Michael Loewy: The capitalist system, driven at its core by the maximization of profit, regardless of social and ecological costs, is incompatible with a just and sustainable future. Ecosocialism offers a radical alternative that puts social and ecological well-being first. Attuned to the links between the exploitation of labor and the exploitation of the environment, ecosocialism stands against both reformist “market ecology” and “productivist socialism.” By embracing a new model of robustly democratic planning, society can take control of the means of production and its own destiny. Shorter work hours and a focus on authentic needs over consumerism can facilitate the elevation of “being” over “having,” and the achievement of a deeper sense of freedom for all. To realize this vision, however, environmentalists and socialists will need to recognize their common struggle and how that connects with the broader “movement of movements” seeking a Great Transition.

Introduction

Contemporary capitalist civilization is in crisis. The unlimited accumulation of capital, commodification of everything, ruthless exploitation of labor and nature, and attendant brutal competition undermine the bases of a sustainable future, thereby putting the very survival of the human species at risk. The deep, systemic threat we face demands a deep, systemic change: a Great Transition.

In synthesizing the basic tenets of ecology and the Marxist critique of political economy, ecosocialism offers a radical alternative to an unsustainable status quo. Rejecting a capitalist definition of “progress” based on market growth and quantitative expansion (which, as Marx shows, is a destructive progress), it advocates policies founded on non-monetary criteria, such as social needs, individual well-being, and ecological equilibrium. Ecosocialism puts forth a critique of both mainstream “market ecology,” which does not challenge the capitalist system, and “productivist socialism,” which ignores natural limits.

As people increasingly realize how the economic and ecological crises intertwine, ecosocialism has been gaining adherents. Ecosocialism, as a movement, is relatively new, but some of its basic arguments date back to the writings of Marx and Engels. Now, intellectuals and activists are recovering this legacy and seeking a radical restructuring of the economy according to the principles of democratic ecological planning, putting human and planetary needs first and foremost.

The “actually existing socialisms” of the twentieth century, with their often environmentally oblivious bureaucracies, do not offer an attractive model for today’s ecosocialists. Rather, we must chart a new path forward, one that links with the myriad movements around the globe that share the conviction that a better world is not only possible, but also necessary.

Democratic Ecological Planning

The core of ecosocialism is the concept of democratic ecological planning, wherein the population itself, not “the market” or a Politburo, make the main decisions about the economy. Early in the Great Transition to this new way of life, with its new mode of production and consumption, some sectors of the economy must be suppressed (e.g., the extraction of fossil fuels implicated in the climate crisis) or restructured, while new sectors are developed. Economic transformation must be accompanied by active pursuit of full employment with equal conditions of work and wages. This egalitarian vision is essential both for building a just society and for engaging the support of the working class for the structural transformation of the productive forces.

Ultimately, such a vision is irreconcilable with private control of the means of production and of the planning process. In particular, for investments and technological innovation to serve the common good, decision-making must be taken away from the banks and capitalist enterprises that currently dominate, and put in the public domain. Then, society itself, and neither a small oligarchy of property owners nor an elite of techno-bureaucrats, will democratically decide which productive lines are to be privileged, and how resources are to be invested in education, health, and culture. Major decisions on investment priorities—such as terminating all coal-fired facilities or directing agricultural subsidies to organic production—would be taken by direct popular vote. Other, less important decisions would be taken by elected bodies, on the relevant national, regional, or local scale.

Although conservatives fearmonger about “central planning,” democratic ecological planning ultimately supports more freedom, not less, for several reasons. First, it offers liberation from the reified “economic laws” of the capitalist system that shackle individuals in what Max Weber called an “iron cage.” Prices of goods would not be left to the “laws of supply and demand,” but would, instead, reflect social and political priorities, with the use of taxes and subsidies to incentivize social goods and disincentivize social ills. Ideally, as the ecosocialist transition moves forward, more products and services critical for meeting fundamental human needs would be freely distributed, according to the will of the citizens.

