Here is Gavin Mendel-Gleason’s 15 minute video presentation on Exvestment.

From the shownotes to the presentation:

A brief introduction to the political economy of open source and some thoughts on the production of open source software now and in the future.

The post Exvestment: The Political Economy of Open Source Software appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Reposted from our Commons Transition website, here’s an interview with Rajesh Makwana,  executive director of Share The World’s Resources, (or STWR). STWR is a London-based civil society organisation campaigning for a fairer sharing of wealth, power and resources within and between nations. The interview is part of a series on Commoners in Transition.

Can you define Commons Transition, tell us what it means to you?

Although the commons is now widely recognised as referring to the process of democratically managing a broad array of natural and produced resources that we all have a collective right to share, defining a ‘commons transition’ is not quite as straightforward. In part, this is due to the different approaches to managing shared resources that commons theorists have put forward. For example, whereas the late Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrum focused predominantly on the management of common-pool resources by local communities, Peter Barnes takes a more systemic and nation-wide approach to managing our common wealth and generating ‘dividends for all’. The ground-breaking knowledge-commons transition outlined by Michel Bauwens is also a systemic approach that could initially be implemented with assistance from the Ecuadorian government, while James Quilligan, David Bollier and others have put forward suggestions for the effective management of trans-boundary and global commons.

At the same time, many activists and civil society organisations working in other fields recognise the commons as an important concept, especially in their opposition to the privatisation of natural resources and the commodification of public services, but they often remain less concerned with the need to establish a dedicated commons sector. For example, many progressives regard remunicipalisation as a commons approach, even though this process is mainly associated with the public sector. But some commons theorists might argue that de-privatisation does not embody the spirit and true meaning of the commons, and rather advocate for the process of ‘commonification’ based on stakeholders governing and managing services in a fully participatory manner.

Given this rich and still evolving conversation on the role of the commons in society, a definition of what exactly a commons transition would entail is best expressed from a broad and inclusive perspective. For Share The World’s Resources (STWR), a commons transition is about establishing a diverse array of commons-based practices and institutions that can ensure a far more equitable distribution of wealth, power and resources across society. Such systems of commoning are most often realised on a local basis, but in terms of achieving environmental sustainability it is also vitally important to establish them at the national and global levels. This of course is an unprecedented challenge and much more research and discussion is needed on how to manage commons on this scale.

Can you share with us some examples of Commons transitions?

Many examples of commons can be found in traditional processes that occur at the local and community level, such as seed sharing, the management of land and natural resources including lakes, fisheries and forests by stakeholders, or forms of community supported agriculture. It’s worth noting, however, that often those engaged in these traditional forms of commoning would not necessarily consider themselves as ‘commoners’ or even classify what they do as being part of the commons. This is especially true when we consider that the commons can include other aspects of social and civic life such as gift economies, or the production and communication of knowledge and culture. As long as the concept of the commons can be applied to such a broad range of practices, our understanding of what a ‘commons transition’ is will need to include the scaling up of these existing social and cultural processes.

As Michel Bauwens and others have identified, there is one particular sphere of activity in which a commons transition is most clearly evident in the digital age: the knowledge economy. There now exists a well-established and still growing community of collaborators who are contributing to the development of common pools of knowledge, computing code and even design for manufacturing. Wikipedia, Mozilla, and Wikispeed are just a few well-known examples of this new open knowledge, free software and open design economy that is revolutionising our understanding of how value can be created in society. These emerging methods of collaboration are facilitated by the networking power of the internet and form the basis of a new sharing-oriented production paradigm that does not conform to capitalist or socialist economic models. As the writer and analyst Jeremy Rifkin argues in his more recent books, these web-based practices—alongside the localised production of renewable energy, the ‘internet of things’ and new modes of distributed manufacturing—could play a key role in advancing a third industrial revolution.

There can be little doubt that the impact of these new modes of production and consumption could have a significant impact on traditional economic activity, such as manufacturing and international trade. While these new forms of commoning could potentially reduce carbon footprints and increase access to certain resources, it is not yet clear how positively they would affect pressing national and global issues such as ending extreme poverty, reducing inequality or democratising governments.

How realistic is a Commons Transition at local, national and global levels?

Rajesh Makwana

Although a full-scale commons transition might appear unrealistic for the time being, new forms of social and economic organisation are absolutely necessary if humanity is to survive into the 21st century. The transition to commons-based practices and institutions are a key part of this process, but as yet such practices are most likely to establish themselves at the local level in relation to natural resource management and forms of collaborative consumption. As previously mentioned, the main exception to this is the development of the digital commons in terms of information and technology, which inherently transcends local and national boundaries to include producers and consumers across the globe.

