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Southern European countries were among the hardest hit by the 2008 economic crisis. In response to the economic pressure, declining public services and drastic unemployment situation generated by the crisis and the corresponding public policies, the Southern regions of the continent became terrains of experiments in self-organisation and gave birth to new forms of the civic economy. In this contribution, Tiago Mota Saraiva analyses the consequences of austerity policies on Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, focusing on how people tried to create networks of solidarity and resistance.

n his brilliant book about the history of Latin America – “Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina”, (The Open Veins of South America) originally published in 1971 – Eduardo Galeano (1940-2015) starts by writing that the international division of work consists of defining that some countries specialise in winning and others in losing. Galeano describes a history of the region that is made by its own People, a history that does not depend on the greatness and the richness of the Country. A system where development deepened inequalities and popular sovereignty had to be bonded because There Is No Alternative. “It’s a problem of mindsets”, would declare the canny eurocrat after reading Galeano’s introduction. But the system is not far from what is now happening in Europe. This article is about the PIGS, the continental countries of Southern Europe.

The PIGS

This racist acronym has never been claimed by any author. Some sources refer to its use during the end of the 70’s, but it definitely started to be used more often after the 2008 financial crisis as PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) to refer to the five countries that were considered weak economies and possible threats to the eurozone. After 2013, with the Irish exit of eurozone bailout program, PIGS became four again as they were before. While each of these countries had different political and historical contexts and scales, over the last five years they have shared the similar financial impacts of EU austerity measures.

The PIGS countries. Image (cc) Eutropian

The People

From 2001 (the European economic and monetary union fully started on 1st January 2002) until the 2013 crisis peak, Southern Europe’s employment situation changed drastically according to Eurostat. In Portugal (unemployment increased from 3,8% in 2001 to 16,2% in 2013), Italy (9,6% to 12,1%), Ireland (3,7% to 13,0%), Greece (10,5% to 27,5%) and Spain (10,5% to 26,1%) unemployment rates increased dramatically. In the same period, unemployment increased in other European countries, more or less following the EU average, besides Germany and Finland where unemployment decreased, respectively, from 7,8% to 5,2% and 10,3% to 8,2%. These rates assumed an impressive impact on youth unemployment. The April 2014 Eurostat report unveils that one month prior to the official census in unemployment in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain the figures were, respectively, 35,4%, 42,7%, 56,8% and 53,9%.

Poverty in Europe. Image (cc) Eutropian

Despite the brain drain (for example in Portugal the emigration numbers were higher than in the 60’s peak, when the country was living under a fascist regime and fighting several wars in its former colonies), this data shows the massive number of people with no jobs and more free time. If we add to this those people living from precarious labour, with low salaries or low pensions, we may find a number of people that are in need of support to barely survive. Always according to the Eurostat it is in Southern Europe that we find the countries with the largest part of the population in risk of poverty with Greece (36,0% in 2014) and Spain (29,2%) at the top of the ranking.

The Politics

In opposition to what is happening in almost all other parts of Europe, the nationalist and far right parties in Southern European countries are not fighting in order to win elections or lead the opposition towards EU policies. The Greek Golden Dawn, probably the most exuberant party, is far from winning national elections. On the other hand – in Italy, Greece and Spain – there are social movements and local activists gathered in so-called anti-systemic parties/political movements, all with different characteristics, but presenting themselves as the face for the change. Although Syriza – the only one of those parties that, until now, has won national elections – is being severely criticised for its acceptance of the very strong EU austerity policies against which it once was established, in Spain, civic movements won local elections in large cities with a diverse set of new public and city policies that are being implemented.
In Portugal, the massive demonstrations during the Troika’s official period of intervention, did not translate itself into a significant change in the architecture of national parties. However, despite the primacy of the coalition of right wing parties at the 2015 national elections, it did not achieve the majority of MPs to form the government. Instead of a right wing government, the Socialist Party was invested with the parliamentary support of the Left Block, the Communist Party and the Greens, under the agreement of progressively reversing the cuts on wages, pensions and the Social State. For the first time since 1974, when the long fascist dictatorship of Portugal was defeated, the Socialist Party is now leading the country, only backed by the left wing parties in the Parliament.

The State

Even though with different characteristics and at different levels, all these four countries have been witnessing the dismantling of the State. Privatisations of fundamental public sectors and the decrease of the public presence in economy have never been as evident as nowadays.
In Greece and Portugal the situation was extreme. The Troika’s program forced governments to quickly sell the most powerful and profitable public companies at low prices. On the other hand, the Welfare State has proven to became an Assistentialist State only programmed to act in desperate situations and not working on people’s emancipation from poverty. With the increase of sovereign debt, states have increasingly lost their independence in a process that inevitably damaged the democratic system. The “oxi” vote at the Greek referendum and the following reaction of the EU leadership, forcing on the Greek government an even more severe agreement, constitute a historical event we should never forget when analysing the growth of anti-EU feelings and the rising popularity of sovereignty movements among the working classes and poorest urban areas.

Esta es una plaza, self-organised garden in Madrid. Photo (cc) Eutropian

Self-organisation

Despite the high proportion of people unemployed and retired, people in Southern European countries do not have more time left to participate in common or community issues. Precarious and low-wage jobs, the insecurity of personal futures, longer daily commuting, or the family assistance of children and older people are some of the new issues that overload working days. These may be some of the reasons why people tend to participate more in initiatives that start from a will of reaction or resistance to a specific problem – either locally based or humanitarian – than from a global and theoretical ambition of structural and global societal change.
Whilst, on the one hand, PIGS are living under the described extreme economical pressure where people generally think the future will be worse then the present and focus their energies on everyday issues that require immediate responses, on the other hand, locally based self-organised initiatives are flourishing as a consequence of specific and local problems as illustrated by many examples:

Coop57 is a financial services co-op that started in Catalonia, emerging from workers’ fight to keep their jobs at Editorial Bruguera, during the 1980s. Over the last decade, the action of the cooperative spread all over Spain. Its main declared goal is to help the social transformation of economy and society, assuming that money and the Coop57 cannot do it on their own, but that they can play a role in helping people, organisations, collectives and groups that promote policies for investment and quality jobs in food and energy sovereignty, inclusion and spaces for culture and socialisation.

Sewing workshop in Largo Residencias, Lisbon. Photo (cc) Eutropian

Carrozzerie | n.o.t is a theatre space in Testaccio, a former working class neighbourhood in Rome – now in the process of gentrification. The space was renovated in 2013 and it hosts dance, theatre and performative projects of younger generations of artists. It defines itself as a space for slow time, courageous and far-sighted projects. Carrozzerie | n.o.t works in the same artistic areas as Largo Residências, in the Intendente neighbourhood of Lisbon. Until 2012, Intendente was seen as one of the most dangerous areas in the city centre and an area to be renewed on a large-scale urban operation. Largo Residências started in 2011, renting a building on the square, and assuming the goal to fight against the gentrification of the area. The cooperative that organises all of Largo’s activities is now running in the building a floor of artistic residences, a hostel, a café open in to the square and a massive cultural program developed with and for the inhabitants of the area. Portugal is a good example of the unbalanced states of civic initiatives, whose development depends on the political approaches of local governments. Whilst in Lisbon, these initiatives have been flourishing over the last few years, in Oporto they have been under attack by the former authoritarian and conservative mayor Rui Rio. Lisbon’s local government created a program (BIP/ZIP) that, each year, finances around 30 different projects in priority intervention neighbourhoods/areas (Largo Residências was also supported by this programme) At the same time, projects like “es.col.a,” held in a squatted school with a very important social and cultural program at Fontinha (one of the poorest areas of Oporto) have never had any political or financial support from the municipality: es.col.a was evicted and consequently eliminated by the municipality’s decision.

Navarinou park, a self-organised garden in Athens. Photo (cc) Eutropian

The consequences of austerity were the most severe in the Greek context,. where state structures were partially destroyed. Nowadays, local and national governments tend to be involved with citizen initiatives even though with almost no resources, since the funds are all being directed towards structural or emergency goals. Almost everywhere in Greece, the exodus of refugees to Central Europe appears to be one of the most important challenges of the present and near future. Mostly addressing people who aim at crossing the country, EU policies has turned Greece into Europe’s buffer country before nationalist walls. Even though the walking routes are not passing through Athens, when I visited them last July, both the Elionas and Piraeus camps – the first one organised by the government, the second set up informally by a local citizen initiative (now, apparently dismantled) – accommodated thousands of people, waiting. In these camps, local or national governments are not receiving any direct support from EU funds for refugees.

Parco delle Energie, self-organised sports facility in Rome. Photo (cc) Eutropian

Probably more than other PIGS countries, Italy has already had, since the 1980-90s, a very strong and politicised structure of self-organised movements and local citizen initiatives. During the last decades, those initiatives worked as a kind of a blow-off to political institutional collapse. However, the lack of strong national networks and, probably, the missing ambition to upscale local initiatives has prevented the initial energies from unfolding.

Despite the deception of the June 2016 national elections, Spain, where the networks of citizen initiatives and protests created strong networks, now face their second stage: disputing power. Local movements that emerged from the 15M movement succeeded in winning elections in the most important cities in Spain – Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia. Even though Podemos. in coalition with other political forces, did not achieve the expected share of votes at the last elections, city governments are already networking, organising new forms of decision-making and empowering citizenship initiatives. However, it is still too soon to measure the results of these new cooperations. A country or a society in crisis is not a “time of opportunities“ as we often hear when stock markets are translated into real life. From what I could see and live, during the last years in these four countries, crises are thrilling times of resistance, but also desperate moments of destruction. The decisive question for these initiatives is how to move from the idea of resistance, within this society frame, towards construction. This will be the only way to step forward from precariousness to resilience.

