to those who help each other, for instance, represents the seed of a new social contract between workers, rather than between workers and companies. The organization’s community is rooted in peer support.

New Zealand’s Enspiral Network has also created an inspired model of freelancer collaboration and community. What began as a coworking space among like-minded people in Wellington six years ago has evolved into a new-fangled cooperative linking freelancers and social enterprises in a global network of mutual aid and collective action.

Like other freelancer collectives, Enspiral, has grown beyond simply sharing a physical space. The organization mixes independence and collectivism, enabling creative workers such as graphic designers, tech gurus, data whizzes, and others to pursue their ventures — with administrative and other support systems funded collectively by the group’s members.

“What do you need?” — taking care of each other at Enspiral. Photo: Namaste.org.

The Enspiral Foundation, a charity run by Enspiral members, provides the connective tissue between the community’s contributing members, freelancers, and social enterprises alike. Contributors voluntarily donate to the foundation, and decide democratically how to use the money to improve their social impact and business prospects. Together, contributors’ have created Enspiral Services, a “market-facing” entity where they promote their services collectively.

Among the group’s many innovations is Loomio Cooperative, whose main offering is an open source democratic decision-making platform. Launched in 2012 when Enspiral members and Occupy activists recognized a need for collaborative decision-making tools, Loomio is simultaneously a limited liability company with investors and a registered worker-owned cooperative.

All these organizations represent new models of independent and interdependent worker communities supporting each other’s work socially, professionally, and collaboratively — created from scratch, without huge amounts of capital, big investors, or bureaucracy.

The cooperative explosion

Growing numbers of freelancers are also seeking out or creating cooperatives — some organized as online platforms, others old-fashioned brick-and-mortar — for community and financial stability.

Despite many distinctions, what unites platform co-ops and traditional worker co-ops is their focus on shared worker power and profits. “In the 19th and 20th century, the shop floor was the primary arena for worker organizing, now it’s platforms,” says Nathan Schneider, writer and scholar-in-residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Amid the demise of the labor social contract and the rise of contingent work, says Schneider, the gig economy creates “atomized and individualized participants, and is really structured for us to be competing with each other.”

“We need to imagine alternatives to that model,” Schneider says.

As the gig economy has centralized profits while decentralizing work, digital activists and entrepreneurial creators are launching slews of platform cooperatives — websites and mobile apps that provide a service or sell a product but that share ownership, governance, and profits with users. Tech-savvy sharers have created cooperative online marketplaces and peer-to-peer venues like Stocksy and Fairmondo, where the creators and producers run the show.

Fairmondo, founded in Germany in 2012, is a platform co-op alternative to eBay where the more than 2,000 online sellers are member-owners. It puts openness, fairness, and democracy at the core of the enterprise. Co-op employees choose at least half of Fairmondo’s executive board, and major business decisions are made democratically through a general assembly of members. To support their global expansion, Fairmondo is developing a network of self-directed local cooperatives, including one in the UK soon.

“We have seen phenomenal growth of worker co-ops in the past ten years, partly because workers are more precarious, more vulnerable,” says Melissa Hoover, executive director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. “We see people starting worker co-ops to gain protections, because they are too vulnerable on their own. When you’re an independent worker, it’s harder to bargain than when you are part of a cooperative.”

Particularly inspiring, says Hoover, is the “exploding trend” of service sector worker co-ops, many of them launched by immigrant women.

Caregivers, domestic workers, and taxi drivers are joining forces in worker-led and often union-supported ventures to reclaim power and voice in their work. Teaming up with unions and worker advocacy groups such as Make the Road New York, workers are starting co-op businesses providing services such as domestic care and ride hailing services.

“There’s so much focus on Uber drivers, but nobody cares about the day laborers, nobody cares about the domestic workers,” says Emergent Research’s King. “We have to remember this economic shift is hitting people hard, and we have to focus on the ones getting hit the hardest.”

