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

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

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

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

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

Photo by cuboctahedron

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

A documentary about the local exchange network in Garrotxa

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

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

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

The IntegralCES homepage

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

Bioregional assembly (Ultramort, May 2016)

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

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Fira FESC: the trade fair organized by XES in Barcelona

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

Pam a Pam: mapping the Catalan social economy

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

The governance model of XES

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

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

Calafou’s post-apocalyptic aesthetics

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

The Calafou hacklab

As far as its property regime is concerned, the village has been leased to Calafou members based on the following agreement: the “colonists” gave the owner a security deposit of seventy thousand euros and committed themselves to paying a monthly rent of an average of two and a half thousand euros (inclusive of the cost of utilities) for the next ten years. Presently, the colony, which has twenty-seven houses (of 60m² each), is inhabited by about thirty people. For the collective management of housing, Calafou members have set up a housing cooperative, which grants them as tenants only the right to use the space they inhabit. In that way, as tenants do not have the right to re-sell or lease their rights of use to others, the land and the houses of the village remain the unalienable property of the housing cooperative. Thus, based on the above agreement, tenants pay 175 euros per month for each house.

A bird’s-eye view of the village

According to some of its members, one of Calafou’s most significant accomplishments is its consensus-oriented assembly, which is held every Sunday for the purpose of making decisions as well as for the coordination of daily tasks like cleaning up common spaces, which – like everything else that needs to be done – are self-selected on a voluntary basis by “Calafou-ers”. The assembly character is however not always the same, as its thematology alternates between “political” (for discussion of political issues), “managerial” (for management issues) and “monographic” based on presentations made by Calafou’s working groups.[1]

For its economic sustainability, Calafou depends on three main sources of income: first, the revenues of the housing cooperative (based on the rent paid by residents); second, the contributions made by Calafou’s productive projects [2]; and third, the income generated by the various cultural events taking place at the village (like conferences, concerts and festivals).

Notes

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

[2] Productive projects have to pay a monthly rent of one euro for every square metre of space they occupy at Calafou.

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One of the XCTIT prototypes

Presently, XCTIT’s activities focus on the development of various prototypes – mostly of agricultural tools and machines – and the organization of training workshops for the purpose of knowledge sharing. XCTIT is also engaged in the production of theory (e.g. through publications like this) and in the licensing of the technology artefacts developed by the committee and its collaborators. XCTIT’s last undertaking is an open design license called “XCTIT-GPL”, which gives end-users the right to modify and redistribute XCTIT-GPL-licensed technologies, thereby protecting legally the free sharing of knowledge.

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

XCTIT’s workshop at Can Fugarolas

Can Fugarolas is not just a building. It is a collectively managed space of 4000 m² in the seaside town of Mataró (near Barcelona) in Catalonia, which is host to the activities of about a dozen collectivities like XCTIT. For the payment of the rent, which is a thousand euros per month, each collectivity contributes according to (a) the character of its activities – whether or nor they are profit-oriented and “eco-friendly” – and (b) how much space it occupies inside the building. For XCTIT, in specific, the rent of the space occupied by its workshop is a hundred euros per month.

To this day, the work of the committee has been supported by the “basic income” of four hundred “monetary units” received by each of its members. However, in the context of CIC’s strategy of decentralization, the last permanent assembly (in Barcelona in May 2016) decided to discontinue the provision of basic income to the XCTIT, thereby turning it from a committee into a financially autonomous project. Consequently, in order to ensure its sustainability, from now on XCTIT plans to rely on the following two sources of income: first, it collects 20% of the revenue from the workshops organized by other groups and collectivities at XCTIT’s space inside Can Fugarolas.[1] Furthermore, it aspires to complement its income through replicat.net, which it recently launched as an electronic marketplace for the prototypes developed by XCTIT and its collaborators.[2]

Notes

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

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

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The Central d’Abastiment Catalana (CAC), which means “Catalan Supply Center”, was formed in 2012 with the purpose of creating a logistics network for the transportation and delivery of the products of small producers, who are (“self-employed”) CIC members, across the entire Catalonia. In effect, it is a public service that CIC offers to small producers and consumer-prosumer groups in Catalonia.

The CAC logo

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

CAC is made up of a team of four persons, half of whom are working full-time. This team is responsible for coordinating the network of rebosts through CAC’s online platform, which the rebosts use in order to choose the products they want and submit their orders. The payment for the orders can be made in euros, ecos or by using CAC’s preferred mode of payment, which is barter exchange. In this way, the CAC platform serves as the “instrument” which enables the coordination of consumption and production in such a distributed environment.