Second, ecosocialism heralds a substantial increase in free time. Planning and the reduction of labor time are the two decisive steps towards what Marx called “the kingdom of freedom.” A significant increase of free time is, in fact, a condition for the participation of working people in the democratic discussion and management of economy and of society.

Last, democratic ecological planning represents a whole society’s exercise of its freedom to control the decisions that affect its destiny. If the democratic ideal would not grant political decision-making power to a small elite, why should the same principle not apply to economic decisions? Under capitalism, use-value—the worth of a product or service to well-being—exists only in the service of exchange-value, or value on the market. Thus, many products in contemporary society are socially useless, or designed for rapid turnover (“planned obsolescence”). By contrast, in a planned ecosocialist economy, use-value would be the only criteria for the production of goods and services, with far-reaching economic, social, and ecological consequences.¹

Planning would focus on large-scale economic decisions, not the small-scale ones that might affect local restaurants, groceries, small shops, or artisan enterprises. Importantly, such planning is consistent with workers’ self-management of their productive units. The decision, for example, to transform a plant from producing automobiles to producing buses and trams would be taken by society as a whole, but the internal organization and functioning of the enterprise would be democratically managed by its workers. There has been much discussion about the “centralized” or “decentralized” character of planning, but most important is democratic control at all levels—local, regional, national, continental, or international. For example, planetary ecological issues such as global warming must be dealt with on a global scale, and thereby require some form of global democratic planning. This nested, democratic decision-making is quite the opposite of what is usually described, often dismissively, as “central planning,” since decisions are not taken by any “center,” but democratically decided by the affected population at the appropriate scale.

Democratic and pluralist debate would occur at all levels. Through parties, platforms, or other political movements, varied propositions would be submitted to the people, and delegates would be elected accordingly. However, representative democracy must be complemented—and corrected—by Internet-enabled direct democracy, through which people choose—at the local, national, and, later, global level—among major social and ecological options. Should public transportation be free? Should the owners of private cars pay special taxes to subsidize public transportation? Should solar energy be subsidized in order to compete with fossil energy? Should the work week be reduced to 30 hours, 25 hours, or less, with the attendant reduction of production?

Such democratic planning needs expert input, but its role is educational, to present informed views on alternative outcomes for consideration by popular decision-making processes. What guarantee is there that the people will make ecologically sound decisions? None. Ecosocialism wagers that democratic decisions will become increasingly reasoned and enlightened as culture changes and the grip of commodity fetishism is broken. One cannot imagine such a new society without the achievement, through struggle, self-education, and social experience, of a high level of socialist and ecological consciousness. In any case, are not the alternatives—the blind market or an ecological dictatorship of “experts”—much more dangerous?

The Great Transition from capitalist destructive progress to ecosocialism is a historical process, a permanent revolutionary transformation of society, culture, and mindsets. Enacting this transition leads not only to a new mode of production and an egalitarian and democratic society, but also to an alternative mode of life, a new ecosocialist civilization, beyond the reign of money, beyond consumption habits artificially produced by advertising, and beyond the unlimited production of commodities that are useless and/or harmful to the environment. Such a transformative process depends on the active support of the vast majority of the population for an ecosocialist program. The decisive factor in development of socialist consciousness and ecological awareness is the collective experience of struggle, from local and partial confrontations to the radical change of global society as a whole.

The Growth Question

The issue of economic growth has divided socialists and environmentalists. Ecosocialism, however, rejects the dualistic frame of growth versus degrowth, development versus anti-development, because both positions share a purely quantitative conception of productive forces. A third position resonates more with the task ahead: the qualitative transformation of development.

A new development paradigm means putting an end to the egregious waste of resources under capitalism, driven by large-scale production of useless and harmful products. The arms industry is, of course, a dramatic example, but, more generally, the primary purpose of many of the “goods” produced—with their planned obsolescence—is to generate profit for large corporations. The issue is not excessive consumption in the abstract, but the prevalent type of consumption, based as it is on massive waste and the conspicuous and compulsive pursuit of novelties promoted by “fashion.” A new society would orient production towards the satisfaction of authentic needs, including water, food, clothing, housing, and such basic services as health, education, transport, and culture.