In New York City, transgender Latina beauticians, long suffering discrimination and abuse, are forming their own worker-owned business. “The girls got immediately excited by the idea of creating a business where they would be the sole owners, where there wouldn’t be any bosses verbally and physically harassing them, and where they could earn a dignified wage to survive,” Daniel Puerto, worker cooperative developer at Make the Road New York, a nonprofit that fights for the rights of minorities, told ink.nyc.

Taxi driver co-ops are also paving the way to increased wages, diminished pay gaps between managers and employees, and cab driver healthcare — all while producing a profit, according to a 2015 Democracy at Work report.

Denver alone is home to two driver-run taxi co-ops, showing there is plenty of interest and promise in this alternative. The biggest, Green Taxi Cooperative, employs more than 700 drivers, unionized within the Communication Workers of America, which represents numerous cab worker co-ops. Union Taxi, another taxi driver co-op supported by CWA, slashed drivers’ car lease rate by two-thirds, increasing their earning power and free time.

This May, the New York-based Independent Drivers Guild (IDG) secured an agreement to improve pay, benefits, and working conditions for more than 35,000 Uber drivers, who are treated as independent contractors and thus denied workers’ compensation and other protections. The IDG, affiliated with the Machinists Union, gives these app-based drivers the collective power to improve their earnings and fight abuses on the job.

Through the guild, “our voice will be heard,” says longtime New York City driver and organizer Muhammed Barlas. “More money comes into their pocket, plus they have some protection,” he says.

The two-tiered platform economy

Of course, not everyone is finding entrepreneurial success. The gig economy notion of workers opting in droves to become well-paid freelancers masks a more complicated reality. For every finely paid independent consultant, there are many more “freelance” domestic workers, janitors, and others contending with lower wages and precarious work.

Surveys simultaneously show that a majority of freelance workers want to remain independent, and that an increasing percentage of the labor market — particularly Millennials and minorities — have difficulty attaining adequate paying full-time employment.

Depending on factors ranging from pay and economic leverage to issues of entrepreneurialism and risk, what represents precarious work for some also marks independence for others. Many experience both.

The issue of worker choice is central to whether freelancers and other independent toilers are satisfied with their situation, says Emergent Research’s King. “Consistently fifty to sixty percent of those doing independent work tell us they chose it and they like it,” he says. “About thirty percent say they hate it and want to go back. A lot of it is psychology, people’s risk profiles.”

Our “choices” as workers operate in a context and continuum of real and perceived options — as well as our ability to command high enough wages that we can exercise that free choice.

What dictates worker choice, freedom, and power is not always so clear-cut. “Whether you’re a freelancer by choice or by necessity, what we’re seeing is that the line is increasingly blurry,” says Melissa Hoover, executive director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

For instance, Hoover says, some lower-paid independent workers are highly entrepreneurial, while, adjunct professions may not want to be working on a freelance basis.

“There’s a substantive difference between freelancers organizing to get more work, and independent workers protecting themselves against abuse on the job,” she says.

At the same time, Hoover says, high wage freelancers also need basic legal protections. “The common thread is that without an employer there’s very little protection, very little stability,” she says. “Whether you’re freelancing by choice or not, you’re still dealing with the externalization of costs by employers.”

Despite the risks and uncertainty, researchers for the “Not Alone” report concluded that many self-employed workers “enjoy working this way and would not necessarily want to return to a traditional job.”

“While this does not disguise their low income and their social and economic insecurity, a key point to take into account is that they do not necessarily want ‘saving’ or ‘rescuing’ from self-employment but instead seek recognition, support, and assurance that the risks and rewards of their status are balanced fairly between them and the organisations they trade with,” the report noted.

The role of unions

Unions may seem an afterthought in today’s disarrayed economy, where only eight percent of the private sector workforce enjoys collective bargaining power. Yet, while still organizing millions of workers directly on job sites, unions play an equally important role as supporting actor for worker alliances, cooperatives, and guilds seeking to galvanize freelancers’ power.