However, there are promising signs that commons practices and institutions are being considered more seriously as nationwide and even international solutions to some of the key challenges humanity faces. The FLOK Society Project that Michel Bauwens has been advancing in Ecuador is a prominent example of this, which reflects the need for governments to support the development of a dedicated commons sector. Similarly, Peter Barnes’ proposals around sharing the common wealth derived from renting a nation’s shared resources to the private sector (which builds upon the Alaska Permanent Fund model) are being ever more widely discussed, as are various cap and share/dividend models for curbing atmospheric emissions. Scaling up commons practices and institutions to the international level remains an urgent challenge, especially at a time when the global commons (such as the atmosphere, oceans or natural resources in the polar regions) are being rapidly depleted or polluted. But even here, there are a number of ideas that could be adopted if the political will was sufficient, such as introducing cap and share systems within a global contraction and convergence framework.

The key to scaling up the commons is the transformation of the state apparatus so that it can operate as a partner to the commons sector. Only if such a transformation is achieved can it ever be possible for governments to facilitate the development of commons-based institutions for the sustainable and equitable stewardship of the global commons. The establishment of grassroots commons models and even commons federations that can mobilise politically (as David Bollier suggests in his book Think Like a Commoner) can play a key role in challenging the status quo by demonstrating sustainable economic alternatives.

However, it will not be possible to transition to a world with thriving commons-based practices and institutions without also working towards reforming both the state and private sectors. It is unlikely that commons-based systems can be provided with the regulatory and political support they need without first limiting the excessive power and influence of corporations and democratising our economic systems—issues that remain a central focus for people’s movements, campaigners and civil society organisations across the world.

What practical steps can we take to enable a Commons Transition?

As just mentioned, an essential part of achieving a commons transition is the establishment of truly democratic models of governance at all levels of society, which must go hand-in-hand with a radical overhaul of the private sector. For some within the commons movement, reforming what Philip Bobbitt has described as the ‘market-state’ is seen as a lost cause, and the emphasis is placed instead on scaling up diverse forms of commoning as the route to creating systemic change. One downside of this alternative approach is that it could alienate committed commoners from the vast majority of progressive organisations, activists and engaged citizens who would potentially support a commons transition, but are also working towards reforming the market-state through a vast array of ongoing campaigns and direct actions.

It makes sense to work towards these related goals simultaneously, especially since the commons sector is ultimately dependent upon state support for it to function effectively on a national, regional and global scale. Therefore, in STWR’s view, a commons transition necessitates a diverse and inclusive approach to reforming the market-state, as truly democratic governance at all levels of society is a fundamental prerequisite for instituting a functioning commons sector. This approach is arguably also the most effective way of generating widespread public support for the commons, without which it is hard to envisage the transition ever taking place.

As STWR argued in a recent report entitled Sharing as our common cause, the key to achieving broad-based support for transformative change is through raising awareness and support for the principle of sharing in political and economic terms. In our analysis, the demand for sharing wealth, power and resources more equitably and sustainably has the potential to unite commons advocates and those campaigning to reform the state and private sectors. The report highlights how the principle of sharing is already central to diverse calls for social justice, environmental stewardship, global peace and true democracy.

Our ‘global call for sharing’ campaign aims to build upon this recognition among civil society organisations and the wider public, and promote the role that a call for sharing can play in uniting progressive movements across the world. Given the many barriers to progress that commons advocates face, this process of building support among a much wider group of campaigners and concerned citizens is perhaps the most urgent and pragmatic part of any commons transition initiative.

If we were to achieve a Commons-based society, what could be the risks and pitfalls?

A commons-based society would ideally be one in which various forms of commoning take place at all levels of society—and not just on a local basis. Achieving this is particularly challenging in light of pressing global issues such as climate change or potential conflicts over control of the planet’s natural resources. One of the risks of achieving a commons-based society is therefore the potential failure to incorporate commons thinking at the national and global level of social and political organisation. Establishing sustainable local commons, for example, will make relatively little impact on the governmental policy decisions that ultimately determine a country’s carbon emissions. In the end, preventing runaway climate change requires governments to establish a cooperative global framework for sharing the global commons (such as the atmosphere), and this will require the engagement of commoners in a range of new and existing campaign activities with a definite global emphasis.

Another problem with focusing only on local commons-based solutions is that, in many cases, local commons could feasibly exist within the current neoliberal framework without posing a significant challenge to the extremely unequal distribution of power and resources that underpins the many crises we face. This is especially the case when governments support commons-based initiatives while also advancing neoliberal policy measures that ultimately undermine the creation of sharing societies. One example of this cynical approach is the widely-criticised Big Society project, which was introduced in the UK by the Conservative Party alongside debilitating austerity measures that significantly reduced public sector spending. In light of the dominance of neoliberal orthodoxy, it is clearly important that commoners also continue to engage with perennial issues around curbing corporate power and influence, democratising governance, ending poverty and reducing inequality within and between countries. Many commons advocates are very familiar with these issues, but much more emphasis within the commons movement could be placed on supporting progressive campaigners working on these longstanding concerns.

What are the potential roadblocks on the way to a Commons-based society?