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Through the Goa mining PIL (public interest litigation) in the Supreme Court of India (WP 435/2012), we have developed a tight proposition for minerals, extensible to natural resources and the commons.

We take the perspective of owners of sub-soil assets. Quite simply, we are asking for the following principles to be implemented (in Goa, India and globally):
1. We, the people of [Goa], own the minerals in common. The government is merely a trustee of natural resources for the people and especially future generations (Public Trust Doctrine).

2. As we have inherited the minerals, we are simply custodians and must pass them on to future generations (Inter-generational Equity Principle).

Consider the example of inherited family gold. If the family decide to keep the gold as it is, they ensure the gold remains to be passed onto future generations. However they must safeguard it against theft, which is both a headache and a cost, while the gold produces no income. Alternatively, if they decide to sell the gold and invest the proceeds in say land for example, they and their future generations can benefit from the income of the land as long as it is well maintained. The crucial point is that if the gold were to be lost or the investments mismanaged, the loss of capital would be permanent for all future generations.

3. Therefore, if we mine and we sell our mineral resources, we must ensure zero loss, ie. capture of the full economic rent (sale price minus cost of extraction, cost including reasonable profit for miner). Any loss is a loss to all of us and our future generations.

4. All the money received from our minerals must be saved in a Permanent Fund, as already implemented all over the globe (Botswana, Norway, etc). Like the minerals, the Permanent Fund will also be part of the commons. The Supreme Court of India has ordered the creation of a Permanent Fund for Goan iron ore and already $13 million is deposited. This is a global judicial precedent.

5. Any real income (after inflation) from the Permanent Fund must only be distributed equally to all as a right of ownership, a commons dividend or a Citizen’s Dividend.

These principles are sufficient in themselves to receive support from most people. Read on!

Grounds for the principles

These principles are first and foremost constitutional in India (& likely most countries). They flow from the Public Trust Doctrine & the Inter-generational Equity Principle. These are also the inheritance customs for a large part of the population. It has strong parallels with Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical. It is aligned with environmental and mineral resource economics. From an economic theory perspective, all we are asking for is respect for property rights. This is unarguable in all flavours of mainstream economics (although indigenous people & others will argue that nature cannot be owned). It is palpably fair, ethical, right, just and moral.

We advocate that this be the default framework for minerals (and the commons generally). Any variations from these principles (“social or welfare purposes”) would require strong justification.

The first problem: Massive losses

Title to sub-soil minerals are usually with governments. In India, minerals are largely owned by the sub-national governments. Mining is effectively the sale of the family gold. The goal must be to receive the full value, the economic rent. There are relatively few studies that attempt to calculate whether mineral owners have suffered losses.In our first paper, Implementing Intergenerational Equity in Goa, we used World Bank data series for iron ore mining to estimate the economic rent per ton. We then multiplied this by the tons exported (from the local industry body) to estimate the total economic rent of the iron ore exported. Then compared this with the actual amounts received by the state government through royalty. Over a 5 year period (2004–2009), the state of Goa lost more than 99% of the value of its minerals.

In our second paper, Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust in Mining: Case Study of Goa, we repeat the analysis. However, we estimate the economic rent from the annual reports of Sesa Goa, our largest miner, accounting for 1/3rd of the mining. While the after tax cost of capital should have been 10–12%, we set it at 20%. Of the balance value, the state of Goa lost over 95% of the economic rent. This was over a 8 year period (2004–2012). This paper also shows similar results in iron ore, coal, oil and gas across India.

Worldwide, IMF data (para 64) shows significant losses of the economic rent are common — minimum of 15% for oil and 35% for minerals. Energy is 1/7th the world economy. Some $7 tn of oil & minerals are extracted each year. World Bank mineral depletion estimates are $27 tn between 1970 and 2013.

Creates extensive problems

Effectively, we are selling our mineral inheritance, our family gold, very cheap. This creates corruption, crony capitalism & poor governance. The obviously unfair terms of the mining lease creates incentives for the miner to extract rapidly and exit. This in turn creates the human rights violations and environmental damage. Eventually this leads to conflict and civil war.

As we are selling the minerals cheap, it also eventually drives over consumption, leading to global warming & unsustainability.

Most minerals are owned by the state as a trustee on behalf of the people and especially future generations. This loss is therefore borne equally by everyone, effectively a per-head tax. And a few miners and their cronies are getting ultra rich. This is looting economics, not trickle down. It is driving inequality. It is a clear violation of Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and probably others we are not aware of. It violates justice, equality, common good, and is simply unethical and unfair.

In most countries, zero loss is not an explicit objective of the mining ministry. This must change.

The second problem: Government accounting and statistics

Mining is clearly the sale of the family gold. A related issue is that government accounting and statistics treat money from mining as revenue, not the sale of inherited assets. Other than being obviously wrong, it is contrary to private sector accounting. Green accounting essentially acknowledges this issue.

Terming mineral receipts “windfall revenue” disguises its nature as a sale of an inherited asset. More revenues are good, & we don’t examine windfalls closely. Inherited wealth is frittered away in consumption.

Due to the commodity cycle, “windfall revenue” treatment creates huge volatility in government budgets. “Revenue” booms. Expenditure rises to keep pace. Prices crash. “Revenues” crash. Sell more inherited wealth at the price bottom? Prices drop further. Cut the public sector? Impose a new tax? Hard choices to make.

Alaska, which only deposits 25% of its oil money, has suffered from the price volatility impact, as you can see from their ongoing budget discussions. So too Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russia. Some countries like Norway & Botswana have a fiscal policy that effectively considers minerals to be capital — they target the non-mineral revenue deficit, and deposit 100% of mineral receipts into their Permanent Fund, effectively treating mineral receipts as capital receipts.

This incorrect accounting also creates pressure to extract — more revenues are good. Money from minerals is easy money, which in turn drives poor governance and eventually autocracies.

The distortion is significant. In Goa, we found over the same 8 year period (2004–2012), the official deficit was 2.46% of GDP. If we treat mineral receipts as capital receipts, then the “non-mineral” deficit rises to 3.73%. However, if we treat the losses as expenses, then the deficit increases to an incredible 41.47%. This is clearly unsustainable.

Note that mineral receipts accounted for only 8% of Goa government revenues. This is much higher in many resource rich nations, approaching 90% in some cases. These nations are simply consuming their inheritance.

We are asking for is for government accounting, statistics and fiscal policy to treat money from mining as capital receipts from inherited assets, not “windfall” revenue as is the current practice. This simple change will be quite profound. “We manage what we measure.” The immediate impact of this change would be to strip government revenues of all mining money. And minerals become an asset with a different set of questions: Should we extract? When should we extract? How much should we extract? What minimum price do we want for our asset? What is its value? Are we incurring a loss? How are we investing the money we receive for our children?

We have written a detailed paper to the IMF, UN, IPSASB, WB, INTOSAI, etc to correct this anomaly. Following some questions and comments, we have sent a response to FAQs. As the relevant government accounting standard is under review, we have started an online petition, A simple accounting change that will save countless lives.

Scale of the injustice

The loss of economic rent and the consumption spending by the government are effectively an enormous loss to the commons, borne by our children & future generations. The absolute losses in Goa were enormous. US$ 9 billion in eight years. Twice state government revenues from all sources. 28% of cumulative GDP. Each family lost more than the average private assets of households in Goa. It is simply immoral.

As a counterfactual, had our principles been applied for that same 8 year period in Goa, today every citizen in Goa would receive a commons dividend of Rs. 1,000 a month. This would have made a significant dent on poverty (the national poverty line is at Rs. 932 per month).

If significant losses are likely, perhaps it would be better to develop fairer institutions before extracting.

Fair mining

Our principles are clearly fair and universal. The citizen’s dividend is a critical aspect of our design, as it is intended to link the citizen to their minerals. This will create monitoring so that these losses do not recur.

It will also have tremendous other impacts. After the vote, it will be the first true manifestation of equality. As a right of ownership, the citizen’s dividend also is different from a government subsidy. As it grows over time, and keeps pace with inflation as well, the citizen’s dividend is also a Universal Basic Income (UBI), and comes with all its benefits.

Zero loss mining makes the mining lease fair. This reduces the incentives for the haste, and the damage that comes after.

Since the state doesn’t benefit from the mining “revenue”, either at the point of extraction or the distribution of real income, there is little incentive to extract mindlessly.

The whole system is fair, likely reducing many mineral conflicts (though Scotland is more likely to separate from the UK, etc).

Safeguarding great wealth

If we extract minerals, then there is a large amount of wealth “created”. This will attract thieves of all kinds. This in turn drives corruption, poor governance and over-consumption. And environmental damage, human rights violations ending up with conflict. And the huge money coming out makes it difficult to stop as crony capitalists buy the political system with patronage.

What we are essentially doing is allowing mining while sequestering the great wealth away from everyone — miner, government/politician & the people, and only allowing the real income to trickle out.

And everyone is a stakeholder. Transparency, state of the art controls, and whistle-blower rewards and protections are necessary to make it difficult to steal from the pot.

What about Ecological Economics?

We found the Intergenerational Equity principle (“what will future generations do”) to be the core principle — first safeguard the inheritance — if that is done, consume the crop. From this we derive sustainability (sustain what for whom? planetary capability for future generations). From this we derive, through weak sustainability, the precautionary principle for critical assets, and the polluter pays principle for damage to non-critical assets.