“Labor was built firm by firm, sector by sector — now the economy is far more fluid,” says Institute for the Future’s Natalie Foster. Since the early 1990s when the “temping of America” and contingent work disrupted traditional shop-floor organizing based on a single worksite, unions have scrambled to adapt to this atomized workforce.

Technology may be part problem and part solution. The tech-based jobs in the gig economy have further dispersed workers and jobs, making it harder for unions to connect and organize — but many unions are embracing both shoe leather and digital organizing.

With support from The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and more than 50 community-based domestic worker groups around the country, the Domestic Workers Alliance has emerged as a change agent for thousands of nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers across the U.S. who are pressured into independent contractor status marked by unlivable wages and abuse on the job.

As more of this “work that makes all other work possible” gets farmed out via online platforms such as care.com and handy.com, these workers — largely immigrant women and women of color — become further isolated.

“The more companies go online to find domestic workers, they’re getting all their workers on their platform, it’s really affecting how workers find work,” says Barbara Young, national organizing director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), and a 17-year veteran of domestic work herself.

Many domestic workers endure 60-hour work weeks with no overtime pay, harassment and abuse, no time off for personal health, and lack of clarity about their pay and job security, says Young. Nearly one in four are paid below their state’s minimum wage.

An NDWA survey found that domestic work is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, Young says. “But the reality of the work is it’s very unstable and insecure.”

Young says platforms like care.com initially offered $5 an hour domestic jobs, but “we said it’s too low, you’re breaking the law,” and eventually, with pressure from her organization and its 20,000 domestic workers, some firms improved.

Another domestic worker alliance initiative, Fair Care Labs, helps spawn market-based and technology-driven ventures to create a just future for the industry.

“As more domestic work shifts online, through on-demand platforms in the gig economy and online marketplaces, the issues related to domestic work have been shifted, not solved,” Palak Shah, the group’s alliance director of social innovations, explains on the group’s website. “We want to effect change while the DNA of the online economy is still being written.”

As this “DNA” writes itself, the AFL-CIO and many worker advocacy groups are promoting public policies to help protect the millions of on-demand workers who may not benefit from platform innovations.

In its agenda for the on-demand economy, the labor umbrella group promotes racial and gender equity in new digital economy jobs, advocates for new approaches to hold companies accountable for their working conditions, and champions portable benefits policies that will provide workers with a robust safety net.

Beyond equitable wages and protections, however, lie equally important if less tangible challenges: How can we ensure that these emerging freelancers’ collectives are able to sustain their work in the long-term? What role could public policy play in supporting these efforts? Can these communities find ways to share their knowledge and lessons learned to aid future freelancer initiatives?

Amid a fractured employment world marked by invention and insecurity, freelancers are confronting macro-level economic challenges as well as age-old tensions between individualism and collectivism.

Even a successful story like Enspiral remains both inspiring and cautionary.

“Our freelancer co-op model is still underdeveloped,” cofounder Joshua Vial explains. “We face many unsolved challenges such as recruiting leadership, providing income security, managing quality, securing sufficient working capital, resourcing work ‘on’ the business and supporting people without managing them.”

As the economy promotes this dizzying mix of exploitation and inventive community-building, freelance workers — in both higher and lower wage sectors — are fighting for legal rights, creating new work arrangements, and building businesses with social vision. Somewhere between economic coercion and human agency, with plenty of success and struggle, freelancers are finding their way through the economic wilderness.

Our gratitude goes to Steve King and family who provided funding for this piece and other stories on freelancing, platform cooperatives, and libraries. 

Freelance collectives — stronger together. Photo: Mike Benedetti, Flickr.

