1. Could you tell us a bit about your background?

I discovered libertarian socialism as a student at York University in 1976, where I was studying English with the idea of becoming a journalist. The mid-late 70s were a high point of working class confidence in the UK. There was also a government favourable to cooperatives and a rediscovery of ‘common ownership’ of enterprises. The decade between 1975 and 1985 witnessed fast growth in the number of worker cooperatives. By 1985 there were more than 2,000 in the UK. After university I joined one of the many collective publishing and print production projects that had sprung up and organized along cooperative lines.

2. You currently work as Client Services Director at Calverts Cooperative. What is this cooperative about?

Calverts  is a worker-owned creative design studio and print shop. It was founded by seven people in 1977. It was the product of a conflict between employees and manager-owners of a publishing and printing subsidiary of the Institute for Research in Art and Technology. It started as a ‘sweat equity’ common ownership worker cooperative, designing and printing community, union and political publications. I became a member of Calverts in 1985.

Over the years, Calverts grew meeting its members’ evolving needs and aspirations and investing all its surplus in skills and technology development. It is now a leading print house and design studio, working for universities, consumer brands, arts organizations and publishers. It is still, however, also a ‘movement’ resource, often working pro bono for grassroots community organizations with which our members are involved. It has also remained true to its founding principles of equality. Our members are all hourly paid, on the same hourly rate – from the Finance Director to the Cleaner. We have no line managers, working instead as interlinked team circles, with a General Meeting every month. We have a culture of ‘emergent strategy’, and most decisions are made by consensus, using a mixture of sociocratic and devolved process. We try to avoid conventional voting, except when it is required by statute. This efficient and empowering approach is quite common in UK worker cooperatives, which are in the forefront of cooperative democratic innovation.

3. What other activities are you involved in as a co-operator?

Worker cooperatives in the UK fell back after 1985, and by 1999 the sectoral organization – Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM) – was no longer viable. In 2000, ICOM merged with the consumer cooperatives’ apex to form a new apex body called Cooperatives UK. At that time I had not really been concerned with the cooperative movement outside worker cooperatives. I participated in a national cooperative congress with the idea of selling Calverts services to other cooperative businesses. The people I met, the friendships I made, and the things I learned at the event made me want to deepen my understanding of cooperatives.

In 2004 I was elected to a policy forum called the Worker Cooperative Council, then served as a board member of Cooperatives UK from 2006 to 2011. By that time, I found out that I was, in effect, already a ‘barefoot’ worker cooperative organizer – because groups would approach Calverts to learn from our experience, with the idea of setting up their own cooperatives, and I would help them. I was also giving presentations on worker cooperation to groups of students, particularly in the creative industries, in the context of the increased social and economic pressure on young workers after the 2008 crisis.

I formalized this in 2012, when I set up Principle Six that provides support and advice on cooperative enterprise development in areas of membership strategy, campaigning, policy, branding, copywriting and editorial and strategic communications. Through Principle Six I became involved with a range of cross-movement bodies, including the board of a specialist cooperative lender (Cooperative and Community Finance ); the London regional cooperative council (Cooperatives London ); a consortium of independent coop business advisers (London Coop Development); and now a crowdsourcing platform for cooperative development (Platform 6 ).

At the moment, I am focussing more energy on grass roots, local and international worker cooperative organizing. I still work part time at Calverts, managing key client accounts and maintaining Calverts links with the wider movement. I also serve as a board member of CECOP , European confederation of industrial and service cooperatives and support its communications team.

4. What do you think are the challenges and opportunities for the cooperative movement? How have you been addressing these challenges within your work?

Growing the cooperative movement is not so much a matter of finding the right formula, but of understanding how changes in the composition of communities, and in the world of work, are producing forms of collective resistance in new places. We need to see where people are already cooperating, using solidarity principles to articulate their demands for a better life, to see how we can connect with them – bringing in the technology of cooperatives, and putting our experiences to work.

This has implications for where we put our limited energy and resources. For me, defending cooperatives is important, but lobbying governments for special treatment is not a core task. Similarly, we might think there are self-evident opportunities for cooperation in (for instance) social care, platform-based businesses, or self-employment – but we will not succeed by offering top-down solutions. We need an agile strategy based on a close analysis of currents for social change, associating with them and investing tactically to see ‘what works’. This is the opposite of formulating grand narratives and strategies, where we propose cooperatives as ‘the answer to everything’. In this spirit, my recent work has been focussed in five main areas.

1) Supporting disaffected young people who are articulating a desire to take control of their situation: I helped with the formation of AltGen, the campaign for youth cooperation, and I also mentor young worker cooperatives in London.

2) Organizing around housing and public space: I work with the London Radical Housing Network  that brings together housing cooperatives, tenants of municipal housing and unions of private sector renters to promote access to decent housing.

3) Creating a better technology sector: Recent technological changes are transforming the world of work. I work with CoTech, a growing network of worker cooperatives providing technology, digital and creative services. The members of the network can use their collective experience, skills, and resources to promote the worker cooperative model that can create better workplaces, better products and better value for customers.

4) Connecting the cooperative movement with organized groups of super-exploited workers and new, small, and industrial unions, to see what scope there is to bring together these different strands of worker cooperation in a productive way.

5) Strengthening the existing network of worker cooperatives, creating accessible resources of knowledge, practical support and funds to spread and deepen cooperation. An example of this is the Worker Coop Solidarity Fund , which has collected more than £120,000 in four years in the form of micro-contributions from individual members and supporters. This means we can independently underwrite small worker cooperative education projects, fund co-learning and mentoring activity, and sometimes just give tiny amounts of money where it will make a difference. One example is that we have been able to sponsor CECOP’s 40th anniversary General Assembly and conference to be held in Manchester, which we hope in turn will result in meaningful conversations and learning between worker and social co-operators in the UK and across Europe.

—————
Spotlight interviews with cooperators is a series of interviews with cooperative leaders around the world, whom ILO officials have encountered in the course of their work with cooperatives. This article does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

Republished from ILO.org

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Niko Georgiades: Athens, Greece – Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure of alternative societies. In the last of our specials on community currencies and alternative economies, we showcase FairCoop, a self-organized and self-managed global cooperative created through the internet outside the domain of the nation-state.