Mining is essentially the conversion of natural resources into other non-wasting assets. The first step is listing the assets in the inheritance. These are at least three (a) the damage to the environment/society/agriculture, (b) the work / income associated with the minerals (which depletes along with the minerals), and (c) the mineral value or economic rent. In Goa, we found (a) extensive damage to environment/society, (b) the minerals could be exhausted in nine years (Shah Commission), and © we were receiving less than 5% of the mineral value, and even that was being consumed, a total loss to most of Goa, and our children. For each asset, we need to create a mechanism to ensure that the total value of our commons remains “non-wasting”.

For Goa mining, we propose a tiered structure. The precautionary principle (“don’t risk a catastrophe”) we propose to implement through a cap mechanism, set at the lowest volume where any irreversible damage was observed (12 mt saw the benthic life of our rivers almost extinct) or any legal limit is breached anywhere. The limit would drop sharply on a breach like a stock market trigger. If everything was OK over a long period [5 years], then the limit would increase in increments of [5 mtpa]. Separately, the polluter pays principle would apply to all identifiable damage. And the District Mineral Foundation would be expected to compensate the rest of the damage that cannot be identified to anyone. For the mineral exhaustion, we propose an independent cap set at 1/200th of the reserves, ensuring extraction over 7 generations.

The government needs money!

One common concern is money should go to the government budget. There are two sorts of reasons: (a) The good things government can do (education, health, infrastructure, renewables, etc.) (b) The future will be richer, so we need not save as much.

Our design is intended to make Citizen’s stakeholders, creating an endowment effect. Only then would they monitor mining. Diversion to the budget provides easy money to the politicians, which would worsen governance. If we divert even 1% to the budget, soon enough there will be a budget crisis and this will eventually become 99% or 100%. The link with the citizen gets broken. Raiding the Permanent Fund and then the remaining minerals will be next. The only standard that can be defended is an absolute standard.

From a governance standpoint, if the investments are so productive, then surely capital markets would finance it or taxes could be raised. If this is not possible, it is more likely an issue of the credibility of the governance to deliver the anticipated benefits.

The other idea that the future will be richer depends on continuing growth. Numerous clouds surround us. It would be a bold prediction that the future will always be richer than us, for even the next 1,000 years.

These two blog posts explain further: Why 100% to Permanent Fund and Why income distribution only as Citizen’s Dividend.

What do we do in practice?

We have submitted a detailed note on how our approach needs to be incorporated within India’s National Mineral Policy. Our Goenchi Mati Manifesto suggests a practical framework for implementation in Goa. The 3rd EPW paper discusses how we are approaching this issue at the Supreme Court. More work is needed and inputs would be appreciated.

Can it be implemented?

1. Economics: Keep in mind that our principles would be supported by most flavors of economics. All we are asking for is respect the property rights of commoners.

2. Politics: Politically, minerals have always been a difficult issue as very few people benefit or are harmed directly. The vast majority want “development” and are realistic enough to see that our cars and phones need minerals. However, with this argument and the large losses, we can address the development seekers without stopping mining. Finally, the urban population can get concerned about mining as an corruption/governance issue and a human rights / fairness issue.

As a separate matter, a challenger party can disrupt patronage politics with a stunning vision of a new social compact, one that explicitly treats everyone as equal, while striking a blow at crony capitalism. The first mover advantage is large, and is still available. Sort of “everyone gets a dividend while the corrupt cronies weep & our children cheer”.

Keep in mind that over 50 Permanent Funds from natural resources exist globally, so there is a feasible political path.

3. Moral/Religion: Our principles achieve both intra-generational equality (the Citizen’s Dividend) and inter-generational equity (the Permanent Fund). This is effectively the golden rule (treat everyone as you would want to be treated) which is the moral bedrock of all large religions. The Archbishop of Goa showed his strong support for our ideas, linked to the environmental encyclical of Pope Francis. Is an inter-faith resolution feasible similar to the one before the Paris Convention?

The Future We Need

At a deeper level, the world has an ecological problem and an economic problem. Neither can be solved in the current political system. Change here is difficult due to the money flowing in (Citizen’s United), and eventually, the biggest source is crony capitalism. And the biggest sector for crony capitalism, and actually the biggest sector of the economy is energy & minerals. Looking even deeper, over the last 500 years, we’ve had individualism dominating community, and a shift to consuming the planet instead of acting as custodians for our children.

Our 5 principles essentially reverses this dynamic. We reframe towards community thinking through the commons. We reframe our relationship as stewards of the planet, not consumers. Zero loss mining + the Citizens Dividend controls crony capitalism. We control inequality and extreme poverty on the economic side. And the environment benefits first from the re-framing as custodians, and then from getting the appropriate price with proper environmental safeguards. Higher prices would over time compress consumption as well.

Starting with minerals is probably the easiest point. People can agree on mineral values (unlike a forest). It is usually obvious that the mineral is being depleted, purely capital (sand and water are exceptions). We can successfully make the argument in minerals even to global warming deniers or those wanting more development. If they agree, they implicitly accept the community and custodianship reframing. The reframing opens up a path to eventual acceptability of the need for true sustainability.

Our framework naturally leads to many other ideas as well. Carbon tax + dividend. Pollution tax + dividend. Land tax + dividend. All these are premised on the idea of commons, and the tax is a recovery of the value destroyed (by carbon / pollution) or created (land, value created by society). The dividend is key — since a large majority will be net beneficiaries under any such scheme, they will support tax increases, eventually squeezing consumption. The land tax also has the impact of lowering land values and making it expensive to keep land permanently fallow. India’s land taxes are a fraction of the western norm of 1–2% of the capital value of property and a hidden source of inequality, like mining.

Clearly, our principles must be part of the core of any sustainable economy. It quite simply is The Future We Need.

What are we doing?

1. The Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM) in Goa is advocating for the full implementation of our 5 principles. Our manifesto (goenchimati.org/manifesto) lays out how these principles can be implemented in Goa. In general, we found that people of all strata understand our principles very easily and naturally. Those who read the manifesto also found it clear and logical. Amongst our supporters in Goa, we have a miner, a tribal mining affected leader and a mining dependent trade union leader. You can view a list of prominent GMM supporters. In our recent state elections, 4 political parties endorsed our manifesto, including Aam Aadmi Party (a good governance / anti corruption party that swept the Delhi elections). Consider supporting us. However, we found it difficult to get the idea to spread virally and were unable to significantly impact the elections. More work is needed here.

We did have some success. The Government of India has discussed our idea in the recent Economic Survey (pg 297), and CGD reported on it. The Shadow Chancellor of the UK is also interested in our ideas.

2. Goa Foundation (goafoundation.org), an environmental non-profit that is involved, among other things, in litigation against mining in Goa, and supports the Goenchi Mati Movement. The Supreme Court order on the Permanent Fund is a result of Goa Foundation’s work. This research work is under Goa Foundation. GF has also been advocating how these principles should be implemented with the Goa and the Central governments.

3. In partnership with an alliance (mm&P) and a non-profit (Common Cause), we have launched a campaign to change India’s National Mineral Policy. Goa Foundation sent in a detailed representation that sets out how these principles should be implemented, and provides the rationale for a strong control system and radical transparency. The first draft does contain some language on Intergenerational Equity. However, the road is long and much can change.

4. We are conscious that these principles are universal, and we would like to implement them globally. Our global initiative is The Future We Need (TFWN). We are looking for global partners.

5. The second initiative of The Future We Need (after GMM) is to advocate a change in government accounting, statistics & disclosure from revenue to capital. The relevant international accounting standard, IPSAS — 13 Leases, is under review, but unfortunately doesn’t include mineral leases. We have started an online petition, A simple accounting change that will save countless lives. Consider supporting us.

Learn more

1. A youtube video at a conference on basic income. This doesn’t cover the environmental aspects.

1. The three published papers in EPW related to this work are Implementing Intergenerational Equity in Goa, Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust in Mining: Case Study of Goa and Intergenerational Equity Case Study

2. We recommend reading these two blog posts that answer the most frequent questions, Why 100% to Permanent Fund and Why income distribution only as Citizen’s Dividend.

4. Here’s our detailed note on mineral accounting by governments, and the response to FAQs.

4. How a loss from the commons is equivalent to a negative basic income or a per-head tax.

6. A recent article on the deeper causes of the Alaska budget crisis and how implementing our principles would avoid it.

Goa specific in more detail

1. A 9 part series of articles on what happened in Goa with a lot of detail, so that the information is in the public domain. Ore Chor! 144 is on how bad the lease renewals were. Links to the earlier ones are in the article.

2. A Youtube playlist going into some detail (80 minutes)

3. Somewhat of a history of what happened: http://goenchimati.org/intergenerational-equity-documents/. It has a particular lens, but covers quite a wide swathe of the work with links to go into much more detail.

4. Most of our collateral can be accessed on our website — academic papers, explainer videos, articles, etc.

Rahul Basu is the Research Director of Goa Foundation, an environmental NGO in India. The Future We Need is a global movement asking for natural resources to be viewed as a shared inheritance we hold as custodians for future generations. This work is based on the practical work of the Goa Foundation.

Whose Mine Is It Anyway is a campaign to make government finances and national income statistics treat mining as the sale of minerals. Read Mitigating the Resource Curse by improving Government Accounting and Government Accounting and the Resource Curse — Response to FAQs.