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

CAC member Vadó and the CAC van

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

For organizational matters, the CAC team has three meetings per month, which often have the character of an assembly. However, the place where they are held is not fixed: each meeting is held in a different rebost in order to facilitate interaction between the “coordinating organ” and the “local nuclei of self-organization”, as the CIC calls the local consumer groups that are responsible for the operation of each rebost.

In line with CIC’s strategy of decentralization, CAC’s plans for the future are focused on strengthening the links between rebosts and producers so that payments can be made directly by the rebosts without the intermediation of the CAC.

Following up on this “profile” of the CAC, in my next post I will discuss another important CIC committee, the so-called XCTIT, which is responsible for the development of tools and machines geared to the needs of the productive projects in CIC’s network.

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The CASX logo

Launched in 2012 as an “autonomous project of collective initiative” of the CIC, CASX has been operating as a co-op since 2013, using the legal form of Xarxa d’Autogestio Social SCCL, which is one of the “legal tools” the CIC offers to its member-projects. Presently, CASX has 155 members, of which many represent other cooperatives and collectivities. The membership fee for individual projects is 15 euros and 51 euros for collective projects. Taking into account the activist character of the project as well as the fact that deposits to CASX are interest-free, it is truly remarkable that the total amount of deposits made in the last four years exceeds 250 thousand euros (for a more detailed analysis, see graph below).

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

The members of CASX make decisions based on consensus through its assembly, which takes place once a month at AureaSocial. In case that consensus is not possible among co-op members as to whether a project should be funded or not, “the ones that agree to go on with the funding can do so individually” by using their personal CASX deposits in a manner akin to crowd-funding (CIC). As fas as its daily operation is concerned, CASX relies on two CIC members, who receive a basic income of 70 “monetary units” (which, in their case, amount to 60 euros and 10 ecos) per month.

CASX has suspended temporarily its operation since the beginning of the year in order to re-engineer its organization around a deposits and funding model based exclusively on ecos, which is slated to roll out when CASX resumes its operation in about two months. Alongside with the implementation of this business model, one of CASX’s goals for the future is the decentralization of its model through its local reproduction “so that every neighborhood, town or city can start generating their own CASX assembly, redirecting the resources of their local members to local projects” (CIC).

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Enric Duran of the Catalan Integrated Cooperative has taken the time to comment on Michel Bauwens’ recent article on Open Coops, contrasting Bauwens’ proposals with the practical realities already under way in the CIC’s own forward thinking cooperativist environment.

Bauwens’ summary of these proposals include four key proposals which Duran addresses below. To give some context, the four proposals are:

1. That coops need to be statutorily (internally) oriented towards the common good 
2. That coops need to have governance models including all stakeholders
3. That coops need to actively co-produce the creation of immaterial and material commons
4. That coops need to be organized socially and politically on a global basis, even as they produce locally.

Here are Duran’s comments to each proposal.

1. That coops need to be statutorily (internally) oriented towards the common good 

Enric Duran: In the CIC’s second assembly, a set of general principles were approved:

• General Principles

Then, towards the end of 2013 the following principles were added:

• Ideological Principles

I will now list some of these principles, namely those related to the common good.

From the first part:

Social Transformation

A concern for the common good and for one’s own welfare

Building an inclusive cooperative that encompasses the whole of society

Society

Social justice and equity

Sharing our practices throughout society

Political organization

Democracy: direct, deliberative, participative

From the second part :

a/ Recover common ownership for the benefit of all, with people-centered ownership and control

We have to recover the control of land and the means of production for the common good, enabling its availability through collectivization (communal ownership) for the public good.

b/ Build a cooperative system that is public and self-managed, based upon mutual aid

We work for the common good, to ensure that all of our vital necessities (food, health, housing, education, energy, transportation, etc.) are covered through a truly public system, built by ourselves and based on self-management, cooperating with one another and promoting the values and abilities that are essentially human.

c/ Liberate access to information and knowledge

We share knowledge among us all to build a greater common good.

At the practical level, we need to continue reinforcing our resources (people, self organization, money, spaces…) to expand our activity for the common good.

2. That coops need to have governance models including all stakeholders 

Enric Duran

The CIC has always included all stakeholders, as we welcome all who wish to be included. Ours in an open government model where everyone can be part of meetings and the decision making process with no need to apply for membership.

To this day, the biweekly in-person assemblies have represented the main decision-making space. At the same time, those involved in different commissions and projects — also carried out in open groups — hold more influence over their particular areas of work. People are welcome to participate in the meetings over the Internet, but in-person attendance is required to partake in the decision-making process.

We have, however, discovered the following shortcomings. The level of involvement of those members that don’t attend meetings is minimal. A possible solution would be to include and implement the use of direct democracy tools. We’re aware of the technical availability of these types of tools, but we feel that a broad social/political discussion is needed in order to assess their implementation.