During a conference on alternatives to capitalism inside of the self-organized and squatted Embros Theater in Athens, Greece in the summer of 2017, a Catalan speaker (who remained anonymous for safety purposes) gave a presentation on FairCoop, which informed much of this reporting.

Alternative economies are typically separate economic structures operating outside of the traditional economy and based on the common principles of a community. FairCoop is a function of an alternative economy and was built out of the necessity to provide an “alternative system outside of capitalism” and merge many autonomous movements and networks together to form a society based on each community’s values.

FairCoop was created a few years after a nearly half a billion euro banking system expropriation action from 2006-2008, generally attributed to Enric Duran. The expropriation of monetary value from the banks was used to fund social movements and as a way to jump-start alternatives to the capitalist system.

Watch the video below for an introduction to FairCoop:

During the presentation on FairCoop, the speaker inside of Embros Theater said that in Catalonia, Spain, around 2009, 2010, the Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC) was created, to “build another society by self-organizing” and to provide the needs of the people, “from food, housing, education, and health, etc.”

Since the creation of the Integral networks in Spain seven years ago, “a lot of people [have been] working for the commons” as there are more than 1,000 projects that are autonomously self-organizing to create cooperative networks of sharing.

Watch the video below, or see our full report here, for more information on the CIC [also see The Catalan Integral Cooperative: An Organizational Study of a Post-Capitalist Cooperative by George Dafermos]:

The idea for FairCoop was brought to an assembly in 2014 as a proposal by Enric Duran and was created by people within the movement to serve as economic infrastructure for a new society.

The Catalan speaker described FairCoop as “an open global cooperative, self-organized via the Internet and remaining outside nation-state control,” but one “that is controlled by a global assembly.” The speaker explained, “We don’t say cooperative in the traditional way, we say cooperative because we work with economy and we work in a participatory way and in a equal way.”

The steps taken to get to the point of the creation of FairCoop were explained by the speaker as followed:

“The first action was hacking the banks [expropriation of money through the internet], the second action was hacking the state [creating a taxing system to fund the creation of autonomous alternative systems], and the third one was hacking the money markets.“

“Usually the powerful money markets attack the weak economies and they get their resources with inflation and things like that. So, for centuries people have lost a lot of resources, a lot of capital” from those in control of the money – the speaker continued, “with FairCoin we are, like, revenging on that, let’s say, and we are recovering value.” They are growing that value to “use it for the commons” and assist in building their self-managed alternative society, said the presenter.

“They’re are many people in more than 30 countries” that have combined their local currencies and communities into autonomous local nodes and are connected in a network of cooperatives, said the speaker, who gave examples in the presentation about a Guatemalan and Greek sharing network.

“Local nodes acts as decentralized local assemblies of FairCoop, and meeting point between global projects of FairCoop and the various projects developed locally, creating links, synergies, knowledge development and growth of the entire ecosystem we are creating together. Autonomously, they serve as a point to spread, help and welcome people in FairCoop, as well as an exchange point of FairCoin.” – Description of a local node, FairCoop website

To build “a society without money, takes money,” and also requires having a plan to fight against capitalism by empowering the “local, regional, and global level,” so, the speaker said FairCoop created a “global assembly” to determine the value of the currency in a way of “self-management in the political process, not in the market“.

Listen to the fifteen minute presentation on FairCoop (full presentation with Q&A session is further down the post):

Audio Player

FairCoop was described as “a political movement building an alternative” that operates with many open decentralized working groups and assemblies deciding by consensus what actions to take in the FairCoop.

“FairCoop understands that the transformation to a fairer monetary system is a key element. Therefore, FairCoin was proposed as the cryptocurrency upon which to base its resource-redistribution actions and building of a new global economic system.” – FairCoop website

FairCoop utilizes FairCoin cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies, the most famous being Bitcoin, are digitally created on the internet, decentralized, and out of the control of central governments.

The difference between FairCoin and Bitcoin, said the speaker, is that “in Bitcoin, they are not one community, there are many different interests fighting each other, like what’s happening in the capitalist world is happening in the Bitcoin.”

They utilize FairCoin to the “benefit of the self-management of the alternative economy, not in the benefit of decentralizing capitalism that is around Bitcoin,” and to economically sustain the process of building the network of FairCoop.

For a bit of an explanation on what FairCoin is, watch this excerpt of an interview with Theodore, from the Athens Integral Cooperative, below:

Cryptocurrencies are block-chain transactions tracked through public ledgers, however, FairCoin has recently created the world’s first ever “co-operative blockchain … by creating an algorithm based on mining processes that rely on a proof of co-operation.”

FairCoin was developed “as a transition tool for building that eco-system at the global level that can be useful for supporting the building of autonomy and the building of self-organizement” around the world, said the speaker.

The speaker said that with the self-management of FairCoin, they are recovering value instead of extracting it from the people as the current banking system with its money markets does.

Faircoin governance image

In efforts to control all of the FairCoin, 80 to 90 percent of the FairCoin is now in the hands of the “movement“, said the speaker. With FairCoin, the value of funds is over 2 million euros and the speaker said, “this is just the beginning of the way how we are creating value by this hacking.”

When asked for a practical example of how FairCoop could be put to use in the self-managed Embros Theater, the speaker said that the first step would be to start accepting FairCoin for the transactions of economy inside the theater, such as beer. The next step would be to share that you accept FairCoin, which will then be seen in the FairCoop network and when more people start exchanging FairCoin, local nodes create assemblies focusing on different qualities that branch out to the global networks.

The speaker touched on Freedom Coop, which according to their website, is a “European Cooperative Society (SCE) that creates toolkits for self-management, self-employment, economic autonomy and financial disobedience for individuals and groups striving for fairer social and economic relationships.”

On the larger scale of building “a new way of life,” newly created Bank of the Commons is “a project for bringing on an alternative banking system to the world“, said the speaker, who explained it’s a way to bring different movements, cooperatives, and different groups the “capacities for doing their activities without the control of the normal banks.”