Government policy remains heavily invested in maintaining an economic model that prioritises short-term business interests ahead of the common good. This presents a major roadblock for all progressives—those campaigning for a commons-based society as well as those focussing exclusively on justice, sustainability, peace and democracy issues. Ending the illegitimate and excessive influence that corporations are able to wield over governments and society will therefore be a major battleground in the years to come for commoners as well as for other more conventional progressive campaigners.

In the first instance, overcoming the illegitimate power of corporations will require citizens of all nations to reclaim their democratic right to a ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’. This process may not be perceptible in many countries as yet, but citizens are rising up across the world on an unprecedented scale to voice their opinion on the future direction of public policy. From the anti-war protests in 2003 to the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, the recent protests in Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, Thailand, Hong Kong and elsewhere, ordinary people are demanding that political power is shared more equitably throughout society—which is arguably an indispensable part of any transition to a commons-based society.

It is clear that we cannot wait for governments to rethink the management of an economic system built upon endless consumption and competition over resources. A shift towards a new economic model in which the commons can thrive can only be brought about through the active engagement of civil society, with concerted efforts to overcome the corporate and political forces that stand in the way of creating a truly cooperative and sharing world. As an initial contribution towards shifting the public debate in the necessary direction and generating momentum for change, STWR recently launched a statement that can be signed by individuals and organisations to demonstrate their support for the principle of sharing in relation to their work and campaigning activities. You can read and sign this statement here: www.sharing.org/global-call

Give a concrete example where a Commons-based societal dynamic would solve a present-day problem (and tell us how it would achieve this)

One example that warrants serious consideration by policymakers is the Sky Trust proposal put forward by Peter Barns in 2001, which calls for the establishment of a transparent and accountable commons institution that operates at the national level to help manage carbon emissions. The Sky Trust is one of a number of examples of ‘cap and share’ mechanisms that are widely discussed among environmentalists as pragmatic and equitable solutions that can enable governments to limit and manage carbon emissions. Simply put, once an annual carbon limit has been agreed by the State, the Trust would auction carbon burning permits upstream to producers. The income generated by the Trust would be distributed equally to citizens once the Trust’s administrative costs and other essential deductions have been subtracted. Producers would inevitably include the cost of these permits into the price of their products—i.e. the oil and gas they sell. Since everyone would receive an equal dividend from the Trust, those who buy fewer carbon intensive products would benefit most, and this would tend to be families on lower incomes as they generally have lower carbon footprints.

For this system to work effectively as a commons, it would have to function independently of the State and the private sector, and it would need to be governed by elected trustees on behalf of citizens and future generations. However, for such a Trust to contribute meaningfully to reducing global carbon emissions, the agreed carbon limit would need to be progressively reduced every year until a nation’s CO2 emissions reach an environmentally sustainable level. There would also need to be international agreement on the acceptable level of emission caps for different countries, and this would have to be part of a broader strategy to manage global emissions fairly. As mentioned before, the contraction and convergence model provides a useful framework for such a program. Although the approach highlighted here presents a rational solution for addressing global warming, the level of international cooperation needed for such an agreement to hold is likely to remain elusive within the context of today’s highly competitive global economy.

Artwork for STWR’s Global Call for Sharing

How do the Commons Transition policy proposals fit in with STWR’s proposals, and how do they compare in their approaches?

The P2P foundation’s commons transition policies are certainly in line with STWR’s vision of a world in which wealth, power and resources are shared more equitably and sustainably both within and between nations. In particular, ensuring open access to knowledge can help society to shift towards more participative economic systems and environmentally sustainable (as well as easily accessible) methods of production and consumption. These are important components of the democratic and ecologically sound economic paradigm that STWR advocates for. Other components include a radically reformed private sector that is no longer able to exert undue influence over public policy, as well as a more effective public sector that can ensure universal access to essential goods and services such as healthcare and social security within every country. The commons sector would be an essential counterpart to these reformed aspects of more traditional economic systems, and all three sectors (public, private and commons) would ideally be managed through governance systems that are truly democratic and prioritise equity and environmental sustainability.

While the principle of sharing underpins both STWR’s and the P2P Foundation’s proposals, much of our work focuses on the urgent need to end hunger and avoidable poverty-related deaths, as well as the imperative need to reduce global consumption levels to within ‘one planet’ boundaries. Given the global dimension of these issues, our research and advocacy work is particularly concerned with the necessary reforms and new institutions that should be established at the international level. With some 40,000 people dying needlessly every day for lack of access to essentials such as nutritious food, clean water and basic healthcare, our primary reason for promoting various forms of economic sharing is to see an end to this ongoing atrocity.