We need to create ways to recognise and uphold in-person participation and involvement in tasks while also recognizing the right of participation by those who aren’t as involved, by means of votes or assessments which could be considered binding at some level. Discussions need to go straight into the CIC’s decision-making spaces.

Otherwise, at the economic level and given that there are no profits to be shared, the kind of open participation described above does not influence the general budget per se, but it could be interesting to think of other manners of economic involvement.

A way to foster this kind of economic involvement could be through a distributed benefit system tied to a simple project, something independent from the general budget. For example, we could create a kind of “fair shares for shop members and users”, where some portion of the common income is distributed among all sellers and users.

3. That coops need to actively co-produce the creation of immaterial and material commons

The CIC is committed to the creation of commons at multiple levels.

We are involved in a number of free software projects, such as:

• www.integralces.net
• darkwallet.unsystem.net
• https://wiki.enredaos.net/index.php?title=GestioCI-Desarrollo (For Integral Cooperative management)

However, these types of commons are not conducive to monetary income, because our political views are focused on free sharing.

Therefore, these types of initiatives are financed through crowdfunding campaigns or allocations redistributed from other income streams.

At the regional level, the CIC also offers a number of immaterial services and knowledge related to juridical frameworks and legal management. We consider the legal structure of our cooperative to be a functioning commons that benefits all the projects making use of it at a minimal cost. More than 300 productive projects are already making use of this framework.

The CIC’s involvement in the immaterial sphere also includes projects related to health, education, culture, among others.This is because as a project, the CIC surpasses the traditional role of a cooperative and includes a working, self-organised and open societal model.

Regarding the production of material commons we have some labs, such as Calafou or Macus, but we need to improve their development through consolidation and reinforcement.

All of these processes also need to be economically sustainable and we have a lot of work pending in order to be connected at the global level.

This year, we have created a “technology office” to facilitate communication and networking amongst all the manufacturing projects committed to Open Source manufacturing principles.

We would, however, welcome further ties to other groups involved with the material commons to learn how to collaborate together, specially in the immaterial aspects related to this type of material creation (knowledge, designs, funding).

Additionally, we’re interested in opening a dialogue about land commons. In this area the CIC actively promotes access to land, as well as shared housing, land and working spaces. Currently, there are dozens of rural projects in Catalonia linked to the CIC where people are actively sharing their tools, knowledge and land, taking part in forest restoration practises, etc. We understand the land as a commons and we’re committed to the progressive expansion of land commons in Catalonia.

4. That coops need to be organized socially and politically on a global basis, even as they produce locally.

The CIC is also committed to global change at a social and political level. We are involved in some projects at the global level:

1. integrarevolutio.net/en/
2. radi.ms
3. coopfunding.net/en/ (mostly local for the moment but globally scalable…)

Problem: “Integral Revolution”, the name we chose to describe our project, is not easily understood at an international level, specially for speakers of non-Latin languages. It is also possible that our practises are somewhat too complex to be readily understood.

Solution: We’re thinking about combining the concept behind Integral Revolution with a more easily understood and synergistic concept, such as “Open Cooperativism.” This very article marks a first step in that direction!

We have some contacts and leads of our own, but we’re actively on the lookout for good partners throughout the world in order to have a globally organised network.

Calafou. Image by Lisa Furness

Other improvements to think about in the process of becoming a better open cooperative

• Providing better, local, CIC tools for the people in Catalonia.

Not only do we need to be open, we also need to seem open.

I’ve detected a problem and I feel that we need stronger ties to other, local, collectives working for the common good, as well as other general social movements and to civil society.

It’s very likely that our goals are much too innovative and different, and this causes people to have difficulty understanding what we’re really about. – People frequently confuse us with old-fashioned cooperatives. We need to partake in demonstrative actions which are accessible to most people.

• Improving the CIC’s internal participatory economic system.

These are the types of economic transactions currently taking place in the CIC:

• Between CIC members
• CIC on an individual basis <-> outside CIC
• CIC productive members ->> CIC (quarterly quotes from productive projects that trade outside the CIC)

One important aspect to consider is how to make the last arrow bidirectional.

I am thinking of introducing some type of distributed mechanism, like Fairshares, for certain projects. It would go something like this:

CIC members + outside CIC ->> CIC + CIC members

…in an automatic and decentralized way. The pilot project could take the form of a marketplace; a good, experimental space where users collaborate to create value simultaneously destined for the common budget and for anyone involved. For example, the fees for the transaction could be distributed the following way: 50% for the common pool and 50% for the users.

This could be an important initiative aimed at creating a greater awareness of open cooperativism within the CIC, while also overcoming the problem of client-provider relationships between the Commons-oriented structure and productive projects.

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