See the 2017 FairCoop Structure Chart for a visual learning experience of how the networks connect to each other:

After the presentation by the Catalan speaker, dozens of audience members asked many clarifying questions as to how this system of an alternative economy works. The presentation lasted a bit over two hours. Listen to the full presentation below:

With the building of these networks of social economy and solidarity, people are rethinking their ideas of how society could be more equitable. Creating alternative economies using the internet and autonomous working groups to decentralize the power has many people in Europe and across the world very excited at the prospects of a new society outside of capitalism and nation-states. In the words of the speaker, the future of mass movements providing real change are based in being able to have economic power, “As a movement, we need to be stronger economically to be stronger politically.”

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Niko Georgiades: Athens, Greece – Experimenting with alternatives to capitalism has continued to become more popular as huge wealth divides devour chances of relieving poverty across the world. During the summer of 2017, a speaking engagement at the self-organized squat of Embros Theater in Athens, Greece, showcased alternatives to capitalism. In the second of our three part series on alternative economies and community currencies, we spotlight Kenya’s Sarafu-Credit.

Community currencies are types of complimentary currencies shared within a community that are utilized as a means of countering inequality, class, debt, accumulation, and exclusion.

With community currencies, lower-income communities are given the ability to improve living standards by building infrastructure sustainability through networks of sharing, providing access to interest-free loans, and increasing the economic viability of the community.

This is a major departure from conventional national currencies. Most are generated today through fractional reserve banking, wherein units (“broad money” or M3) are created at the bank when loans are instantiated and destroyed upon repayment.

During economic slowdowns including the US Great Depression, the “velocity of money” drops as fractional currency is unavailable. Locally issued “Depression Scrip” substituted for fractional money in the 1930s. Today alternative currencies that improve velocity of money by distributing credit creation power to the whole population are taking root in many countries.

The first speaker of the discussion at Embros Theater was Caroline Dama, a Board member of Grassroots Economics (GE). GE is a “non-profit foundation that seeks to empower marginalized communities to take charge of their own livelihoods and economic future” in Kenya.

Caroline Dama, Board member of Grassroots Economics

Will Ruddick, who started the Eco-Pesa (no longer in circulation), a complementary and community currency, founded Grassroots Economics in 2010, which has created six networks of community currencies that now works with over twenty schools and twelve hundred businesses in Kenya.

In 2013, 200 businesses, 75% of which were owned by women, became part of the new self-organized and self-determined community currency, Bangla-Pesa, in Mombasa’s largest slum, Bangladesh.

Kenya’s government quickly saw the formation of these community currencies as a threat. Five individuals involved with Bangla-Pesa, including Will Ruddick and Caroline Dama, were implicated on charges of undermining the national currency, the shilling. They were all eventually cleared of all charges and the Sarafu-Credit system continues to break new boundaries and change the narrative of alternative economic systems.

SARAFU CREDIT – BANGLA-PESA

Drastic economic and social inequalities run rampant throughout Kenya as at least 46 percent of its population is living in poverty. With basic needs like clean water and healthcare becoming hard to attain, the Sarafu-Credit community currency system was created as a safety net for citizens to improve living conditions.

The word sarafu means currency in the Kiswahilli language. Sarafu-Credit is system of community currencies used as a “regional means of exchange supplementing the national currency system.”

The community in Bangladesh, the biggest slum in Kenya’s second largest city, Mombasa, is very poor and has little access to the shilling, the national currency. Caroline Dama, from GE, stated that the community is “able to come together and come up with a system to exchange our goods and services” using “community dollars.”

A Bangla-Pesa voucher

These community currencies are complimentary with the national currency and Caroline stated that not all of them work towards abolishing the current currency or system, but that they are “trying to make sure that the community banks have a way to survive in times that they wouldn’t otherwise survive.”

“it’s a form of community governance and self-taxation … the community has been able to come up with its own rules to solve its own problems.” – Caroline

GE explains Sarafu-Credit as: “A network of businesses, schools, self-employed and informal sector workers form a cooperative whose profits and inventory are issued as vouchers for social and environmental services as well as an interest-free credit to community members. These vouchers circulate in the community and can be used at any shop, school, clinic or cooperative businesses and form a stable medium of exchange when the Kenyan Shilling is lacking. This injection of money into the community in the form of a community currency, based on local assets, increases local sales and helps directly develop the local economy. Sarafu-Credit, Grassroots Economics’ Kenyan Community Currency program, creates stable markets based on local development and trust.”

How the Sarafu-Credit system works

Caroline stated that only with a bottom-up approach can the community create economic equality. “Communities thrive when they are able to make their own decisions.”

“Community currency gives that power to the people because they are talking to each other, they are able to exchange, and now they are meeting their basic needs, they have enough to sell and when they sell they can pool their resources together to build that better school.” – Caroline

Graph of how the Community Currency Vouchers operates

“If we have problems in the society we want to deal with … what we do, is we can come together as businesses instead of waiting for the government to do it for us”, said Caroline, who stressed the importance of self-determination and community empowerment.

The community currency vouchers are issued for social services and mutual credit for all sustainable needs of the community.  According to the Grassroots Economics website, “The community currency circulates around the community helping to connect local supply and demand for people who lack regular access to national currency.”

Furthermore, Caroline gave an example of women in a village collectively working on projects together, like helping each other build new houses. They would make each person in their network a new house and they would gather the material needed to build the house from other cooperative businesses.

There was a lively discussion with plenty of questions after the presentation on Sarafu-Credit’s Bangla-Pesa. One of the many questions focused on hatching new ideas around sharing-based communities, instead of exchange based communities that could present inequalities based on the ability of services to exchange. Caroline said,

“We are trying to move into a community whereby we are recognizing individual talents … that there is diversity in the community and that we should move away from the idea that we should monetize that. We try to live in a community that recognizes peoples needs, not monetizing them.” – Caroline

Grassroots Economics have created .pdf with their user guide and have plenty of resources on their website. The video below shows how the Bangla-Pesa works.

To hear the full speech and question session of Sarafu-Credit listen below:

For further reading on the Bangla-Pesa, here are a few attention-worthy papers:

• Complementary Currencies for Sustainable Development in Kenya: The Case of the Bangla-Pesa (PDF)
• Re-imagining Money to Broaden the Future of Development Finance – What Kenyan Community Currencies Reveal is Possible for Financing Development (PDF)
• Trust and Spending of Community Currencies in Kenya (PDF)

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Niko Georgiades: Athens, Greece – While capitalism and consumerism dominate the culture of the United States of America and the Western world, community currencies are creating a buzz elsewhere. The radical need for alternative economies and community currencies is becoming more commonplace among societies across the globalized world dealing with the crisis of mass poverty and inequality. In part one of our three part series shining a light on some of these alternatives, we look at the Athens Integral Cooperative.