Obviously, the countries of the Global South, where these needs are very far from being satisfied, must pursue greater classical “development”—railroads, hospitals, sewage systems, and other infrastructure. Still, rather than emulate how affluent countries built their productive systems, these countries can pursue development in far more environmentally friendly ways, including the rapid introduction of renewable energy. While many poorer countries will need to expand agricultural production to nourish hungry, growing populations, the ecosocialist solution is to promote agroecology methods rooted in family units, cooperatives, or larger-scale collective farms—not the destructive industrialized agribusiness methods involving intensive inputs of pesticides, chemicals, and GMOs.²

At the same time, the ecosocialist transformation would end the heinous debt system the Global South now confronts as well as the exploitation of its resources by advanced industrial countries and rapidly developing countries like China. Instead, we can envision a strong flow of technical and economic assistance from North to South rooted in a robust sense of solidarity and the recognition that planetary problems require planetary solutions. This need not entail that people in affluent countries “reduce their standard of living”—only that they shun the obsessive consumption, induced by the capitalist system, of useless commodities that do not meet real needs or contribute to human well-being and flourishing.

But how do we distinguish authentic from artificial and counterproductive needs? To a considerable degree, the latter are stimulated by the mental manipulation of advertising. In contemporary capitalist societies, the advertising industry has invaded all spheres of life, shaping everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to sports, culture, religion, and politics. Promotional advertising has become ubiquitous, insidiously infesting our streets, landscapes, and traditional and digital media, molding habits of conspicuous and compulsive consumption. Moreover, the ad industry itself is a source of considerable waste of natural resources and labor time, ultimately paid by the consumer, for a branch of “production” that lies in direct contradiction with real social-ecological needs. While indispensable to the capitalist market economy, the advertising industry would have no place in a society in transition to ecosocialism; it would be replaced by consumer associations that vet and disseminate information on goods and services. While these changes are already happening to some extent, old habits would likely persist for some years, and nobody has the right to dictate peoples’ desires. Altering patterns of consumption is an ongoing educational challenge within a historical process of cultural change.

A fundamental premise of ecosocialism is that in a society without sharp class divisions and capitalist alienation, “being” will take precedence over “having.” Instead of seeking endless goods, people pursue greater free time, and the personal achievements and meaning it can bring through cultural, athletic, recreational, scientific, erotic, artistic, and political activities. There is no evidence that compulsive acquisitiveness stems from intrinsic “human nature,” as conservative rhetoric suggests. Rather, it is induced by the commodity fetishism inherent in the capitalist system, by the dominant ideology, and by advertising. Ernest Mandel summarizes this critical point well: “The continual accumulation of more and more goods […] is by no means a universal and even predominant feature of human behavior. The development of talents and inclinations for their own sake; the protection of health and life; care for children; the development of rich social relations […] become major motivations once basic material needs have been satisfied.” ³

Of course, even a classless society faces conflict and contradiction. The transition to ecosocialism would confront tensions between the requirements of protecting the environment and meeting social needs, between ecological imperatives and the development of basic infrastructure, between popular consumer habits and the scarcity of resources, between communitarian and cosmopolitan impulses. Struggles among competing desiderata are inevitable. Hence, weighing and balancing such interests must become the task of a democratic planning process, liberated from the imperatives of capital and profit-making, to come up with solutions through transparent, plural, and open public discourse. Such participatory democracy at all levels does not mean that there will not be mistakes, but it allows for the self-correction by the members of the social collectivity of its own mistakes.

Intellectual Roots

Although ecosocialism is a fairly recent phenomenon, its intellectual roots can be traced back to Marx and Engels. Because environmental issues were not as salient in the nineteenth century as in our era of incipient ecological catastrophe, these concerns did not play a central role in Marx and Engels’s works. Nevertheless, their writings use arguments and concepts vital to the connection between capitalist dynamics and the destruction of the natural environment, and to the development of a socialist and ecological alternative to the prevailing system.