The Goenchi Mati Movement is advocating these principles for all mining in Goa, India. A joint campaign is asking for these principles to be part of India’s National Mineral Policy.

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The international debate on the commons has a long history but only in recent years has it started gearing towards the definition of Urban Commons and what their role is in shaping our society, especially at the wake of the economic crisis. This debate developed strongly in Italy as a result of a referendum refusing the privatisation of water infrastructures. Following this, many city administrations have brought forward this debate at local level. The concept of commons has extended from water to many other resources, both physical and immaterial, inspiring regulations of the commons in several Italian cities. Experiences from Italy, in turn, have inspired the discussion about the commons in other parts of Europe.

By Daniela Patti:  “Commons are those resources that apart from the property that is mainly public, pursue a natural and economic vocation that is of social interest, immediately serving not the administration but the collectivity and the people composing it. They are resources that belong to all the associates and that law must protect and safeguard also in virtue of future generations.” (Lucarelli 2011) According to Alberto Lucarelli, a professor in constitutional law in Naples, commons are defined by rights and by the management models rather than simply the property model. Urban Commons provide a complex scenario in which both property and management of these collectives resources require new legal framework, increasingly provided by legal experts, municipalities and activists in various parts of Europe. As Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione, scholars of the commons point out, “[…] the urban commons framework is more than a legal tool to make proprietary claims on particular urban goods and resources. Rather, we argue that the utility of the commons framework is to raise the question of how best to manage, or govern, shared or common resources”. (Foster, at al., 2015).

This debate developed strongly in Italy as a result of the Referendum on the Privatisation of Water, which saw a victory with 95% from the position supporting water as a commons to be protected in public interest and not to be privatised. Following this episode, which has not yet seen a clear policy developed at national level, many city administrations have brought forward this debate at local level. The concept of commons has extended from water to many other resources, both physical and immaterial. In terms of physical spaces, open public spaces are rather unanimously recognised as urban commons and regulations in many cities have been developed to legislate the community use of urban gardens, as an example. Such spaces do not prove to be unproblematic as even through the property remains public, the collective access and the management costs are interpreted differently across the country. In Rome, the Regulation of Green Spaces adopted by the City Council in 2014 foresaw that all running costs, such as water, and ordinary maintenance, such cutting the grass, should be responsibility of the communities adopting the green space, where open public access must be nevertheless be guaranteed. Given the poor condition of maintenance of public green spaces in Rome, many people accepted these conditions to improve their living standards. Within this context, the regulation of buildings appears to be far more complex, given the higher number of variables in which the civic and the Public should find terms of agreement. To respond to these challenges, some cities developed a Regulation of the Commons, that would provide a framework for civic organisations and the public administration to find agreements on the shared management and use of urban commons.

The City of Bologna has had a long tradition in terms of citizens’ participation in decision making over the city’s development, but especially as a result of the economic crisis and the subsequent reduction on welfare expenditure, citizens have become increasingly active in the city. Responding to such inputs, the City Council has over recent years developed a series of relevant participation processes, Open Data initiatives, a participatory budgeting platform and the Regulations of the Commons, this last having gained much visibility both at national level and abroad. The reason for the Regulation of the Commons having gained so much attention was because this was the first of its kind ever being developed and was then adopted, with small variations, by a large number of cities across the peninsula.
The Regulation of the Commons is an application of the Principle of Subsidiarity foreseen by the art.118 of the Italian Constitution, that foresees that public administrations should support citizens in the development of autonomous initiatives aiming towards the collective interest. Therefore in 2014, Bologna’s City Council officially adopted the Regulation on the collaboration between citizens and the public administration on activities aiming at the care and regeneration of urban commons. The Regulation acts as a general framework within which citizens, both individuals or groups, can submit proposals for projects to be developed on a spontaneous basis with voluntary effort for the involved parties, putting competences, resources and energy available to the collective good. Such projects are disciplined by the Regulation through a series of specific agreements, called Collaborations Pacts, in which both the citizens and the Public Administration agree to the terms of their cooperation for the safeguarding of the commons. The commons targeted by this Regulation are material spaces as public squares, green areas or schools, immaterial commons, such as education and social inclusion, and digital commons, such as applications and digital alphabetisation.

The value of this pioneering Regulation has been to attempt to provide a legal framework to the activities and projects promoting the commons that were taking place spontaneously in the city, often outside if not even in contrast to the existing regulations. At the same time, this Regulation has the limitation of addressing only the less problematic situations of collaboration between civic and public stakeholders when promoting the urban commons. In fact, collective cleaning of public spaces, paintings of murals or creation of street furniture have been valuable initiatives taking place even more frequently thanks to the legal clarity in which they can take place, but are rather unproblematic in social and political terms. Urban Commons involving higher stakes in terms of ownership, management and economic conditions, as in the case of public buildings or even private ones, are not part of the scope of the Bologna Regulation of the Commons.

Theatre rehearsal at the Cascina Roccafranca. Photo (cc) Eutropian

Such a challenge was instead recently taken on by the City of Turin, which as many other Italian cities adopted the Bologna’ Regulation of the Commons with very small adjustments in January 2016. Within the framework of the Co-City project supported by the Urban Innovative Actions program, Turin aims at developing the experience of the commons towards the creation of an innovative social welfare that will foster the co-production of services with community enterprises. Low cost urban regeneration activities in open spaces as well as buildings will take place and will be financially supported through the European-funded project. Having the project officially started only at the beginning of 2017, it is still early to appreciate any results but it is nevertheless worthy to say that its ambition is strongly embedded within a longer experience in terms of civic-public collaboration, as testified by the experience of the Network of the Neighbourhood Houses, which are also a key partner in the Co-City project. This network of community spaces, started in 2007, gathers eight spaces across the city with different functions and management models, some being public and others privately-run. For example, Cascina Roccafranca is a multi-functional community centre operating in a building owned by the City of Turin. Partly financed by the municipal budget, the centre is managed through cooperation between public and civic actors: a scheme that offers a valuable governance model while providing a wide range of social and cultural activities. As the staff member Stefania De Masi stated: “Our status as a public-private foundation is an experiment, an attempt of close collaboration with the municipality.”

The network of Neighbourhood Houses in Turin. Image (c) Case del Quartiere

An experience stemming from a different background to the one of Bologna is the Regulation of the Commons in Naples. It was in this city that for the first time in 2011, the juridical definition of Commons was introduced in the City Council’s Statute, referring especially to the case of water, which had been object of the national Referendum that same year. The following years, the “Regulation for the Discipline of the Commons” and the “Principles for the government and management of the Commons” were established. According to these, “each citizens should concur to the natural and spiritual progress of the city”. The focus towards the urban commons was explicit in 2013, when the City Council adopted the Public Space Charter, elaborated by the Biennial of Public Space held that same year in Rome, which aims at the creation of concrete processes towards the promotion of the urban public spaces.

It is in 2014 that the current regulation deliberating on the urban commons in Naples was approved by the City Council. This regulation outlines the identification of the commons and the process of collective management for their civic use and collective benefit are outlined. This regulation has foreseen the recognition of ongoing civic initiatives pursuing projects in spaces identified as urban commons. This approach therefore attempts to foster a logic of self-governance and experimental management of public spaces, aiming at recognising these spaces as commons of collective interest and fruition. In 2016 seven locations in Naples were identified as commons because of the collective commitment of citizens in their regeneration after a long period of abandonment. Before such recognition these spaces were officially identified as illegal occupation of public properties, for which all people involved were subjected to legal persecution. The innovation of what is happening in Naples stands basically in the fact that the ancient tradition of the Usi Civici (Civic Uses) applied since medieval times to the forests for people to access and harvest wood or collect food, is now applied to urban spaces. This is the case of the Je So’ Pazzo initiative taking place in the old mental asylum in the city centre of Naples, where a group of inhabitants, many of whom youngsters, have taken over the space to provide a series of local services, such as music classes, sports facilities and many other community-run activities. Currently the agreement with the Municipalities implies that utility costs of the space are paid by the City Council but all activities related expenses are responsibility of the users. In terms of property rights, the space remains in public ownership and users are granted freely access as long as the activities remain of public interest and open to all citizens.

At first sight the Regulations of the Commons of Bologna and Turin and the one of Naples could appear to be rather similar, having been developed at the same with an overall same objectives, yet they greatly differ in terms of concepts of property and usage of the commons. Bologna and the blueprint in Turin, do not effectively intervene on the property model of the public estates, that remain an asset exclusively managed by the Authority, albeit in the public interest. Even in terms of what is the usage model of these properties, this remains unaltered as the Authority is ultimately responsible for the refurbishment of the estates or for the development of social and economic functions. For this reason, it can be said that the civic-public collaborations to be activated tend to take place in open public spaces with a low conflict threshold. Instead, Naples has attempted to pursue a different model of property and management of the commons. in fact, to be identified as a commons are the buildings themselves, based on a series of social and cultural elements, and not the communities operating in them, therefore avoiding conflicts in terms of public procurement in assigning tenants to a public property. The activities currently taking place within these identified Urban Commons are accepted by the Administration as long as they respect the Commons ethics and guarantee access to citizens.