In the summer of 2017, the self-organized squat of Embros Theater hosted a speaking engagement discussing community currencies and alternative economies. After the discussion, we interviewed Theodore from the Athens Integral Cooperative (AIC) inside a social center in Exarcheia (Athens, Greece) about the parallel economy they are creating. Theodore gave a run down of what AIC is, the importance of it, as well as its struggles and how it modeled itself after Catalan Integral Cooperative (see our special on the Catalan Integral Cooperative).

“We are building a substantial, alternative, and autonomous economy.” – Theodore of the Athens Integral Cooperative

Alternative Economies in Greece: an Interview with Theodore from the Athens Integral Cooperative

WHAT ARE COMMUNITY CURRENCIES & ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIES?

• Community currencies are types of complimentary currencies shared within a community that are utilized as a means of countering inequality, class, debt, accumulation, and exclusion.
• Alternative economies are typically separate economic structures operating outside of the traditional economy and based on the common principles of a community.

Aggressive neoliberal policies have created a vicious cycle of austerity in Greece for the last seven years. Many people living in Greece, even today, experience a lack of dignity, unable to gain access to employment, housing, education, healthcare, and having to deal with pension and salary cuts.

In 2011, as the crisis was beginning to deeply impact public life, a ‘movement of the squares‘ swept through Greece, modeled after the indignados in Spain and the Tahrir Square Uprising in Egypt. Thousands took the public commons, occupying Syntagma Square across from the Greek Parliament in central Athens. Through direct democracy, they imagined a future without capitalism; this movement eventually made its way across the Atlantic Ocean to the USA in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

These movements in Spain and Greece birthed political parties, Podemos and Syriza respectively, that have each taken power, and yet the effects of the crisis continue and evolve with no end in sight. We sat down with Theodore to talk about capitalism, the crisis, and the alternatives that have taken form to provide a sustainable living.

Theodore told us that a lot of people lost their jobs when the crisis first hit and that the banks imposed austerity measures and “social rules that were unbearable.”

“We tried to continue with our lives by building autonomous movements and trying to live by ourselves. This was a necessity during this seven years of our financial crisis where people [started] to create social groups and movements in order to cope with the diminishing structure of society, both economical and social.” – Theodore

Autonomous networks, mostly created by self-organized assemblies of anarchists, anti-authoritarians, autonomous groups and individuals, are a counter-force to the social services that the State either never provided, or stopped providing for the people due to the crisis. As Theodore stated, these networks are needed to gain the basic fundamentals of life.

Self-organized forms of resistance to capitalism and ways of implementing mutual aid to those in need are producing experiences that advance the prospects of the ability to live in an equal society, devoid of poverty.

Among the networks of resistance throughout Athens there are at least an estimated 1,000 assemblies with over 5,000 people participating in them. These assemblies are akin to horizontally organized working groups, each working towards a branch of fulfilling the needs of a community, or society, like; healthcare (see video below), housing, food, organizing space and even alternative economies that push to instill a non-consumer based economy.

ATHENS INTEGRAL COOPERATIVE

Self-organized through direct democracy, Athens Integral Cooperative operates through an assembly that makes collective decisions based on consensus. The Athens Integral Cooperative (AIC) was inspired by the Integral networks of Spain, which Theodore says are “similar movements, cooperatives, and individuals who have managed to integrate their activities to a bigger network that could actually produce economy of livelihood.”

“From 2015 to now, we established an infrastructure for our network that is premises that we can do the exchanges and a platform that we can work the exchanges out.” – Theodore

In describing the ideas behind the alternative economy of AIC, Theodore said that “time banks” were “the first step in the social economy“. Time banks are “not money that you can claim from someone” and it isn’t debt; it is peer-to-peer exchanges, or services, that are valued by the hour. The hour is not exact, but is a tool by which to measure productivity.

“It [time banking] has this very good social effect of making people understand they can exchange their production.” – Theodore

The “social economy” is a facet of networks of cooperatives, individuals, organizations, and more, which have created institutions and policies prioritizing the social good over profits. The infrastructure built within a social economy is based on the common values or principles of the community(s) that are in participation with the social economy.

Theodore said that AIC works to integrate “individuals, collectives, and social forces, that already make a social economy” into a substantial economy. In the Integral network, there is “no such thing as debt or accumulation.”

Theodore of the Athens Integral Cooperative

Exchanges through the network are done with a self-institutionalized monetary unit through a digital platform using the LETS network (Local Exchange Trading System), using the free software of Community Forge. The alternative currency holds value only within collective working groups and cannot be exchanged outside of the network.

The goals for the “solidarity economy” of the Athens Integral Cooperative are clearly stated on their website as follows:

• Horizontal organization, with participation in general meetings, collective decision making and solution finding
• Coverage of basic needs and desires rather than consumerism focusing on self-sufficiency
• Jointly defining a fair price/work ratio on products and services
• Producing quality goods and services while minimizing our energy and ecological footprint
• Reciprocity in relations beyond the logic of profit and “free market” monopolies
• Monetary autonomy within the network using a local self-institutionalized monetary unit (LETS network)
• The foundation of and support for productive projects
• Cooperative education, direct democracy and ecological awareness

“People are always interested in finding a way of escaping the present situation.” – Theodore

AIC has at least 100 participants and around 30 people providing production in the substantial economy. Compared to the eco-networks of the model Integral societies in Spain, this is small, but as Theodore said, the necessary transformation into an alternative economy “takes time” especially in an urban environment. He furthered that people can’t rapidly “evolve to another system” without understanding the culture of it.

As Theodore says, education is key. One of the first goals of the AIC is educating and inspiring the community to become self-managed and autonomous within the networks. They are working on making their community full of producers, not simply consumers. They are re-learning the value of the exchange, of their production, and of their productive value.

Theodore stated that things would have progressed much more if, during the time that the crisis was hitting, people knew what they now know.

