Join us for this intensive two-week study programme with Schumacher College and Synergia Institute. This course offers participants a practical guide on how we can shift our economy to put people and planet first This programme brings together international scholars and experts who will explore all key areas of society; food, democracy, housing, social care, the commons and social finance. This course is useful for people involved in developing social enterprises and co-operative organisations, students, activists and academics.

An intensive two-week study programme with Schumacher College and the Synergia Institute

What is the ethical economy and how does it work?

• Comprehensive exploration of economic democracy and sustainability as viable bases for system change at local, regional and international scales.
• Unique combination of history, theory, and practice.
• Strong focus on personal & professional experience & participation as key elements of the course.

The Synergia Programme will include

The Problematic with John Restakis
How might we frame the historic moment in which we find ourselves from a political economy perspective? This session presents both a historic retrospective on the movement for economic democracy and how the current configuration of global capitalism demands new perspectives, models, and action strategies for change makers world-wide.

The Partner State with John Restakis
The current crisis of the welfare state is the culmination of a process of de legitimation that has been in the making for more than a generation. For many, the very notion of the state as a force for the good is untenable. But is there a way to reclaim and re conceptualize the state as an institution in service to the common good? This session introduces the concept of the Partner State as an extension of the principles that characterize co-operative economic democracy as a political, economic, and social ideal.

Labour and the Precariat with Cilla Ross
With the emergence of revolutionary digital and informatics technologies, traditional forms of labour are rapidly being replaced with the rise of a new class of precarious and atomised work that threatens not only the livelihoods millions but also the very meaning of work itself. This session examines the implications of this revolutionary shift in the forms of labour, what this entails for the well-being of workers, local communities, and society, and how co-operative and human-centred models of work can challenge the dominant paradigm.

The Commons with Michel Bauwens
Over the last decade, the idea of the commons has emerged as a powerful antidote to the prevailing private property and free market notion of how economies, markets, and social relations might be organized. In particular, the rise of digital platforms and the restructuring of online work through the operation of peer-to-peer networks has offered a revolutionary re think of how co-operative and commons-based principles are redefining both economic and societal relations in service to the common good. This session examines what the idea of the commons means for re visioning models of political economy as alternatives to the status quo.

For more information and registration, visit the Shumacher College site

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When and Where

Full title: Transition to Co-operative Commonwealth: Pathways to a new political economy

When: September 4-23, 2016

Place: Monte Ginezzo, Tuscany, Italy

Invitation (by John Restakis):

“Transition to Co-operative Commonwealth – Pathways to a New Political Economy, is an intensive 3-week program that links the global with the local through the diffusion of transformative ideas, models, and practices that advance game-changing solutions for progressive change in the following key areas:

• Co-operative Capital & Social Finance; Alternative Currencies
• Co-op & Commons-Based housing & Land Tenure; Community Land Trusts
• Renewable Energy; Community-owned energy systems
• Local & Sustainable food systems; Community Supported Agriculture
• User-controlled health & social care; Social & Community Service Co-ops
• Co-operative and Commons Governance
• Platform Co-operatives, Digital Commons & Peer-to-Peer productions systems
• Convergence and the New Political Economy; Principles, Propositions, and Practices

Download the Synergia program (available here) for complete details. If you like what you see, we hope that you and others in your organization or network will find an opportunity to take part.

We are now in the process of constructing the Synergia website, but information on Synergia and the Summer Institute may also be found on our Facebook page you can also follow us on Twitter. Those wishing information on registration for the course can send an email to: [email protected].

We hope this first Synergia Summer Institute inspires you and your colleagues to spread the word to others who are committed to building a new political economy for the world we want. The need for system change is clear and urgent and Synergia is promoting solutions that can make it happen.

We look forward to your joining us for this unique learning experience in Tuscany this September.”

Photo by blueskyfantasie

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In ‘Commoning as a Transformative Social Paradigm‘ David Bollier outlines the ways in which the commons provides a critique of neoliberal capitalism and offers critical possibilities for a new system. Bollier argues that a commons-based new system would “integrate production, governance and bottom-up participation into new sorts of institutions.” It would not be an economic system in the traditional sense, but would instead present “a blended hybrid of the social, the economic, and self-governance.” In contrast to the present regime, commoning would be a flexible system, controlled by communities and responsive to their needs. In the commons-based society that Bollier envisions, economics, governance, politics, and culture are blended, and based on de-commodification, mutualization, and the organization and control of resources outside of the market.