Commons-based approaches to managing community resources have a significant role to play in furthering more sustainable methods of economic development, but these can only be part of humanity’s response to what we often describe as a global emergency. As outlined in our website and publications, some of the most pressing problems that humanity faces require an immediate and unprecedented response from the international community. This includes increasing levels of hunger and extreme poverty, the human impacts of climate change, and even the harsh consequences of austerity measures that are increasingly affecting people in developed countries as well as within the so-called developing world. If humanity is ever to address these urgent issues, governments will need to adopt new forms of resource sharing on a scale that has never before been attempted. Since we cannot rely on policymakers to initiate such measures, implementing a process of economic sharing and cooperation on a global scale will necessitate far greater solidarity and collaboration among progressive organisations, activists and the wider public.

How would you foresee a possible collaboration?

Since the establishment of commons-based peer-to-peer systems clearly embodies the principle of sharing and is likely to play an important role in the advancement of a new economic model, STWR will naturally continue supporting the efforts of the P2P Foundation. At present, we can best cooperate with and support your work through our ongoing research activities and the writing of reports, articles and blogs, by which means we are able to highlight relevant sharing-related and commons-based initiatives. We can also use our newsletters and social networks to promote Michel Bauwens ongoing research and activities, and we hope to engage more actively with the various Wiki pages that the P2P Foundation has established. We are sure that additional opportunities to highlight your work will arise in the future, such as interviews with your staff or invitations to events that we might organise.

The P2P Foundation and its staff have already provided STWR with a great deal of support by highlighting our work on their various webpages and endorsing our ‘global call for sharing’ as individuals and as an organisation, for which we are very grateful. I am sure that the Foundation will continue in its support for STWR as we further develop the global call campaign over the course of the next five years alongside our expanded research, writing and campaigning activities. We look forward to the time when those advocating for sharing in its many different forms—as yet a disparate group of progressives working across a broad spectrum of urgent social, environmental and political causes—are framing their activities more explicitly in terms of sharing, and actively reaching out across single issue silos to build a united movement for transformative change. I have no doubt that the P2P foundation will continue to play an important role in this regard.

What are the next steps for STWR?

There are currently two main strands to STWR’s work. Through our research and writing, we will continue to make a case for integrating the principle of sharing into public policy as a pragmatic solution to a broad range of interconnected crises that governments are currently failing to address—including hunger, poverty, climate change, environmental degradation, and conflict over the world’s natural resources. We have set out an ambitious research agenda that will enable us to examine a host of pressing issues through the lens of sharing in the months and years ahead.

At the same time, through our ‘global call for sharing’ campaign we aim to promote the role that a call for sharing can play in uniting citizens and progressive organisations across the world in a  common cause. To help achieve the campaign’s broad goals, we will continue to promote our sign-on statement to encourage individuals and organisations to explicitly acknowledge the importance of sharing in political and economic terms, and commit to engage in this emerging debate through their work and campaigning activities. The overall campaign forms a key part of STWR’s organisational strategy in the period ahead, and will be supported by our broader research, writing and outreach work.

Through these various activities, we hope to strengthen our ties with progressive organisations and activists that are (either implicitly or explicitly) calling for a fairer sharing of wealth, power or resources. As we add more sharing-related ideas and content to our website and collect additional endorsements for our global call campaign, we aim to help shift the discourse among our target audience and influence them to frame their work more directly in terms of sharing. Over the long term, STWR’s objective is for policymakers and the general public to recognise the centrality of sharing as a key organising principle in the creation of a sustainable and equitable global economy that is fit for the 21st century.

The post Share the World’s Resources, a conversation with Rajesh Makwana appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Our News and Articles section features interviews and articles involving Commoners in Transition, or, individuals and teams working together towards increasing the viability of the commons. Here, we present an interview with Janice Figueiredo, who was part of the FLOKSociety project launched in Ecuador. Janice spoke to us about her own experience collaborating with and learning from the indigenous people of the region.

What is your background, and how did you get involved in the project in Ecuador?

I am a Brazilian citizen who has lived abroad for about 20 years, both in the United States and in Europe (Paris, France). I worked at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) as IT project manager until 2009, when I decided to radically change my life and started placing my actions, work and studies in areas that, in my understanding, have the potential to genuinely transform the world into a more inclusive and fairer place. I directed my interests to researching the fields of collective intelligence, collaborative movements, P2P dynamics, the commons, the open and sharing society, social business, complementary currencies, sustainable development and poverty reduction, having a particular interest in exploring alternative models to the conventional economic paradigms based in centralization and scarcity.

I spent most of 2012 in Brazil, and got actively involved with several P2P-related projects in Rio de Janeiro, where I currently live. I joined academic research groups on the Collaborative Economy and Peer Production in Brazil, carried out collaborative projects in Rio’s favelas, took part in civil society and social movement initiatives that proposed commons-oriented alternatives for the planet (such as the People’s Summit), and got involved with different projects related to the sharing economy in Brazil.

I have a B. Sc. in Computer Science, a M. Sc. in Strategy and Marketing, and have completed post-graduate courses in the area of Sustainable Development.

In September 2013, Michel Bauwens – who I first met in Brazil in July 2012, on the occasion of the Rio+20 UN meeting – invited me to be part of the research team that would be producing public policy recommendations for a transition to a Social Knowledge Economy in Ecuador. I immediately accepted the invitation!