“The interest of the people was huge, I mean, hundreds of people were gathering in assemblies, trying to find a way out. But, we didn’t have the knowledge then.” – Theodore

This said, Theodore was still very optimistic. Theodore participates in the assembly of the Alliance of the Commons, which he states is “another step of the gathering of social forces.” The Alliance of the Commons is important, Theodore said, because in order to have a “community that is self-managed, we have to have a political basis.”

“The , they bring the Commons as a political issue, as a political subject. So far, the alternative economy didn’t have the political direction … it was useful only for taking the pressure off the people.” – Theodore

Athens Integral Cooperative is pursuing a cultural revolution to transform the culture of consumerism and valuing one’s life in fiat currency, like the Euro or Dollar, into a culture of “autonomous exchange and autonomous productivity,” said Theodore, who continued by saying AIC was “doing a very good job at it.”

Stay tuned with Unicorn Riot for more on alternatives to capitalism, as we have two more specials on community currencies coming out in the next couple of weeks.

Photo by ashabot

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

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

A documentary about Sarantaporo.gr

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

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

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Robin’s vision was always grounded in what exists. It starts from a radical move away from the conventional classification of the economy as the market, state and ‘third sector’. He argued instead that the key divide is between those parts of the economy that are driven by social goals (the social economy) and those that are subject to the imperatives of capital accumulation.

The social economy is a hybrid of several sub-economies, all distinct in how they are financed, who has access to output and on what terms, what kinds of social relations are involved, how surplus is distributed and what kind of economic discipline is exerted to achieve their social goals. They consist of the household, governed by relations of reciprocity; the state, funded by taxes and governed in theory by democratically-decided social goals; and that section of the market that involves the exchange of equivalents (between small social or co-operative businesses) and not yet dominated by capitalist enterprises.

They are all in different ways in conflict with the profit-driven economy and vulnerable to its imperatives. But there is nothing intrinsic to the state, grant or household economies that drives them towards capital accumulation. As economies they are oriented to their own social goals. Each can operate in the market (or, as Robin would say, ‘in and against the market’ – just as when we worked together at the Greater London Council we were, in Robin’s view, working ‘in and against’ the state) in pursuit of their goals without being drawn into the vortex of accumulation.

The cell is key

How different civil economic initiatives work to pursue their social goals was his interest, and how to strengthen them was his political passion. ‘It’s the cell that’s the most important and what we must study,’ he said when I last saw him, moving a discussion from systems of planning to the micro-detail of the highly successful Japanese consumer co-ops. For him the conditions of success of the cell was key: ‘If the cell is flourishing, that’s the thing.’

He was also concerned to explain the patterns of emergence of many cells. He pointed to the importance of the marginalised responding to globalisation, and of responses to the challenges of climate change to which neither market nor state had solutions. He highlighted the importance of ICT and the ways it enables complex distributed initiatives to connect, makes it possible for people to collaborate across production and consumption, and facilitates platforms for co-operation and the infrastructure for a massive increase in the civil economy.

One trend that particularly excited him was the rise of fair trade as a counterpoint to neoliberalism. He would have fought hard against the serious threat it now faces from major UK supermarkets, led by Sainsbury’s, who are planning to replace the Fairtrade mark, with their own ‘Fairly Traded’ label undermining decades of hard-won rights for hundreds of thousands of co-operative producers.

The term was first used in 1988 to refer to the surge of solidarity trading networks. Though they take different forms, reflecting different struggles, they are all part of an attempt to socialise the market and remake the relationships, rules and purposes of international trade. The idea works on several different levels, which can be in tension – but tension was never a problem for Robin.

On one level it involves the various kinds of fair trade shops, such as Altromercato in Italy, 300 ‘world’ shops with an annual turnover of $48 million. Shops that for Robin carried ‘within them the political economy of the world in one hundred objects’. On another level there are brands, such as Cafedirect, established between producer co-operatives. Twin Trading, which Robin helped to found, had become the sixth largest coffee brand in the UK by 2005. It used its brand profits to provide an extensive programme of technical support for producers. It extended the model to cocoa through Divine chocolate, fresh fruit (Agrofair UK) and nuts (Liberation) – all of them, including Twin Trading itself, co-owned by the producers. The next level involved the formation of an international body, the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation, to operate an international trademark and ensure consistency. Finally, via ALBA, an alliance of progressive Latin American countries, fair trade extended into government policy.

Transforming the state

It is this final challenge of how to integrate the state and civil economy that especially intrigued Robin. It was in just such an experiment in public-civil collaboration that I worked closely with him for five years at the GLC. He was the ‘chief economic advisor’ – titles meant little to him; I was his deputy and co‑ordinator of the Popular Planning Unit. We were, in his words, showing ‘how to heal that conceptual split introduced by 19th-century liberal theory: the forced separation of the economic and the political’.

Our work involved transforming the state, so that it was more supportive of the creative capacities and associational power of the civil economy and more intransigent in resisting the imperatives of private capital. Two principles of Robin’s were important. First, ‘productive democracy’: the idea that the state and civil economy, especially through the organised capacities of labour – household labour and precarious labour as well as waged labour – was productive, breaking the dependence of democratic politics on private capital. Second, the role of the state in supporting – not substituting – the realisation and development of the capacities of civil economic associations.

This support took many forms, with Robin and the GLC leadership always encouraging a bold, experimental approach. Sometimes it was a matter of using the GLC’s powers to block financial speculators – for example, supporting the community development plans of the people of Coin Street, Waterloo, against office developers from the City. Sometimes it involved using the GLC’s high public profile to support workers organising in multinationals such as Ford and Kodak with public inquires that questioned capital’s sacrifice of jobs and communities in the constant search for profit. At other times, it involved encouraging civil organisations to produce positive plans for socially-useful jobs, whether by negotiating research support for trade unions to develop alternative plans for rundown industries, or working with women’s groups across London on proposals for childcare that the GLC would then fund.

It was an experiment made possible by Robin’s ability to draw on a wealth of historical experience of associational/co-operative socialism and combine it with modern ideas of participatory democracy or ‘popular planning’. The memory of his generative and supportive leadership will continue to animate many people engaged in productive democracy of all kinds, whether in reversing power relations in the food chain, developing peer-to-peer production with the digital commons, or spreading models of decentralised and co-produced health care, personal care for the elderly and childcare. His arguments and ideas will live on and will animate our lives as we seek out our path away from neoliberalism.