These experiences from Italy are also inspiring other parts of Europe, allowing for an increasing international exchange to take place. From a more institutional perspective at European level, not only has the recently started Urban Innovative Actions European program have financially supported the Co-City project in Turin, but also other European programs are recognising the relevance of such experiences for a European audience. This is the case of the URBACT capacity building program for cities that recently awarded the Good Practice title to the Commons initiative in Naples, based on which knowledge transfer networks of cities could be financially supported throughout Europe starting from 2018. Civic initiatives were also inspired by the work in Italy, as the model of LabGov, the Laboratory on the Governance of the Commons that supported the elaboration of the Bologna Regulation, is collaborating with the Pakhuis de Zwijger to develop an Amsterdam-based branch. The European Alternatives network has initiated a research mapping local governments that are promoting participatory governance in their institutions, in which Naples is thoroughly covered. These Italian applications of regulating the Urban Commons well depict the political positions and the solutions that may be adopted to regulate a form of property that is neither public nor private, but collective.

References
Foster, Sheila and Iaione, Christian, The City as a Commons (August 29, 2015). 34 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 281 (2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2653084 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2653084

Lucarelli, A.,2011, Beni Comuni, Dalla Teoria All’Azione Politica, Dissenzi – own translation

Header image: Urban Center, Bologna. Photo (cc) Eutropian

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Rok Kranjc | Feb 6, 2018 | The Commons Post: Many of today’s proposals for and experiments with Universal Basic Income (UBI) in so-called developed countries seem to be congruent with, and indeed in some instances explicitly catered towards maintaining the dominant political economic architecture and status quo imaginary. Some of the more salient narratives regarding UBI present it as a silver bullet for all kinds of (neoliberally framed) social and economic woes and as a remedy for the pressing issue of automation which is assuredly having disruptive effects on the business-as-usual as practiced to-date. On the other hand, more radical proposals relevant to the UBI debate find themselves confined to academic and political ghettos, while those that do make it to experimental stage are watered down to versions of ‘basic income light’[i] through processes and barriers integral to incumbent political economic structures and forms of political deliberation.

While such experiments and proposals may be crucial stepping stones in fostering social salience and political legitimacy around alternatives to dominant welfare and wage labour models, it is important to recognize their limitations, particular application contexts, scales and time-horizons, with reference to wider integrative visions and potential mechanisms of socio-economic and political transformation. However the reality is that at this time such wider and integrative visions are lacking, while radical and systemic alternatives to welfare remain severely undertheorized in crucial areas. In the following I outline three critical areas that in my opinion can further the UBI debate, guided by the overarching question of what might an open ended, ecologically sound and socially just welfare system and pathway towards it look like.

1. Considering UBI as an interim model for citizen empowerment

Imagining potential futures of welfare from a ‘long now’[ii] perspective necessitates the recognition that some solutions should be designed to have intentionally short life-spans while others should be designed to change over long periods of time.[iii] The reality is that the forms of UBI thus far explored are likely not the be-all and end-all of alternatives. It is thus important to consider the view that UBI models based on fiat money pooled and distributed by means of more or less conventional market and state mechanisms (e.g. taxes, redistribution of state funds) may be an an overall important, yet perhaps best seen as consciously interim step in institutional re-design and citizen emancipation and empowerment. It is relevant to note however that UBI models, defined as unconditional payments of certain sums of money to individuals of a society, already today find rivals, for example in the concepts of Universal Basic Assets (UBA)[iv] and Universal Basic Services (UBS)[v], which importantly shift the debate from income to access to and participation in the commons. Using the ‘city as a commons’ framework and the critical concepts of UBA and UBS as starting points, it is possible to conceive of commons-based welfare models that operate on the principles of universal rights and effective access to basic and potentially expanding asset and service options (e.g. housing, food, energy, healthcare, mobility, internet, education, sport, recreation) and the care, co-creation of and democratic deliberation about them using novel collaborative, open-source, circular, sharing and regenerative economy approaches, among others.

2. Anchoring alternative welfare systems in alternative currencies

One issue that is very rarely addressed even within more radical UBI debates is that of the currencies and accounting frameworks on which such systems are (to be) based.[vi] Arguably, pursuing the interrelated goals of ecological sustainability and social justice calls for a reconsideration of ‘money-as-usual’. Many currency systems have been proposed that too range from local, complimentary and other currency types more or less congruent with or supplementary to the economic status quo, to radical alternatives.[vii] The envisioned ‘commonified’ basic assets and services model(s), indeed commons and commoning activity generally, may be anchored in a rich ecosystem of alternative currencies, indices and accounting frameworks operating at different scales and in different socioeconomic and socioecological contexts. Some of the more prominent proposed money anchors specifically include energy, time, CO2 emissions, single resources such as water or grain, or ‘baskets of resources’.[viii] Additional aspects to consider include:

• the ethics, scales and forms of cosmopolitan and translocal solidarity
• gift cultures and economies
• open data
• forms of transaction (e.g. ‘commoner smart cards’ for food, public transportation and skill-sharing)
• the potentials of blockchain technology

3. A deep rethinking of ‘work’

The currently ongoing and planned UBI experiments in the Netherlands, once presented as a beacon of hope in mainstream media, have recently been subject to a number of relevant critiques. It is important to outline that these experiments are not of universal income as they specifically target the unemployed and those already receiving some form of social benefit; nor are they unconditional, but configured with mind to supporting existing ‘labour market integration’ policies and mechanisms. Today, it is crucial to expand our definition of work and to rethink our engagement with it, a discussion that should go well beyond the reductionism of the automation narrative as presented in the mainstream. What is thus needed are systems complimentary to UBI/UBA/UBS that open up and encourage access to skills, (co-production of) knowledge, and discovering and trying oneself out at various (sometimes not at once apparent) forms of social and ecological ‘service’ and ‘life callings’ in transitional times; as well as civic media infrastructures that can support proactive public discourse around and experimentation with alternative institutional options, balancing the challenges of sustainability and social equity with resilient subsistence and social welfare contribution and provisioning. An interesting idea in this regard is the ‘balanced job complex’,[ix] proposed by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel in their model for participatory economics; a deliberative democratic model that may be found useful in conceptualizing dynamic ways of societal self-configuration of equitable and contributory work loads depending on needs, capacities, preferences and challenges.

Conclusion

By imbuing the UBI debate with a more systems-oriented and commons perspective, I have argued that an important shift is made from income and work as such to deeper interrelated questions of 1.) rights, capabilities and effective access; 2.) forms of deliberation, governance, entrepreneurship, collective care and accounting; 3.) forms and scales of pooling resources and work, and; 4.) forms and scales of equitable distribution and sustainable and resilient provisioning of universal basic commons entitlements. The perspective illuminates the contingent relationship between the contextual and subjective ‘political viability‘ of the UBI, and the scopes and salience of articulated (critical, open-source, open-ended) alternative institutional possibilities; and the prospects of a polity that exploits a dialectical relationship between interim or hybrid institutional models on the one hand, and radical experimentation with other socio-economic configurations, emergent city-making/place-making cultures and political possibilities in the here-and-now on the other.

[i] Schouten, Socrates. 2018. Baby Steps on the Road to Basic Income. Green European Journal. Available at: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/baby-steps-on-the-road-to-a-basic-income/

[ii] Brand, Stewart. 1999. The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. New York: Basic Books.

[iii] Irwin et al. 2016. Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research. Design and Culture, 7(2), 229–246.

[iv] https://medium.com/institute-for-the-future/universal-basic-assets-abb08ca2f0fc.

[v] https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2017/10/universal-basic-services-or-universal-basic-income

[vi] Bauwens, Michel. 2006. Complementary Currencies and the Basic Income. Available at: https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/complementary-currencies-and-the-basic-income/2006/02/14; Bauwens, M. & Niaros, V. (2017). Value in the Commons Economy: Developments in Open and Contributory Value  Accounting. Chiang Mai: Heinrich Böll Stiftung & P2P Foundation.

[vii] Dittmer, Kristofer. 2011. Local currencies for purposive degrowth? A quality check of some proposals for changing money-as-usual. Available at: http://degrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Dittmer_JCP_pre-pub-manuscript.pdf

[viii] New Economics Foundation. 2013. Energising Money: An introduction to energy currencies and accounting. Available at: http://neweconomics.org/2013/02/energising-money/

[ix] Albert, Michael. 2003. Parecon: Life After Capitalism. London: Verso

Photo by Mister Higgs

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System Reset is a feature-length documentary which explores this story of change in our economy. Shot in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona, this film is a DIF 2018 exclusive. It features some of the leading thinkers in materials, economics, the commons movement, FabLabs, digital citizenship, urban planning and architecture. Don’t miss your opportunity to see them collectively weave a picture of how our economy could operate.

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The threat posed by global warming and environmental degradation are the most pressing examples of what has become known over the past several decades as the ‘tragedy of the commons’. In this book, Derek Wall explores the work of the late Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom, on how humans can overcome this problem, and sustain the commons over the long term. Chris Shaw finds that this book is an accessible presentation of Ostrom’s ideas.

The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft. Derek Wall. Routledge. 2014.

Derek Wall has been an important figure in the Green Party for a number of years and also works as Associate Tutor in the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written extensively on the subject of green politics and green economics. In The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft, he examines what the idea of the commons can contribute to the building of an ecologically sustainable future. He approaches this analysis through an overview of the work of the late Elinor Ostrom (who died in 2012), the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economic sciences.

Ostrom’s principal interest was in how institutions worked or failed to sustain collective resource use. Ostrom noted that self-governing entities exist at a variety of scales and can be found in both the public and private sphere. The key question for Ostrom was: ‘How can fallible human beings achieve and sustain self-governing ways of life and self-governing entities as well as sustaining ecological systems at multiple scales?’