In ‘Building A Cooperative Solidarity Commonwealth‘ Jessica Gordon Nembhard describes a system that seeks to establish and strengthen economic participation from the bottom up through interlinking networks of cooperatives. “These interconnections start locally but build into regional, national, and international interlocking structures,” she argues. In the cooperative solidarity commonwealth, the economy is centered on need not profit, economic and political power are decentralized, and wealth is democratically controlled and distributed. Since “we can’t have economic democracy in a racist and sexist society,” working on anti-oppression and non-exploitation would be an imperative. This system would be built in the United States by local groups of marginalized peoples. Out of a desire to reverse oppression and exploitation, communities would start cooperatives, control resources, and combat economic exclusion. Cooperators would produce much of what they need locally, contributing to ecological and environmental health and sustainability. When necessary, they would also network and link up regionally, nationally, and internationally.

In ‘Toward Democractic Eco-Socialism as the Next World System‘ Hans Baer proposes a new approach to what he calls “authentic socialism.” As opposed to past experiments with socialism – associated with sudden revolutions, violence, and adverse economic contexts – democratic eco-socialism in his vision would emerge slowly through a series of “system challenging reforms” and pressures from social movements. In Baer’s system, all citizens would have the opportunity to participate in decision making, at work and in organizations that impact their lives. Baer rejects a growth-oriented economy; instead, democratic eco-socialism would take into account the fragility of the planet and its limited resources through equitable distribution mechanisms. Key features of Baer’s democratic eco-socialism include public ownership of the means of production, representative and participatory democracy, an economy oriented to meeting people’s basic needs, protecting the environment, and creating a high degree of social equality.

Finally, in ‘A Civic Economy of Provisions‘ Marvin Brown presents a model for the next system in which economic activity is based not solely on property ownership or the free market but on civic membership in a “global civil society.” He advocates a new approach to system change that would re-frame our social structures around civic relations. Oriented around families, communities, attachments, and mutual identities, this civic economy of provisions would ensure that all people have access to food, housing, health care, and education. “The civic,” for Brown, is centered around conversations that take on difficult social and economic issues and ask participants to “draw on their shared humanity to listen and learn from one another.” Thus, instead of specific designs, Brown proposes civic conversations that would bring together those who work in each area of provision and ask them to design new arrangements based on common needs. More than a specific formula, he offers a means by which people could collaboratively design a next system, while also setting out some of the fundamental changes that would be required to make such civic conversations possible.

The Next System Project’s ‘New Systems‘ paper series seeks to publicize comprehensive alternative political-economic system models and approaches that are different in fundamental ways from the failed systems of the past and present, and capable of delivering superior social, economic, and ecological outcomes. The introduction to the series and a full list of New Systems papers published to date can be found here.”

Photo by MSVG

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I hadn’t equated this routine with place-making.

A community in Scotland has.

The Cateran Common Wealth maps existing cultural sites along a trail that circles the community.

This project expands the notion of place-making from a solitary public space to network of public locations.

By employing  a creative commons tool – Open Street Map – Cateran Common Wealth demonstrates an approach to place-making that is available to everyone.

Extracted from http://commonculture.org.uk/about-the-project/the-cateran-trail/

The Cateran Trail is a fully waymarked walk of 64 miles (103 km) that lies at the heart of Scotland, approximately 60 miles north of Edinburgh, 17 miles north west of Dundee and 21 miles north east from Perth.

A circular route, the Trail has no real beginning or end and takes its name from the Caterans (most likely taken from the Gaelic ‘ceathaime’ meaning ‘common people’), the feared cattle thieves who raided the rich lands of Strathardle, Glenshee and Glen Isla.

Extracted from http://commonculture.org.uk/about-the-project/cateran-map/

We’ve begun a mapping exercise to identify all the people and organisations working with arts, culture and heritage around the Cateran Trail who might get involved in helping us develop the programme and make it happen and we’ve already found over 136. If you zoom in on the map below you will see where everyone is located, together with a little bit of information about them and a link to their website where they have one. The red line is the Cateran Trail.

Extracted from http://commonculture.org.uk/events/whats-planned/

Starting in  2016 and running through 2017 and probably into 2018, all around the Cateran Trail, you will be able to experience arts, cultural and heritage activities & events which will inspire you to think about & celebrate our ‘common wealth’.

Photo by giovanni.k

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