This support took many forms, with Robin and the GLC leadership always encouraging a bold, experimental approach. Sometimes it was a matter of using the GLC’s powers to block financial speculators – for example, supporting the community development plans of the people of Coin Street, Waterloo, against office developers from the City. Sometimes it involved using the GLC’s high public profile to support workers organising in multinationals such as Ford and Kodak with public inquires that questioned capital’s sacrifice of jobs and communities in the constant search for profit. At other times, it involved encouraging civil organisations to produce positive plans for socially-useful jobs, whether by negotiating research support for trade unions to develop alternative plans for rundown industries, or working with women’s groups across London on proposals for childcare that the GLC would then fund. It was an experiment made possible by Robin’s ability to draw on a wealth of historical experience of associational/co-operative socialism and combine it with modern ideas of participatory democracy or ‘popular planning’. The memory of his generative and supportive leadership will continue to animate many people engaged in productive democracy of all kinds, whether in reversing power relations in the food chain, developing peer-to-peer production with the digital commons, or spreading models of decentralised and co-produced health care, personal care for the elderly and childcare. His arguments and ideas will live on and will animate our lives as we seek out our path away from neoliberalism.”

Cross-posted from Red Pepper.Photo by JD Hancock

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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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Participants at the Cooperation 2015 conference in February, 2015, a precursor of the Chamber of Commons event. Photo provided by Steve Ediger.

The following article is cross-posted from our friends at Shareable.

By Nina Misuraca Ignaczak

That stalwart community institution known as the Chamber of Commerce may soon have its counterpart in the sharing economy.

The US Chamber of Commons, a startup organization dedicated to “recognizing, supporting and highlighting the “green shoots of a budding Generative Economy,” is trying to get a new form of chamber off the ground: one to connect social entrepreneurs, L3C’s, B-Corps and other enterprises focused on triple bottom line, sharing-economy approaches to commerce and community development.

The group sees its role as advocating for the four broad categories of organizations outlined in Marjorie Kelly’s Owning our Future: (1) Commons Ownership and Governance (2) Stakeholder Ownership (3.) Social Enterprises and (4) Mission Controlled Corporations.

On October 10, the group will hold an event in Chicago and in 30 other cities across the globe to call for the establishment of Chambers of Commons.

The Chicago event is designed to plant the seed for a larger movement. The day will start with a consensus workshop, with a goal of arriving at a shared definition of the Commons. Next up is an action planning workshop to develop a start-up plan for a Chicago Commons, which will be the first iteration of what organizers hope is the first of many Chambers of Commons across the nation and globe.

“We plan on discussing and coming to consensus on what we (the people in the room) mean by the Commons, both material and immaterial,” Steve Ediger, one of the project coordinators, said in an email to Shareable. “Then we will plan the startup of the first chapter of a ‘Chamber of Commons’, an organization that will work to bring other commons-oriented entities together in development and protection of the Commons.”

The discussion will address an array of Commons-relevant topics such as the environment, public land, the food supply, public education and transportation, open-source software, the internet, arts and culture and taxpayer-funded scientific research. Unclaimed realms such as the oceans, Antarctica and outer space will also be on the agenda.

Organizations, projects and individuals in the Chicago area working on Commons-oriented initiatives in the economic, environmental, community, and cultural sustainability spheres are invited to participate. National and international organizations with a Chicago presence are also invited to participate.

In an article for the Huffington Post, writer Sally Duros quotes Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, on the need for a Chamber of Commons:

“The old way is this. Here’s a problem. We need resources to solve that problem. We create a hierarchy to direct resources at the problem,” Bauwens says.

“Here’s another way. There are enough people in the world with time, skills and energy who would be willing to work to solve that problem. The new solution is to create a commons and a platform that allows people to self-aggregate and collaborate to solve that problem.”

You can register for the Chicago event here.

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With the prospect of a Syriza government, everyone is wondering what the future holds for Greece.  Whether disaster or deliverance, or just the normal chaos, it is hard to ignore the potential for game-changing repercussions from a Syriza government. On the street however, embittered by the failures of governments in the past to change a corrupt and dysfunctional political system, few people are expecting big things from Syriza. The feeling of popular cynicism and fatalism is palpable. How different will Syriza be?

One thing is certain. If Syriza does what it says, it will be forging a courageous and desperately needed path in Europe, not only in opposition to the austerity policies that are devastating the country, but to the neo-liberal ideas, institutions, and capital interests that are their source and sustenance. For such a path to succeed, an entirely different view of economic development, of the role of the market, and of the relation between state and citizen is necessary.

It is in this context that the social economy has become an important aspect of Syriza’s plans for re-making the economy. Like other parties of both the right and left in Europe, Syriza is taking cognizance of the role that the social economy can play in the current crisis. Even the Cameron government in the UK, the epicenter of European neo-liberalism, has promoted the social economy as a sector with a strategic role to play in job creation, in improving public services, and in reforming the role of government. In the last election, Mutualism and the Big Society were its slogans.

It all sounds very nice, until it becomes evident just how little right wing governments understand, or care about, what the social economy is and how it functions. For the Cameron government co-operatives, and the social economy more generally, became a cover and a means for public sector privatizations, for weakening job security, and for reducing the role of government. Thousands of public sector workers have been coerced into joining pseudo-co-operatives to save their jobs. Under the current government, the same is beginning to happen in Greece with the newly formed KOINSEPs. This is a travesty of the nature and purpose of co-operatives whose memberships must always be voluntary, whose governance is democratic, and whose purpose is to serve their members and their communities for their common benefit – not the ideological aims of government. It’s a lesson that few governments understand.

For the right, the social economy is often viewed as a final refuge for the discarded of society and the victims of the capitalist economy. It is one reason why the right advocates charity as the proper response for the poor. Never solidarity or equity. More recently, the rhetoric and principles of the social economy have been used to expand the reach of capital into civil spaces. For these reasons co-operatives and social economy organizations in the UK, and elsewhere, have condemned the distortion of social economy principles for vested political interests. But what are these principles?