Ostrom’s answers to these questions were influenced by a range of classical liberal economists such as Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Hayek, with whom she shared a scepticism about governing through centralised state power. Her scepticism stemmed from the belief that state actors do not have perfect knowledge of the issues being faced by communities geographically and culturally distant from policy elites. But Ostrom also recognised that local knowledge on its own is insufficient because it is not always correct.

After sketching out the highlights of Ostrom’s career and the thinkers who influenced her, Wall then devotes considerable space to exploring the methodological individualism Ostrom employed to understand how commons might be sustained over the long term. Ostrom defined institutions as a set of rules; organisations are players, institutions the rules they play by. She developed an Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to understand these rules. The IAD framework is drawn from game theory, which assumes people are rational maximisers who will try to predict how others are going to act in order to gauge their own best move.

The prisoner’s dilemma, however, shows that this can often lead to sub-optimal behaviour. If the police hold two suspects in separate cells, but do not have enough evidence to convict either of them, the police might promise each suspect shorter sentences if they each confess. Both prisoners may separately calculate that it is best if they confess. Given that they would have both walked free if neither had confessed this is a sub-optimal outcome. Whilst the prisoner’s dilemma is often used to illustrate the kind of social relations that lead to the tragedy of the commons, Ostrom’s experiments and research showed that in real life there are often high levels of co-operation, communication and information sharing. This co-operative set of social relations allows people to work collectively to achieve long term optimal outcomes for the resource users.

Following this overview Wall devotes a chapter to critiquing Ostrom’s methodological individualism. Wall sees Ostrom’s individualism as a position which poses questions about the usefulness of her work. Rather than a micro analysis of interactions between individuals Wall suggests what is needed in the study of the commons is macro analysis of powerful actors taking what belongs to others.

Wall compares Ostrom’s analysis with autonomist Marxism, which recognises the ability of the working class to organise themselves against capital rather than relying on centralised state apparatus to achieve this. Whilst Wall argues methodological individualism does not give sufficient attention to structuralist explanations, he believes Ostrom’s approach does at least recognise our ability as individuals to make decisions and deepen democratic control, and thus help overcome practical governance dilemmas.

Wall’s overview of Ostrom’s life and work offers a welcome extension of a debate that too easily accepts that the fate of all commons, including the atmosphere, is tragedy. Humanity has survived and thrived for so long in no small part because of the ability of communities to successfully govern commons. Despite introducing too much unnecessary complexity into commons scholarship, Ostrom’s work provides a valuable framework for understanding how the commons can support the building of a sustainable future.

Derek Wall, in presenting an accessible account of Ostrom’s ideas, and placing them within the context of the economics thinkers who influenced her, provides a useful and productive insight into how a reconsideration of the historic and present manner in which people have governed commons can provide valuable ideas about what role the commons can play in building a sustainable future.

Christopher Shaw is a Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. He holds a DPhil from the School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex. His thesis was entitled ‘Choosing a Dangerous Limit for Climate Change; How the Decision Making Process is Constructed in Public Discourses’ (Oct 2006-April 2011). He is currently working on a book due for publication by Routledge in March 2015, examining public representations of dangerous climate change and the implications of these representations for building climate citizenship. Read more reviews by Chris.

Photo by Jayne ~ Twiggy & Opal

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GT’s model is an extensive overhaul of an orphaned open source governance protocol ^[1], which we have been substantially overhauled to better fit our needs. The adapted model explicitly incorporates the key practices of Open Cooperativism (a method combining the ideas of the Commons and Free Culture with the social tradition of the cooperative movement), Contributive Accounting (a form of accounting where contributions to a shared project are logged to ensure fair distributions of income and livelihoods) and, uniquely in this space, feminist economics and care work as essential elements ^[2].

After years of discussing the model, we decided to collectively reimagine it by convening a group of experts on decentralised/non-hierarchical organizations, facilitation, peer governance, distributed tech and mutualized finance. We called this process “Guerrilla Translation Reloaded“, which culminated in a new version of the model: The Commons-Oriented Open Cooperative Governance and Economic Model (currently at version 2.0)

The full model can be read in the link above, but this article takes a narrative approach to answer two very simple questions: what is the model’s logic, and how does it work?

The best way to understand it may seem counterintuitive at first. If Guerrilla Translation is a co-op, think of the co-op members as shareholders. Okay, like in an evil corporation, but bear with us. Each member is an owner, holding different types of shares in the collective. These correspond to tracked “pro bono” (commons-oriented voluntary work chosen by the translators) and “livelihood” (paid) work, as well as reproductive or care work. Shares in these three types of work determine how much is paid on a monthly basis. Where does the money to pay shares come from, and how are they paid? From the productive work performed by the worker-owners — in GT’s case, that work is written and simultaneous translation, copyediting, subtitling, and related services. We will explain the “how” below.

In short, the more effort and care put into the collective, the larger the share. This is not a competitive, game-theory influenced scheme; it’s a solidarity based strategy for economic resistance that allows all members to contribute according to their capacity. All members create value; part of this value is processed through a market interface (the agency) and is converted into monetary value, which is then pooled and distributed to benefit all value streams. We call this value sovereignty. And, although the default decision making protocol is virtually identical to a traditional coop’s “one member, one vote” principle, your shares can influence decision making in critical situations, such as blocked proposal.

How is this type of share-holding a contrast to that found in a corporation? Let’s break down the differences. While shareholders in a corporation accrue power through money, in our model, power is treated differently. The descriptions are power-to and power-with, accrued via productive and reproductive work taken for the health of the collective and the Commons. A corporation (or a start-up, or any capitalist business) employs wage labor to produce profit-maximizing commodities though privately owned and managed productive infrastructures. By contrast, in an Open Coop, we work together for social and environmental purposes while also creating commons and building community, locally and/or globally. The model allows us to turn our talents to worthwhile, not dead-end, causes. This is how we are practicing economic resistance.

The Open Coop Governance Model in Guerrilla Translation: How does it work?

We have established that Guerrilla Translators perform two types of productive work: pro-bono and paid (more about reproductive or care work later). If we take written translation as an example, both types are essentially identical. They are performed by the same team, using the same methods, working collectively, and sharing both the work and the eventual rewards. So, what are the differences?

Pro-bono translations are the ones we choose to do ourselves, based on our enthusiasm for the original material and well aligned with our values. This doesn’t make us unpaid volunteers, though. It all boils down to the way we choose to distribute value. To us, a pro-bono or a paid translation has the same value – literally. We assign a (cost) value for all work we do, whether it’s a self-selected pro-bono piece for publication on our blog, or work contracted by a client. Our model of income distribution diverts a portion of every paid/contracted job towards fulfilling the value of the pro-bono work shares accrued by our members. This has several functions. First, it allows all members of the collective to gain an amount of income from their productive work, whether it was pro-bono or paid. Second, collective members are not put into competition among themselves for paid work, nor for the “best” paid work (based on the per-word rate). All work is valued internally at the same rate, regardless of the external prices which are variable.

We have several pricing tiers for our clients. Metaphorically, there’s a pay-it-forward spirit involved here on the client side, but it’s more like pay-it-backward-and-forward internally in the collective. Clients with the greatest financial means who are aligned with our principles and wish to provide support for our knowledge commons are offered the top tier rate – this is still quite competitive, in fact at the lower end of typical translation pricing. There will be a penny or two per word that these clients are directly donating to our pro-bono shares and also towards any contract jobs we accept for clients with minimal or bare-bones budgets (including small co-ops, activist collectives, non-VC startups, and others). This sliding scale helps us nurture relationships and help support collectives and initiatives with the least financial means so it is fair for everyone.

The soft stuff is the hard stuff: the importance of a care work

So far, we have mainly spoken about productive, tangible work: translations, editing, formatting. These tasks are mostly word-based and therefore, easy to quantify and assign credits. But what about everything that leads, directly or indirectly, to paid work? Searching for clients, project management, quality control, relationship and trust building, etc. – all the invisible work that goes into keeping afloat? This is reproductive work, or care work.

In GT. we distinguish between two types of care work: that for the health of the collective, and that for the living beings within.

When talking about caring for the health of the collective, we conceive it as a living entity or system, even a commons. The emergent values of this system are encoded in the governance model and embodied by the collective’s practices and legal-technical structures ^[3]. To maintain a healthy collective we choose to honour our collective agreements, maintain our communication rhythms, and distribute the care work needed to make the collective thrive. Other ways to care for the health of the collective include coop and business development, seeking and attending to clients, making sure our financials are up to date and everything is paid, maintaining active relationships with authors, publishers, following through on our commitments… everything that you’d consider as “admin” work in a traditional agency or co-op, and on top of that, everything else that’s easily forgotten if you’re not doing it yourself. It’s literally invisible work to those who don’t acknowledge it, and work that many feel unjustifiably obligated to take on.

The difference is that in Guerrilla Translation, these activities aren’t assigned to set roles. Instead, all “caring for the health of the collective” aka care work items are modular, easily visualized, and can be picked up by any collective member. In fact, those members may belong to one or more work circles, which steward certain areas, such as community, sustainability, networking, training, tech, etc.

Additionally, when we speak about care work for the living beings who make the collective, we refer to the individual Guerrilla Translators who mutually build trust and intimacy to care for and support each other. Our cooperative practices should never be solely dependent on technology or protocols, including the governance model. These are only tools to facilitate and strengthen our collaborative culture.

We believe that cooperative cohesion is primarily based on healthy, consent-based heterarchical relationships. To foster these we have committed to certain regular practices, such as mentoring — where we practice and document peer learning in the collective’s tools and practices — and mutual support — where we look after each other and care for our mutual well-being, attuned to everyone’s moods, needs and larger realities beyond the collective.