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The kernel of this economic model are the so-called local exchange networks (or exchange groups), which are usually made up of tens or hundreds of members who exchange products and services by using their own digital currencies. In essence, each exchange network constitutes a self-organized marketplace for the local community in which its members can buy and sell locally-available products and services. The payment can take the form of barter exchange or if that is not possible, it can be made by means of the local currency used by each exchange network. Transactions made by using these local currencies are based on the principle of mutual credit, which means that when a transaction between two persons occurs, the account of one person is credited, the other’s debited. To illustrate with an example: if two individuals have no credits in their account and they exchange a loaf of bread at a price of 3 “monetary units”, then one of them will end up with 3 units and the other with 3 units below zero (that is, a “negative balance” of 3 units). From a technical point of view, keeping track of transactions and of members’ credit and debit balances is done through online platforms known as community exchange systems. These platforms constitute the tool with which members of exchange networks manage their accounts, as well as a virtual marketplace for buying and selling locally-available products and services.

A documentary about the local exchange network in Garrotxa

In Catalonia, in specific, there are more than 40 exchange networks known as “eco-networks” (“ecoxarxes” in Catalan) because of the local Catalan currency “eco”, some variant of which they all use. Its “birth” in Catalonia can be traced back to 2009 – about a year before the formation of the CIC in 2010 – when the eco-networks of Tarragona and Montseny introduced their own alternative currency (CIC 2015, Flores 2015).

Number of transactions per month in CIC’s eco-network (Source: IntegralCES)

Although their size differs substantially, some eco-networks have thousands of members: indicatively, the eco-network launched by CIC in 2010 has 2782 members (IntegralCES). From a technical point of view, the operation of about half of the eco-networks is based on the community exchange system (CES), while the rest, including the CIC, have “migrated” to the IntegralCES platform, which was developed upon the initiative of the CIC and several eco-networks as a modified version of CES that is adapted to their local needs.

The IntegralCES homepage

Despite the fact that eco-networks represent an autonomous local structure, they are not cut off from each other: first of all, the software platforms they rely upon for their operation make it possible for members of different eco-networks to engage in transactions. Secondly, though each eco-network has its own autonomous assembly, they are all connected through the “institutions of meta-governance” evolved by the community of eco-networks, such as the “Space for the coordination of social currencies” (Espai de coordinació de monedes socials) and the so-called Bioregional assemblies of the South and the North of Catalonia, which serve as an informally-organized coordinating organ for eco-networks across the Catalan territory.

Bioregional assembly (Ultramort, May 2016)

These are the outlines of the economic ecosystem in which the CIC is embedded and which it proposes as a tool for the transition to the post-capitalist society it envisions: a horizontally organized network of self-managed exchange networks with their own community currencies.

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Fira FESC: the trade fair organized by XES in Barcelona

In addition to networking, the activities of XES are centered on lobbying Catalan municipalities for the adoption of an appropriate legal and regulatory framework for the social and solidarity economy. In parallel, XES is involved in several projects, which include the organization of training courses (such as the summer school it launched this summer and a new educational program starting in September), the creation of an interest-free mutual credit market based on a local social currency (called “ecosol”), the publishing of books and the InfoXES journal, the development of an indicator (called “Balanç Social”) for measuring the social and environmental contribution of social economy organizations and the collaboratively-developed map “Pam a Pam” for the Catalan social economy.

Pam a Pam: mapping the Catalan social economy

Internally, the organization of XES’ activities is based on a dozen autonomous committees made up of about 60 volunteers, whose work is coordinated by the so-called “permanent committee”. Aside from the committees, for the purpose of strategy formulation and decision-making XES holds three assemblies per year, in which all members of its network can participate.

The governance model of XES

For its economic sustainability, XES depends on the fees paid by its members and on public funding it receives for specific projects (e.g. the Catalan government provides funding for the creation of local networks and the Municipality of Barcelona for the development of “Balanç Social”), while the costs of the trade fair it organizes every year in Barcelona are covered by the rent (of 100-150 euros) paid by the participating producers for their stands.

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