The social economy is composed of civil organizations and networks that are driven by the principles of reciprocity and mutuality in service to the common good – usually through the social control of capital. The social economy is composed of co-operatives, non-profit organizations, foundations, voluntary groups, and a whole range of associations that operate both inside the market, as many successful co-operatives and fair trade groups do, or in non-market provision of goods or services. These include cultural production, the provision of health or social care, and the provision of food, shelter, or other necessities to people in need. In its essence, the social economy is a space and a practice where economics is at the service of social ends, not the other way round.

It is not hard to see why Greece today is experiencing an unprecedented growth in the size and diversity of its social economy. Here, as elsewhere, co-operatives and social benefit enterprises have arisen as a form of social self-defense against economic recession and austerity. For many young people, the formation of a co-operative or a social enterprise is the only way to secure a job with some autonomy, and dignity. Something more rewarding than serving tables for tourists.

The social economy is growing – but compared to other European nations, Greece lags far behind. This weakness is due to many factors. One reason is the absence of institutional supports such as sources of social investment, of professional development and training, of representative organizations to unite, develop, and give voice to the sector. Outdated, fragmented, and inadequate legislation is another reason.

A third, more complex reason, has to do with the manner in which civil society and the state have evolved in Greece. Unlike other Western European nations that underwent the revolutionary processes of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution that provided the seedbed from which modern political, social, and economic institutions emerged, Greece remained relatively untouched by these developments while under Ottoman rule. Today, it is still struggling to establish a political culture that has moved beyond the autocratic clientelism that characterized the political system that reigned immediately after the Ottoman era. Autocracy breeds hierarchy, individualism, and relations of dependence, not mutuality and social solidarity. The emergence of a healthy civil society, of democratic civil institutions and a democratic culture, has been undermined by this fact.

The inheritance of clientelism has been deadly in Greece and it has been catastrophic for the healthy evolution of the social economy, as has been shown in the case of its co-operatives. Just as the right uses the social economy as a proxy for the promotion of capital and markets, so does the left consistently view the social economy as a vehicle for the advancement of the aims of the state. When a culture of clientelism is added, it is a recipe for failure on a grand scale. This is what happened in the PASOK era when state support and subsidization of co-operatives produced a corruption that not only failed to achieve legitimate economic ends, but more disastrously, destroyed the image and reputation of co-operatives among the public.

Today, the work of promoting co-operation as a viable strategy for economic and social development has to contend with this false and negative public image of co-operatives as inherently corrupt. Greece is not alone in this. This has been the case everywhere “leftist” governments have sought to use the co-operative model to pursue government aims without regard to the purpose and nature of co-operatives as autonomous civil associations whose primary role is to serve their members and their communities. Just as in Greece, the co-operative model has had to be retrieved from a ruined reputation in all the former Soviet nations, in Africa, and throughout Latin America where governments see co-ops, and the broader social economy, as instruments and extensions of government power. Ironically it is the left, in its manipulative “support” for the co-operative model that has done most to ruin its image and reputation in the minds of millions.

The reason for this is that the left has traditionally viewed the state as the sole legitimate engine of social and economic reform. In this, it is the mirror image of the right that sees legitimacy for economic and social development only in the market. Both make the same tragic mistake in ignoring or manipulating the very institutions of civil society that are essential to realizing the radical changes that are needed if any alternative to the present paradigm is to succeed.

And this, in very large measure, will be the true test of the character of Syriza if it comes to power. How will it relate to the broader civil society, and to the fledgling organizations and institutions of the social economy as it tries to rebuild the economic and political complexion of Greece? Will it revert to the traditional statism of the left, a command and control government, or will it seek to expand and re-imagine a leftist program for change that mobilizes the institutions of civil society and the social economy as meaningful partners in nation building? Moreover, will it understand and utilize the social and economic principles of co-operation, of mutuality and common good, as central to the re-building of the economy and the society? In short, will the party recognize and mobilize the vast potential of civil power in realizing its vision? If it does, it will be the first in Europe to do so.

That Syriza is taking the social economy seriously is a good sign. The social economy represents one of the very few bright spots in Greece, with hundreds of new groups being formed to provide goods and services in a way that is entirely new. Often rejecting organizational hierarchy, promoting inclusion and democratic decision-making, focusing on service over profit, these organizations see themselves as models for a new economic and political order. And they are. But it is for this reason too, that many of these groups want little or nothing to do with political parties, or the state. This is not good news for the parties of the left as they struggle to articulate a vision and method for a new political economy. They need a new approach if they are to build a leftist vision for a new age. The old ways of party and state control have been discredited and rejected.

For a truly effective political party of the left today, the social economy represents a crucial resource and ally. The principles of economic democracy in service to the common good are practiced here. The most innovative, entrepreneurial, and socially productive young leadership is active here. The organizational forms and practices that have the potential to reform the closed, bureaucratic, dysfunction of government services are also being developed here. This is where communities are learning to work together to recover a portion of what has been lost in these past years – of community clinics, of food markets and mutual help between farmers and consumers, of residents collectively preventing a neighbor’s electricity or water from being cut off. And this points to an unlooked for grace in the midst of this crisis – that these hard times have sparked a renewal of community and genuine human connections between people. The social economy is where these connections are flourishing.

What then, must a progressive government do with respect to the social economy?

First, it must move beyond traditional leftist statism to develop a role for government that understands how to democratize and share power with its citizens. This means understanding that the primary role of government in a non-paternalistic and non-clientelistic paradigm is the empowerment and support of civil society for the production of social value – the creation of goods and services that place social needs ahead of private profit.

Second, it means the creation of institutions, both legal and social, that can sustain the development and growth of the social economy independently of any political party that is in power. This means the reform of co-operative and social economy legislation, the creation of financial instruments for the social and ethical financing of social economy organizations, the establishment of educational and training institutes for the study of the theory and practice of co-operation, reciprocity, and service to the common good that are fundamental for a new political economy and the advancement of social and economic development.

Third, it means the application of these principles beyond the non-profit and community service sector to the support and development of the wider economy, in particular for the small and medium firms that form the bedrock of the national economy. The principles that animate the social economy are a framework for the recovery and reform of the whole economy.

And fourth, it means the reform of public services through the provision of control rights, transparency, accountability, and decision-making power to the users of these services. The insular, autocratic power of bureaucracy must be broken.