You visited a lot of urban commons communities in Quito. What is your summary of their experiences and concerns ?

My research area, “Open infra-structures for collective life”, explored how citizens and communities could benefit from as well as take an active part in the building of a Social Knowledge Economy. On the one hand, we investigated how communities could, in an autonomous way, create and maintain mutualized infrastructures needed for their lives, such as housing and food systems. On the other hand, we explored how knowledge systems could be created and governed by communities.

The principles of solidarity and cooperation are deeply rooted in the Ecuadorian culture. Several community needs are achieved through autonomous practices whose origins come from the traditions of the Indigenous quechuas. The most well-known of these initiatives are mingas. These are community works towards common goals that have been extensively used in both urban and rural areas to supply the needs of the communities, such as improvement of roads or communal areas, and energy provision, and also as a means to cooperate among families, such as in the case of the building of a house. La minga de la quiteñidad, a yearly community-led event held in some Quito neighbourhoods, chose to promote recycling in one area (December 2014).

Through mingas the main values of the Andean indigenous culture are expressed: union and solidarity among communities. Mingas are seen as a huge celebrations where work, food, collaboration and accomplishments are shared. Ranti-ranti is another solidarity practice intrinsic to the Ecuadorian culture. It represents the concept of reciprocity and abundance: “I give to you because Nature has given to me”. Trueque is a practice of exchange used at open food markets, where sellers exchange what hasn’t been sold among themselves. Randimpa are open spaces self-organized by communities, where discussions and decisions about the community take place.

We visited several initiatives that follow the principles of self-governance that develop and nurture cooperation within their communities. I will mention two of them: the first, “Comuna Tola Chica” represents a group of 400 people that live and work in a communal manner. The community tries to preserve its cultural roots through the development of local projects, such as the School of Traditional Knowledge, and to stimulate ecological and sustainable local projects like the building of a local communal house made with super-adobe construction. All decisions concerning the Comuna are taken in a collective, participatory way, through assemblies open to all residents. Land ownership is communal and all comuneros have the same rights over the lands.

A second project that illustrates cooperation is “Alianza Solidaria”. This project was launched to tackle the lack of access to quality and affordable housing, and was expanded to the building of an autonomous, cooperative community capable of solving their own problems in a cooperative way.

One of the main concerns I’ve noticed among communities is that these principles of solidarity and cooperation are being lost; there are far fewer mingas now than in the 1970’s.

Several individuals suggested that people have become more individualistic and competitive as a result of being influenced by the values promoted by capitalism; people engage less and less with traditional solidarity practices. Another concern observed is that newer indigenous generations no longer want to learn quechua, dress using their traditional customs or preserve their culture, as the media propagates the idea that what comes from the Western world (Europe and the United States) is better and represents the values of a more developed people.

You also worked with indigenous communities and coordinated a policy paper that was written by indigenous activist scholars themselves. What were the results, and how was the paper received ?

At FLOK meetings conducted during the process, the subject of “Ancestral Knowledge” was the one that raised the greatest interest and the most questions from the communities and academia.

Among the 17 policy papers, the “Ancestral, Traditional and Popular Knowledge” paper was the only one written by a group composed exclusively of local, Ecuadorian people. That paper discusses and proposes policies on how to preserve, manage and implement traditional and ancestral knowledge and practices, respecting the diversity of cultures and nationalities of Ecuador.

Ecuador has a total of 14 nationalities and 18 pueblos, and it was quite a challengeto embrace such a diversity of visions and traditions in a single paper. Initially, we engaged 5 indigenous scholars and activists from different ethnicities, each one deeply involved with the subject within their communities, to collectively write a first version of the paper. Later on, we realized the paper should also contemplate non-indigenous visions, such as those of the Afro-Ecuadorian community.

The current version of the paper is the product of a collective work developed by indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian, mestizo and white Ecuadorian scholars and activists. This composition of multiple visions, all from local actors, gives a unique strength to the paper and its policy recommendations.

The policy paper presents proposals for the management of ancestral, traditional and popular knowledge in five main domains: 1) ancestral, traditional and popular knowledge must be declared heritage of the communities and peoples; 2) intercultural, bilingual education must be promoted and strengthened; 3) promotion of proper management of knowledge about biodiversity and traditional and ancestral agricultural practices; 4) strengthening of the relationship between the territories and knowledge and 5) strengthening of traditional and ancestral practices of governance.

What is your overall view of the FLOK process and what are your expectations for the future?

FLOK is a pioneer project, as this is the first time in history that a series of policy documents was produced in a collaborative way to propose, at a national level, a transition to a new economic and societal model based on open and shared knowledge, on the commons, on traditional and ancestral practices and on peer-to-peer production. Producing these documents in such a short time (8 months) was a big challenge. The work represents an integrated view, framed within the Ecuadorian legal system, and resulted from an intense collaborative process that involved meetings with Ecuadorian experts from civil society, academia, government and constant exchange with international experts in each area.