Some passages in Marx and Engels (and certainly in the dominant Marxist currents that followed) do embrace an uncritical stance toward the productive forces created by capital, treating the “development of productive forces” as the main factor in human progress. However, Marx was radically opposed to what we now call “productivism”— the capitalist logic by which the accumulation of capital, wealth, and commodities becomes an end in itself. The fundamental idea of a socialist economy—in contrast to the bureaucratic caricatures that prevailed in the “socialist” experiments of the twentieth century—is to produce use-values, goods that are necessary for the satisfaction of human needs, well-being, and fulfillment. The central feature of technical progress for Marx was not the indefinite growth of products (“having”) but the reduction of socially necessary labor and concomitant increase of free time (“being”).⁴ Marx’s emphasis on communist self-development, on free time for artistic, erotic, or intellectual activities—in contrast to the capitalist obsession with the consumption of more and more material goods—implies a decisive reduction of pressure on the natural environment.⁵

Beyond the presumed benefit for the environment, a key Marxian contribution to socialist ecological thinking is attributing to capitalism a metabolic rift—i.e., a disruption of the material exchange between human societies and the natural environment. The issue is discussed, inter alia, in a well-known passage of Capital:

Capitalist production […] disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, i.e., prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; hence it hinders the operation of the eternal natural conditions for the lasting fertility of the soil. […] All progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil […]. The more a country […] develops itself on the basis of great industry, the more this process of destruction takes place quickly. Capitalist production […] only develops […] by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker.⁶

This important passage clarifies Marx’s dialectical vision of the contradictions of “progress” and its destructive consequences for nature under capitalist conditions. The example, of course, is limited to the loss of fertility by the soil. But on this basis, Marx draws the broad insight that capitalist production embodies a tendency to undermine the “eternal natural conditions.” From a similar vantage, Marx reiterates his more familiar argument that the same predatory logic of capitalism exploits and debases workers.

While most contemporary ecosocialists are inspired by Marx’s insights, ecology has become far more central to their analysis and action. During the 1970s and 1980s in Europe and the US, an ecological socialism began to take shape. Manuel Sacristan, a Spanish dissident-Communist philosopher, founded the ecosocialist and feminist journal Mientras Tanto in 1979, introducing the dialectical concept of “destructive-productive forces.” Raymond Williams, a British socialist and founder of modern cultural studies, became one of the first in Europe to call for an “ecologically conscious socialism” and is often credited with coining the term “ecosocialism” itself. André Gorz, a French philosopher and journalist, argued that political ecology must contain a critique of economic thought and called for an ecological and humanist transformation of work. Barry Commoner, an American biologist, argued that the capitalist system and its technology—and not population growth—was responsible for the destruction of the environment, which led him to the conclusion that “some sort of socialism” was the realistic alternative.⁷

In the 1980s, James O’Connor founded the influential journal Capitalism, Nature and Socialism, which was inspired by his idea of the “second contradiction of capitalism.” In this formulation, the first contradiction is the Marxist one between the forces and relations of production; the second contradiction lies between the mode of production and the “conditions of production,” especially, the state of the environment.

A new generation of eco-Marxists appeared in the 2000s, including John Bellamy Foster and others around the journal Monthly Review, who further developed the Marxian concept of metabolic rift between human societies and the environment. In 2001, Joel Kovel and the present author issued “An Ecosocialist Manifesto,” which was further developed by the same authors, together with Ian Angus, in the 2008 Belem Ecosocialist Manifesto, which was signed by hundreds of people from forty countries and distributed at the World Social Forum in 2009. It has since become an important reference for ecosocialists around the world.⁸

Why Environmentalists Need to Be Socialists

As these and other authors have shown, capitalism is incompatible with a sustainable future. The capitalist system, an economic growth machine propelled by fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, is a primary culprit in climate change and the wider ecological crisis on Earth. Its irrational logic of endless expansion and accumulation, waste of resources, ostentatious consumption, planned obsolescence, and pursuit of profit at any cost is driving the planet to the brink of the abyss.