Every member, whether in training or longstanding, is supported by a specific person who has their back. Every member has someone else’s back. Supported members have a safe space to express themselves to be cared for and heard within the collective. In this relationship, they may also be reminded of their commitments, etc. Conflict resolution is handled through the mutual support system, ensuring the distribution of personal care work. This has been a very basic overview of the model’s structural (credits and shares) and cultural (care work) qualities. If it raises more questions than it answers, or if you’re simply curious, you can read the full model. In the following sections, we will visualize the ways in which the model can work.

What this looks like in practice

Meet “Jill”, a Guerrilla Translator. Today she’s got a little bit of a time and has chosen an article to be translated. Maybe she proposed it, or maybe she picked it up from an existing list of material waiting to be translated. She contacts the author to let her know that GT would like to translate and publish the article, and asks for any required permission if necessary, etc.

This describes a pro-bono translation. Jill will work alongside “María”, a copyeditor, and “Deb”, who’ll take care of the web formatting and social media promotion of the article.

The article is 1000 words long. This wordcount is processed through GT’s internal credits protocol, with this pro-bono translation valued at 0,16 credits per word. Once completed, 160 Love credits will be created. This is how they are split:

• 80 for the translation (Jill)
• 40 for the copyediting/proofreading (María)
• 10 for pre production (Jill, as she chose the article and contacted the author)
• 20 for formatting (Deb)
• 10 for post production (Deb, as she will be promoting the translation doing social media, etc) ^[4]

Let’s imagine that this is the first time that Jill, Maria and Deb have done a pro-bono project for GT. Once the project is accounted for, their respective pro-bono shares will look like this:

• Jill has accrued 90 Love Credits
• María has accrued 40 Love Credits
• Deb has accrued 30 Love Credits

A week passes, and an author or client wants to contract GT to translate an article. This is called livelihood work. The material is chosen by the client (obviously), and the deadline negotiated with the collective. Coincidentally, the text to be translated is also 1000 words long (amazing how our examples are identical!). GT’s agency side uses a sliding scale for prices. This client is a small, open source-oriented NGO, so the price is quoted at 0,12 € per word. The team will be Jill as the translator and María as the editor. Note that unlike the pro-bono translation above, there is no web formatting to be done. Once the translation is completed, the client owes GT 120 €, but this money will not be paid directly to Jill and María as income. This money will be held until the end of the month in a digital trust dedicated to maintaining health of the collective. Meanwhile, once the translation is complete and sent to the client, Jill and Maria will have accrued the following Livelihood Credits:

• Jill has accrued 80 Livelihood Credits
• María has accrued 40 Livelihood Credits

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that these are the only pro bono and agency translations undertaken in the history of the collective. Now it’s getting toward the end of the month and the Guerilla Translators are ready to distribute! There are exactly 120 euros in the bank account ^[5]. This is how they will be distributed:

• 75% of the funds will fulfill Livelihood credit shares
• 25% will fulfill Pro-bono credit shares

These percentages have been chosen to balance the time needed for paid work while not forgetting to set aside some time for the vital pro-bono side. Now, we will divest those 120 € within the trust and into two “streams”:

• The Livelihood Stream receives a total of 90,00 €
• The Love Stream receives a total of 30,00 €

This is now divided among the member’s shares in the following way:

Livelihood Stream: Jill holds 67% of the “shares” (80 credits of 120 total), while María has 33% (40 credits of a 120 total). So out of 88,80 € allocated for the Livelihood Stream, Jill will receive 60,30 €. María receives 29,70 €.

Love Stream: Jill holds 56% of the shares (90 credits of 160 total). María has 25% (40 out of 160) and Deb has 19% (30 out of 160). So, out of 30 € allocated for the Love Stream, Jill will receive 16,80 €, María 7,50 € and Deb 5,70 €.

Totalled up, this is the money that gets paid to the three active members:

• Jill receives 77,10 € (her Livelihood and Love work combined)
• María receives 37,20 € (her Livelihood and Love work combined)
• Deb receives 5,70 € (Just Love work, as Deb hasn’t performed any livelihood work this month)

This totals 120 €. Magic!

One example among many

This is one situation. During another month, María may have done much more editing work, which takes less time than translation. Deb may have done more care work (more on that later) in both the Love and Livelihood streams. New people may have come in, maybe there’s been a windfall! The model can account for all these and other possibilities while also being dynamic in changing circumstances. It’s a “Team Human” model where the technology is kept flexible, and updates to serve the qualitative experiences of the collective, not just the measurable ones.

The secret life of Livelihood, Love and the ways of measuring credits

As you may have noticed, if 1 love credit equals 1 euro, in the example above we’ve only paid down 30 Love credits (25% of distributed funds) in euros. As 160 Love credits were created with the pro-bono translation, this still leaves 130 which haven’t been paid in money.

The credits that have been converted into money and transferred to individual’s accounts are called Divested credits, ie: they’ve been paid down. The unpaid credits are considered Invested credits: active credits that have yet to be paid. If you think about it, on a month by month basis 75% of Love credits will be “invested” rather than divested/paid. In essence, the coop has an ongoing debt with its own pro-bono/Love stream which will be paid back on a rolling basis. ^[6]

The same situation is also applicable to Livelihood credits. As 75% of earned credits are divested, 25% will remain invested. Both types of credits (Love and Livelihood) can be divested or invested. Meanwhile, the sum of both are considered Historical credits.

“Why so many? So confusing!” Yeah okay, but complexity allows for dynamism, nuance and catering for the different life circumstances and preferences of Guerrilla Translators. Reality is complex, and we want this to work in many real situations.

For now, it’s important to make clear that the total amount of historical credits you have accrued reflect your investment in the organization. Whether it’s productive or reproductive work, it all gets tracked: this informs our governance.

While in typical daily situations, all Guerrilla Translators have what amounts to “one member one vote” rights, historical credits come into play when making critical decisions such as blocked discussions, large structural changes to the governance model, and legal structure changes. In these rare yet important situations, votes can be weighed against an individual’s historical credits.

Meanwhile, the invested/divested ratio helps clarify which members are prioritized for Livelihood work. Given that livelihood work gets divested at a 75% higher rate than Love work, we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to perform it, and that incoming work is offered to those with a higher invested ration first. Similarly, when measuring care work the invested/divested ratios helps clarify when individuals may be benefitting monetarily in lieu of caring for the collective (and its members). In these cases, the ratio is used to determine whether to divest less and agree to a renewed commitment to care work.

In essence, care work is measured in hours, not credits, but it is only entrusted to members who have already gone through a 9-month “dating” phase before becoming fully committed members. All care work hours are instantly turned into historical credits. The Governance Model also describes two scenarios for care work hours: one in which these are paid from an seed-funding pool and a second when once the Open Coop is stable, it is entirely demonetised, with members committing to a set amount of hours each month and adjusting accordingly when there are any discrepancies. ^[7]

Why have we chosen this model?

Imagine that María is single mother with two kids to take care of. She wants to do socially useful work, but her material realities don’t allow her that privilege. By working with Guerrilla Translation she a) can perform paid/livelihood work for causes that matter and b) will not “lose” income by doing pro-bono work – ie, translations that would not otherwise get funded, but which should still be translated.

In fact, she could spend most of her time just doing paid/livelihood work, and it would still benefit the pro-bono/love side (and vice versa). The model addresses the possibility of internal competition for “paid work” overshadowing the social/activist mission of the collective. In short, contributing to the Commons also makes your livelihood more resilient. In turn, you make the Commons more resilient by creating new commons and facilitating communications. The same can be said about care work. The more you demonstrate care for the collective, the more resilient and healthy it will be. If any member can’t contribute a similar proportion of care work as the rest, the member will simply have a proportional amount of their credits deducted and will be encouraged to compensate by committing to more care hours.

In summary, the model is designed to find an optimum balance between paid, pro bono and reproductive work, with equity and continued dialogue at the center.

And much, much more

Here we have touched on some of the characteristics of the model. The full version looks at every aspect in detail, including roles and responsibilities, onboarding and mentoring, the legal/technical backdrop, community rhythms, graduated sanctions, payment mechanics, decision making, and much more.

If you are interested in joining or collaborating with Guerrilla Translation, or are researching or writing about new forms of commons-oriented accounting (and accountability!), you are now much better prepared to grasp the model in its entirety:

Commons-Oriented Open Cooperative Governance Model V 2.0

Meanwhile, for easy reference we are providing below a summary of the model’s main featured and a list of the materials that influenced its creation.

Open Coop Governance Model TLDR

In short: Guerrilla Translators undertake both pro-bono and paid translation/editing work. These types of productive work are accounted for in internal credits (1 credit = 1 Euro), creating shares. Net funds held in GT’s account are then distributed on a monthly basis: 75% of these are used to pay down members’ agency (livelihood) shares. The remaining 25% is used to pay for pro bono (love) shares. Reproductive work is tallied in hours and distributed according to each members ratio of benefits vs. contributions.

Below is the protocol for the model’s main characteristics. These can be applied as a bare-bones formula for other commons-oriented service collectives. Hyperlinks direct to specific sections of the full governance model text or to the Guerrilla Media Collective Wiki.