I see this first FLOK experience both as a seed that has been planted, as well as a threshold that has been crossed: a first attempt to provide an alternative model to the capitalist system has been proposed, and this work – not only the document, but the entire process that allowed the production of the documents – can be a source of inspiration to any person, city, civil society collective, region, and can be replicated, modified and adapted according to different contexts and needs. A threshold has been crossed in the sense that an integral proposition has been done for an entire society.

Needless to say, it was a very rewarding experience to be part of the project.

For the future, I expect the commons-transition movement to grow and to strengthen. And that different initiatives, with different flavors, will start to sprout. In the past year, many people showed a lot of interest in the FLOK process – not only during the time we were in Ecuador, but afterwards as well. The world needs profound changes; this is no longer an option, but a necessity. The human being is intrinsically generous and solidary – every culture has solidarity practices that became more and more lost with the individualistic and competitive behavior modeled by capitalism. A commons-transition movement is a real possibility to rescue human cooperation and solidarity and a path to reach harmony with Nature.

Images by Kevin Flanagan

The post Commoners in Transition: Janice Figueiredo appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Image from the cover of “Policies for Shareable Cities“

In this section, we will periodically feature interviews and articles involving Commoners in Transition, or, individuals and teams working together towards increasing the viability of the commons. Our inaugural article is an interview with Chris Tittle and Yassi Eskandari of the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC), an organization which offers “legal education, research, advice, and advocacy for just and resilient economies.”

From “Legal Profession in the New Economy“

Can you define Commons Transition, tell us what it means to you?

Chris: To me, a commons transition speaks to the process of communities progressively controlling and self-governing more and more of their collective resources, by and for themselves and future generations. The “transition” implies that we are moving from one system of organizing society – in this case, global capitalism – to a wholly distinct socio-ecological paradigm rooted in age-old practices referred to as “the commons.” What’s particularly interesting about this transition is that, in many ways, it’s a return to principles of managing our homes that evolved over millennia before the onslaught of industrial capitalism. Our contemporary context is obviously much different from the indigenous and peasant cultures that sustained commons-based societies for thousands of years, but we have much to learn from them in how to undertake this transition.

I think this Commons Transition involves both a confrontation with the forces of neoliberalism – the ideology of privatization and commodification of common resources – and a flourishing of economic and political practices deeply rooted in the diverse cultures and ecologies of communities around the world. It’s ultimately about a movement toward the collective management of our common wealth, and ensuring that everyone shares access to and decision-making about the resources they depend on to thrive.

Can you share with us some examples of Commons transitions?

Chris: There are great examples of healthy commons all around the world. Some of the most interesting examples of commons transitions, though, seem to be happening in communities that have been particularly devastated by the forces of capitalism. In Detroit, Michigan, for example, the industrial economy has almost completely collapsed, leaving entire communities abandoned by both the market economy and the state. In response, these marginalized, mostly African-American communities have come together to collectively manage their own water supply (People’s Water Board) when the city started shutting off water to homes, and to cultivate a network of black-owned urban farms and food hubs (Detroit Black Food Security Network) to provide healthy, locally-grown food while building autonomy and self-reliance.

Another example is the huge opportunity created by the massive generational land transfer that is currently happening in the US. Over the next two decades, it is estimated that almost 400 million acres of farmland – about half of all US farmland – may change hands as American farmers retire. This is an important opportunity to ensure long-term stewardship of this farmland for sustainable and ecological agriculture, and facilitate access to the next generation of young and immigrant farmers who are currently landless. The Sustainable Economies Law Center has recently started collaborating on a project with the Agrarian Trust to design a new commons-based legal structure that could aid in this generational transfer, ensure long-term stewardship of the land, and guarantee more equitable access to this common land heritage. As we develop this commons-based legal structure to hold farmland, we are also beginning to look at other places that new commons-based legal structures could be immediately applied, such as community-controlled water districts, open cooperatives, community-owned renewable energy projects, credit unions, and more.

How realistic is a Commons Transition at local, national and global levels?

Chris Tittle

Chris: I think one of the most powerful aspects of the commons as a framework is the fact that it must happen at all those levels since commons, by nature, exist at all these levels. Many are inherently local or regional – like land and water commons – and some are inherently global – like the atmospheric commons, oceans, and the Internet. Also, due to the interconnected nature of complex systems, it’s very difficult to manage one resource as a commons without managing the surrounding resources as commons, too, so it almost has to happen at all these scales simultaneously.

There are many very obvious and very powerful threats to a commons transition, but history tells us that the commons has been the dominant organizing system for the majority of societies over the vast majority of human history. Global capitalism has a comparatively short existence despite its disproportionately large impact on human and ecological resilience.

Without minimizing the continued threats of enclosure to many common resources, it seems highly realistic to me, both as a result of the continued emergence of local and regional commons across the globe, and the increasing sense that actually-existing-Capitalism is in the process of collapsing on itself. The question is really what will replace that dominant system, not whether it will be replaced – and the commons paradigm is perhaps the most viable option.