Greece has no option but to try new approaches to solve its social, economic, and political problems. At the macro level, a Syriza government will have to do everything it can to address the fundamental questions of debt restructuring, of trade relations and export policy, of increasing revenue through tax policies aimed at capital, of resurrecting agricultural and industrial production, and of addressing the humanitarian crisis.

The social economy can help. But it is obviously not able to act as an engine of recovery on its own and without the support of an astute government that understands its strengths – and limitations. The danger here is that false expectations of the social economy will set the stage for failure and disappointment. In the past, unrealistic expectations arising out of ignorance of how social economy organizations work, and to what ends, have provided ammunition to those who like to criticize the “inefficiency” and “utopianism” of co-ops and the social economy when they fail to do what they were never meant to do. (They conveniently ignore the fact that the survival rate of co-ops is more than twice as high as that of private companies).

What the social economy offers are the ideas, the methods, and the models by which an alternative paradigm may be built. The social economy is the experimental ground of a new political economy, and its organizations are the social antennae of a possible, and more humane, future. Today, this prefiguring of another paradigm is perhaps the most important contribution that the social economy can make in Greece, particularly since basic institutional supports are still lacking.

The building of these institutions is crucial. This is true whether a new government succeeds in re-negotiating the debt and its relations to its European counterparts, and even more so if it does not. There are grave doubts whether the changes that Greece needs to make toward a more humane and socially responsible economics can be developed within the Eurozone as it is currently structured. The ideological and institutional inertia of neo-liberalism is suffocating any prospects for reform. Regardless, Greece can learn from the wealth of experience that has already been accumulated in other countries where the social economy has played an important role in advancing economic and social development – particularly in times of crisis. Greece is a latecomer to this field, but that is not without its advantages. It can learn from the experience of others. For example:

In the region of Emilia Romagna in Italy, the principles of co-operation and mutual help are the reason why its small and medium enterprises have been able to flourish in a global marketplace. It is among the top ten performing economic regions in Europe. Italy’s 40,000 social co-ops have succeeded in remaking and expanding social care in that country while working in close partnership with local municipalities. They employ over 280,000 people.

In Argentina, following an economic crisis in 2001 that was almost identical to what Greece faces now, over 300 abandoned factories were taken over by their workers to restart production. Nearly all are still in operation. Schools, day cares, clinics, libraries, and community centres were also taken over and run by the people who use them. Even in Cuba, the archetype of state socialism, the government is supporting the growth of autonomous co-operatives to breath new life into its agricultural sector and to stimulate the growth of new enterprises and new services.

The reform of government is a central theme in this movement. In Brazil, Columbia, Spain, Italy, and a growing list of countries and cities around the globe, participatory budgeting, shared policy making, and civilian monitoring of budgets and public programs is a key role that the social economy is playing in reforming the way in which governments operate – making them more transparent, more accountable, more democratic, and more responsive to the real needs of citizens.

And this is the key point. The social economy is a model of political economy in which economic democracy places capital at the service of society. Much has been written about the origins of the debt crisis in Greece. Some point to the availability of cheap money and unethical lending that followed Greece’s entry into the Eurozone. Some point to the lack of oversight and lax regulations. Some point to the role of corruption and the huge waste of public funds. Of course, all contributed to bringing Greece to the precipice. But few point to the fundamental lack of democracy and public accountability that made all this possible.

What are most needed today are the building of democratic culture and the strengthening of civil institutions that generate and expand democracy – in politics, in social life, and above all in the economy. This is the role that an enlightened state should play, in partnership with civil power. It is a delicate and difficult role to get right, especially in the context of a political culture like that of Greece. But that is precisely why it is so urgently needed. It is a way forward that won’t perpetuate the criminal negligence and wrongdoing of the past.

How tragic and shortsighted therefore, that the policies and prescriptions of Greece’s masters, its servile political class and the European powers that support it, are destroying the very institutions that are most needed to reform and remake Greece – its public and civil institutions. The point is, they don’t care. The destruction of public institutions and civil power suits them very well. The priority of social values or the wellbeing of people over those of capital doesn’t fit into their schema. In their schema what really matters is the perpetuation of a system that is working just fine for some – just not the likes of you or me, or the vast majority of the population that is now paying for the sins of others.

John Restakis, January 14, 2015

Image by Maximilien Nguyen

The post Civil Power and the Path Forward for Greece appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Image: Buttons made for last year’s Campo de Cebada’s Summer University 

DIWO Co-op is a worker-owned co-op located in Madrid, Spain. Recently, they were featured on the Spanish TV program “La Aventura del Saber“. This program forms part of a larger project, “La Aventura de Aprender“, which analyses the ways in which communities learn from each other and give back to the Commons.

The following video will be both familiar and inspirational to anyone who has ever been involved in a cooperative enterprise. In the interview, two of DIWO’s worker-owners, Mamen Martín and Rosana Fernández, talk about cooperativism and different forms of collaboration contrasted with individualism, and the differences between traditional enterprises and co-ops. Don’t miss Martín’s tale about the financial advisor that urged them *not* to become a co-op because “they’d lose control of their company”, and their reaction.

The DIWO contingent misspoke twice during the interview, resulting in two small errors. The original 15 M march was in 2011, not 2012; they also flubbed a point at the end while talking about the role of the co-op’s general assembly. Those errors have been corrected in the subtitle track for the video, in the interest of clarity and accuracy. After the vid, we’ve included some of the info from their website.

Hit the “close captions” button at the bottom right to active our English subtitles for this video.

There are some very interesting plans coming up with DIWO for this fall, namely the launch of DIWOShop, in collaboration with Guerrilla Translation and Freepress Coop, to provide free translation and promotion services to a selection of ethical and environmentally-oriented enterprises.  (Disclaimer: I’m Guerrilla Translation’s founder).

The following is extracted from DIWO’s website:

DIWO/We are:

diwo coop is a worker owned co-op specializing in custom button/badge production and other kinds of merchandise for distribution. The co-op is made up of people with various professional backgrounds. We formed our project to help promote communications by and for groups, organizations and companies working for the common good and aimed at building more ethical and sustainable societies. We created diwo coop in 2012, building on and including our previous project, platypusLab, because we’re convinced that collaboration is the best way forward from the current situation of widespread precariousness.

DIWO/We do: 

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