• The Open Coop performs socially-oriented pro-bono and paid work.
• Pro-bono work creates relationships and social capital which (can) lead to paid work.
• Both forms of work are tallied into credits.
• Net earned income is distributed to fulfil members’ shares, allocated as: Paid (75%) and Pro-bono (25%).
• Client prices are on a sliding scale but members’ credits accrued are stable.
• Higher (client) prices lead to surpluses, used to accelerate pro-bono credit payment.
• There are three levels of participation: Casual/unpaid (commons-based peer production); Dating/partly paid (Commons/coop onboarding process); and Committed/paid (Commons and Coop full membership).
• Casual members have no responsibilities and Committed members review their work for inclusion, or not
• Dating members have ongoing responsibilities (pro-bono and care work) during a nine month trial periodbefore mutual decisions are made about becoming Committed. They are peer mentored by the collective and continually evaluated.
• Committed members have ongoing responsibilities (pro-bono and care work), evaluated quarterly. Members unable to maintain these are downgraded from the Coop.
• Care and reproductive work is valued as highly as productive work. “Care” means caring for the health of the collective and also caring for its individual members.
• Care work is valued in time and entrusted selectively by committed members.
• Decision making is made by consent. Committed members’ votes are binding.
• Reproductive care work and productive pro-bono and paid work affect each member’s standing in the coop, as seen in their total credits over time.

Suggested Reading

First is a summary article of our GT Reloaded event, documenting the main discussions and takeaways from the encounter, where we picked apart and reimagined the governance model:

• Punk Elegance: How Guerrilla Translation reimagined itself for Open Cooperativism (article) “The future of the project seems really bright because of the clarity of vision. Doing meaningful social and political work for groups and projects isn’t just an afterthought. The determination to build that into the org structure speaks volumes to the wisdom of the group: that investment of time is powerful, that translators and editors should be able to openly do passion work, following their hearts together, and that collective prioritization teaches everyone involved, and nurtures and hones shared values.” See also the Guerrilla Translation Reloaded Full Workshop Report for a more detailed account.

Following is a list of articles, papers, videos on things that have influenced our governance model and general philosophy. They also explore some of the tensions we have tried to reconcile: between metrics and the immeasurable, system design and lived experience, and productive and reproductive work.

• Patterns for Decentralised Governance and why Blockchain Doesn’t Decentralise Power… Unless You Design It To (Video and article) “There is a lot of anticipation for how blockchain and other decentralising technologies are going to drastically reshape society, but do they address power? “If you take a step back from the technology, if you look at the challenges we face in wider society, and you look at the history of social change, if you step back and just consider for a minute: “how can we decentralise power?”, then “build a better database” feels like a pretty weak answer. To me, it seems obvious that some of the most urgent power imbalances fall on gender, race, and class lines.”
• Patterns for Decentralised Organising (e-book) “I’m not so interested in what you’re working on together, I’m just going to focus on how you do it. To my way of thinking, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to build a better electric vehicle, or develop government policy, or blockade a pipeline; whenever you work with a group of people on a shared objective, there’s some stuff you’re going to deal with, some challenges. How do we decide what we’re working on? who does what? who can join our team? what are our expectations for each other? what happens when someone doesn’t fulfill those expectations? what do we do with disagreement? how do decisions get made?” ^[8]
• The Financialization of Life (article). “Do we want everything in life to be a transaction, as the market totalitarians propose? Or do we want to be citizen-commoners, co-creating shared value in freely associating communities? These differences matter, and Salvatore Iaconesi has written a brilliant analysis of the potential dangers of uncritically applying the blockchain to human life.”
• Re-imagining Value: Insights from the Care Economy, Commons, Cyberspace and Nature (booklet). “What is “value” and how shall we protect it? It’s a simple question for which we don’t have a satisfactory answer. For conventional economists and politicians, the answer is simple: value is essentially the same as price. This report explains that how we define value says a lot about what we care about and how we make sense of things — and the political agendas we pursue.”
• There is an alternative: participatory economics (interview) In this interview, Michael Albert — co-founder of Znet — reflects on the vision of participatory economics, and how it could take us beyond capitalism. “For the Occupy movements, and for other projects and movements which are rousing and continuing all around the world, to all together merge into a massive project that is truly oriented to engender a classless, feminist, inter-communalist, participatory future — I think their membership will have to be in command, not some elite at the helm. And I think those memberships will have to know the broad defining attributes of where they are trying to go, so they use tactics and strategies consistent with getting there.”
• From Platform to Open Cooperativism (article) “Two cooperative movements are important in this discussion: Platform Cooperativism, and Open Cooperativism. One may be more publicly visible right now, but they have much in common. These movements marry the power of digital networks with the rich history of the cooperative movement. How do these approaches compare? Are they redundant, complementary, mutually exclusive? What exact problems do they solve, and what outcome do they seek? In this article, we explain their origins and characteristics, and see how the actions proposed by these movements can work together, helping us form resilient livelihoods in our networked age.”
• Why do we need a contribution accounting system? (article) “With the advent of the Internet and the development of new digital technologies, the economy is following a trend of decentralization. The most innovative environments are open source communities and peer production is on the rise. The crowd innovates and produces. But the crowd is organized in loose networks, it is geographically dispersed, and contributions to projects follow a long tail distribution. What are the possible reward mechanisms in this new economy?”
• Blockchain technology : toward a decentralized governance of digital platforms? (academic paper) “In the same way, blockchain technology has enabled the emergence of new projects and initiatives designed around to the principles of decentralization and disintermediation, providing a new platform for large-scale experimentation in the design of new economic and organisational structures. Yet, to be really transformative, these initiatives need to transcend the current models of protocol-based governance and game-theoretical incentives, which can easily be co-opted by powerful actors, and come up with new governance models combining both on-chain and off-chain governance rules. The former can be used to support new mechanisms of regulation by code, novel incentivization schemes and a new sense of ownership over digital assets, whereas the latter are necessary to promote the vision, and facilitate the interaction of commons-based projects and initiatives with the existing legal and societal framework.”
• Holo: The evolution of cloud computing (article) “This is an attempt to communicate Holo in simple, clear language (with a bit of playfulness to keep it entertaining)” and A Futurist’s View on Holochain, The Evolution Of Blockchain, (video). An easy to understand video walk-through on Holo’s architecture and potential.
• Blockchain Just Isn’t As Radical As You Want It To Be (article). “Today, Silicon Valley appropriates so many of the ideas of the left —anarchism, mobility, and cooperation— even limited forms of welfare. This can create the sense that technical fixes like the blockchain are part of some broader shift to a post-capitalist society, when this shift has not taken place. Indeed, the blockchain applications that are really gaining traction are those developed by large banks in collaboration with tech startups — applications to build private blockchains for greater asset management or automatic credit clearing between banks, or to allow cultural industries to combat piracy in a distributed network and manage the sale and ownership of digital goods more efficiently.”

Footnotes

The post The Open Coop Governance Model in Guerrilla Translation: an Overview appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Mike Hales: When I first read Gary Werskey’s 2007 ‘three movements’ article – four years ago – I was sceptical. He discussed two British movements of radicals around science, in the 30s-40s and the 70s-80s, and speculated on the possibility of a third (which might possibly have an environmental impetus).

I was particularly unconvinced about the possibility of a Marxist movement, like the other two. But now, in 2018, I do have the sense that, yes, the peer-to-peer commons movement may be the thing that is in fact standing in that place. It would be worthwhile, at least, to proceed on the basis that it is – with substantial (if, for activists, secondary) implications for the field of science and technology studies (STS). I’m in no doubt that P2P-commons is the biggest thing I’ve seen in my activist lifetime . . and that it mobilises the stuff I’ve been cultivating these past 50 years, as a libertarian socialist with an orientation to the politics of knowledges and technologies.

It would be worth proceeding on the basis that P2P-commons is ‘the third radical science movement’

‘Radical science’ in the 70s wasn’t essentially about science?

The movement for P2P-commons may be significantly ‘cultural’ and profoundly ‘materialist’, in ways that might be facilitated and clarified

The P2P-commons movement seems to be carrying forward – expanding – the organic intellectual impetus that began to be apparent in the 70s, ‘in-and-against the PMC’

P2P-commons is way bigger than ‘radical science’ was

Photo by pedrosimoes7

The post Peer-to-peer-commons – The historical ‘third movement’ of radical science? It can only get better appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Large digital technology corporations offer “free” tools to help make their data useable but only if those companies can control the data, and to use it for their own commercial ends. All this led Juegos del Común – a project designed by the Arsgames Association and launched in Barcelona in 2017-2018 – to research and develop mechanisms to transform open data into clear, accessible information.

This in turn gave rise to the development of an interactive experience based on game dynamics, with the aim of promoting citizen empowerment and participation and encouraging critical thinking about the function and value of data and information in our society.

Screenshot from Last Hope, a simulation of homelessness

Juegos del Común developed four game prototypes and an online service providing access to open data sets about the impact of tourism on housing in the city. These prototypes aim to encourage reflection based on real data provided by Barcelona City Council, and the processing of this data.

The online service aims to provide access to open data with a focus on housing and tourism issues through game drivers such as Construct2, Godot, Unity, Gdevelop, GameMaker.

Four video game prototypes have been developed: Rambla Rush: a run along the Rambla in Barcelona based on the average cost of rented accommodation and the city’s many cultural festivals; Flatsweeper: a minesweeper in search of rented flats in Barcelona; PimPamPom: A pinball game that you have to win in order to be able to pay the rent; and Last Hope: a simulation of the everyday life of a homeless person.

These four prototypes have helped forge links between different local communities, and are enabling Barcelona City Council’s open data to be used in a creative and impactful way.

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit arsgames.net/blog/

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

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