What practical steps can we take to enable a Commons Transition?

Chris:

• Organize! Commons only thrive, or come into existence, when the people that depend on a common resource come together to collectively manage it. So community organizing is an essential part of this transition.
• In some cases, I also think it will require communities to continue challenging the forces of enclosure, privatization, and exploitation. This will often require non-violent direct action, like what is happening along the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in North American, and on college campuses around the world in response to increased tuitions costs and the student debt crisis.
• As importantly, this is an opportunity to support local, small-scale, democratically-run businesses, like worker coops, community-supported agriculture, renewable energy cooperatives, credit unions, local currencies, and other ways of ensuring wealth is created and stays local.
• Connect with existing commons-based efforts that already exist in our communities – such as public libraries, tool-lending libraries, and seed libraries – in order to both support their functioning and more fully appreciate their unique way of contributing to community life.

Where do you foresee a Commons Transition taking place?

Chris: In the short-term, it appears that many attempts at a commons transition are being catalyzed by threats to shared resources and ways of life. This is happening in communities like Detroit in the wake of industrial collapse, in bioregions like the Great Lakes of North America in response to threats by tar sands extraction, and also at a national scale in places like Ecuador in response to climate change and neoliberal economic policies and institutions. In many ways the Global South is leading this transition to more commons-based societies, perhaps because many such cultures still have a collective memory of a commons-based society.

I think the commons offers a way of tying a lot of movements together – social justice, environmentalism, economic and food justice, localism, bioregionalism, open source, etc. – and we could see an increasing number of solidarity movements across the globe uniting under the idea of a commons transition.

If we were to achieve a Commons-based society, what could be the risks and pitfalls?

Chris: Commons-based societies offer the potential for a far more just and resilient future, but they will not be utopias. Anytime people are collectively making decisions about something, there is a risk that certain voices and interests will dominate. Commoners must work to ensure equitable access to common resources, and inclusive participation in decision-making to guard against hidden hierarchies that can evolve in the absence of more apparent hierarchies. For example, I did some research on community forest management in Nepal, which is a fantastic example of a successful commons-based approach to resource management, but also found that there were often power hierarchies within communities that marginalized women and indigenous people.

What are the potential roadblocks on the way to a Commons based society?

Chris: There are at least three sets of roadblocks that commoners must work to transform:

• Structural roadblocks, such as a legal system that elevates private property and corporate rights without sufficient corresponding duties to the public good. Even laws designed to regulate industrial activity and protect workers and the environment are now prohibiting small-scale and community-based activities like seed libraries, home-based businesses, local currencies, and urban farms. International trade treaties, such as NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership that is currently be negotiated behind closed doors are major threats to the commons and local economies everywhere. And at least in the US, the stranglehold of corporate money over politics is a fundamental barrier to any real practice of democracy.

• Cultural roadblocks, such as a lack of public education and training in democratic governance, which often makes it difficult to operationalize democratic projects when people must be retrained in how to collaborate. The general culture of separation and individualism that is pervasive in the US and other Western cultures also represents a massive and invisible roadblock, but one that I think can be transformed through more participation in commoning. In my own personal experience, working together with others in my community to steward something we collectively care about, like a local waterway or a community farm, has created some really meaningful relationships that are the basis of a healthy commons.

• Physical roadblocks, including general resource scarcity and degradation in a rapidly globalizing world. We are already in the midst of several global oil wars, and as the extreme drought we are experiencing in California portends, water scarcity might be a future source of conflict. Large-scale land grabbing in Africa, and increasingly in Europe and the US, is an example of this already unfolding.

Give a concrete example where a Commons-based societal dynamic would solve a present-day problem (and tell us how it would achieve this).

Chris: One major issue in many societies is access to land, arguably the source of most wealth in both commons-based and capitalist societies. As mentioned before, almost half of all US farmland is likely to change hands within the next generation, which presents an incredible opportunity for a commons-based approach to large-scale land stewardship. Of course, it also presents a massive opportunity for institutional investors, hedge funds, and foreign governments to further concentrate land and wealth through large land grabs, as is happening across Africa. SELC’s collaboration with the Agrarian Trust to create a new commons-based legal structure – or constellation of legal structures – to hold land in trust in perpetuity, train young and beginning farmers in the ethics and practices of ecological agriculture, and seek community-based and more traditional forms of finance is a really exciting attempt to create a farmland commons across the US.

As I type this, US society is also experiencing a sustained wave of racial justice protests in the wake of multiple tragedies involving white police officers killing unarmed black men. The roots of racial injustice, mass incarceration (California alone incarcerates over 1 million mostly Black and Brown people in a for-profit prison system), and police militarization lie deep in our country, but I can’t help but think a more commons-based approach to public safety could significantly address some of these systemic injustices. Restorative justice and community policing are two strategies that many communities have successfully utilized across the world that are based in principles of the commons. Likewise, racial injustice and economic exploitation are very closely intertwined, so economies that genuinely build local wealth, resilience, and community self-determination could transform the root causes of systemic racism.

How do the Commons Transition policy proposals fit in with Policies for Shareable Cities? How do they compare in their approaches?

Chris: From what I understand of the Commons Transition policy proposals, they are very complementary to the Policies for Shareable Cities brief that SELC and Shareable co-published. Whereas the Commons Transition Plan takes a national or trans-national perspective and suggests policies to cultivate the commons at a large-scale, our policies have focused on what we see as a more responsive level for policy intervention – cities. As mentioned before, most commons are highly interconnected with surrounding commons though, so just crafting local policies for the commons likely won’t be sufficient without larger-scale policies to support larger-scale commons.

Where our approaches seem most similar is looking at how to transform organizations and networks of organizations to better embody principles of good commons management. Peer production licenses are one way of supporting and incentivizing a commons-based approach to enterprise, just as SELC’s focus on democratic and participatory governance of enterprises offers another.

How would you foresee a possible collaboration?

Chris: Two things most immediately excite me about a possible collaboration: 1) articulating a shared framework and understanding of the commons to a much broader and more diverse audience across the US and around the world, and 2) working to develop some really practical and effective governance models for both commons-based enterprises and possibly even Phyles. There isn’t a great literacy with the commons here in the US, so we could likely benefit from the perspectives and experiences of folks in Europe and the Global South. Likewise, SELC is really good at developing innovative yet really practical and easy-to-understand governance models that could help to make emerging commons-based businesses, like open coops, structurally sound for the long-term.

We’d love to discuss other ideas for collaboration in more depth, though!

What are the next steps for Policies for Shareable Cities?

Yassi: The Sustainable Economies Law Center and Shareable co-published Policies for Shareable Cities: A Primer for Urban Leaders in 2013 because we realized that grassroots sharing economy efforts were being stifled by legal barriers at every turn. Of course, legal barriers to the sharing economy span all levels of government, but many legal burdens are imposed at a local level, thus our focus on cities. In writing this brief, it was important for us to clarify that in most cases, the laws challenging the grassroots sharing economy are outdated and were not originally intended to prohibit the types of activities to which they are now posing a barrier. Prevailing regulatory structures such as zoning codes, building codes, securities laws, employment laws, and health and safety laws – though essential protections in many circumstances – do not account for the fundamental difference in purpose, power, risk, and profit in the sharing economy. In the wake of market and state failures to meet the basic needs of communities, the innovative ways people have found to provide for themselves and each other should be cultivated with new policies, not prohibited by the old.

Yassi Eskandari

Our purpose in writing this policy brief was to remove unnecessary burdens on sharing economy initiatives in the areas of food, transportation, housing, and jobs, and to replace these legal barriers with more appropriate regulations. If adopted, the recommendations would remove some of the most common regulatory challenges facing cohousing, cooperative housing, tiny house ecovillages, carsharing organizations, community-supported agriculture, and community gardens. But we don’t want local policymakers to stop there: We want cities to realize that the grassroots sharing economy will help meet local goals for affordable housing, climate, food security, mobility, and economic development, and, as such, policymakers should actually incentivize these activities and initiatives. Cities have the potential to benefit enormously from this new economy, yet local policies will ultimately decide whether the sharing economy is a fringe or fundamental part of the fabric of our communities.

Policymakers can use Policies for Shareable Cities as a how-to guide to becoming active players in the creation of just and resilient economies at the community scale. Similarly, community activists and the stewards of local sharing economies can use the brief as a tool to tell their governments how important it is that their city becomes a sharing city. Our city policy initiative does not end with one publication; it is a dynamic, evolving effort. Future iterations of Policies for Shareable Cities will include public banking as a strategy to create access to finance for the new economy; water policies that enable the capture, reuse, ownership, and collective management of water resources; and policies that support the development of community-owned renewable energy projects that give communities an ownership and governance stake in their energy sources.

Going forward, we will continue to build on our policy recommendations, as well as advocate for their adoption. Because, truly, what is more convincing to a local policymaker than existing, replicable examples of success? Being based in Oakland, California, we are well positioned to apply the concepts of Policies for Shareable Cities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area – and we’ve already started. In San Francisco, we are helping to develop a democratic governance model for what may be the first-ever municipal public bank in the US. Next year, we will advocate for the adoption of our model worker cooperative ordinance in Oakland. And with the release of our forthcoming policy recommendations for the equitable regulation of short-term home rentals, we will work to ensure that local governments in the Bay Area and beyond understand the nuances of this complex issue in order to allow reasonable latitude for cost-sharing without jeopardizing public interests.

In short, the Policies for Shareable Cities initiative is a long-term, multi-pronged effort to lay local policy foundations for a new economy, and opportunities for collaboration with Commons Transition abound!

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