Does “green capitalism”—the strategy of reducing environmental impact while maintaining dominant economic institutions—offer a solution? The implausibility of such a Policy Reform scenario is seen most vividly in the failure of a quarter-century of international conferences to effectively address climate change.⁹ The political forces committed to the capitalist “market economy” that have created the problem cannot be the source of the solution.

For example, at the 2015 Paris climate conference, many countries resolved to make serious efforts to keep average global temperature increases below 2^o C (ideally, they agreed, below 1.5^o C). Correspondingly, they volunteered to implement measures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. However, they put no enforcement mechanisms in place nor any consequences for noncompliance, hence no guarantee that any country will keep its word. The US, the world’s second-highest emitter of carbon emissions, is now run by a climate denier who pulled the US out of the agreement. Even if all countries did meet their commitments, the global temperature would rise by 3^o C or more, with great risk of dire, irreversible climate change.¹⁰

Ultimately, the fatal flaw of green capitalism lies in the conflict between the micro-rationality of the capitalist market, with its short-sighted calculation of profit and loss, and the macro-rationality of collective action for the common good. The blind logic of the market resists a rapid energy transformation away from fossil fuel dependence in intrinsic contradiction of ecological rationality. The point is not to indict “bad” ecocidal capitalists, as opposed to “good” green capitalists; the fault lies in a system rooted in ruthless competition and a race for short-term profit that destroys nature’s balance. The environmental challenge—to build an alternative system that reflects the common good in its institutional DNA—becomes inextricably linked to the socialist challenge.

That challenge requires building what E. P. Thompson termed a “moral economy” founded on non-monetary and extra-economic, social-ecological principles and governed through democratic decision-making processes.¹¹ Far more than incremental reform, what is needed is the emergence of a social and ecological civilization that brings forth a new energy structure and post-consumerist set of values and way of life. Realizing this vision will not be possible without public planning and control over the “means of production,” the physical inputs used to produce economic value, such as facilities, machinery, and infrastructure.

An ecological politics that works within prevailing institutions and rules of the “market economy” will fall short of meeting the profound environmental challenges before us. Environmentalists who do not recognize how “productivism” flows from the logic of profit are destined to fail—or, worse, to become absorbed by the system. Examples abound. The lack of a coherent anti-capitalist posture led most of the European Green parties—notably, in France, Germany, Italy, and Belgium—to become mere “eco-reformist” partners in the social-liberal management of capitalism by center-left governments.

Of course, nature did not fare any better under Soviet-style “socialism” than under capitalism. Indeed, that is one of the reasons ecosocialism carries a very different program and vision from the so-called “actually existing socialism” of the past. Since the roots of the ecological problem are systemic, environmentalism needs to challenge the prevailing capitalist system, and that means taking seriously the twenty-first-century synthesis of ecology and socialism—ecosocialism.

Why Socialists Need to Be Environmentalists

The survival of civilized society, and perhaps much of life on Planet Earth, is at stake. A socialist theory, or movement, that does not integrate ecology as a central element in its program and strategy is anachronistic and irrelevant.

Climate change represents the most threatening expression of the planetary ecological crisis, posing a challenge without historical precedent. If global temperatures are allowed to exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 2° C, scientists project increasingly dire consequences, such as a rise in the sea level so large that it would risk submerging most maritime towns, from Dacca in Bangladesh to Amsterdam, Venice, or New York. Large-scale desertification, disturbance of the hydrological cycle and agricultural output, more frequent and extreme weather events, and species loss all loom. We’re already at 1° C. At what temperature increase—5, 6, or 7° C—will we reach a tipping point beyond which the planet cannot support civilized life or even becomes uninhabitable?

Particularly worrisome is the fact that the impacts of climate change are accumulating at a much faster pace than predicted by climate scientists, who—like almost all scientists—tend to be highly cautious. The ink no sooner dries on an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report when increasing climate impacts make it seem too optimistic. Where once the emphasis was on what will happen in the distant future, attention has turned increasingly to what we face now and in the coming years.

Some socialists acknowledge the need to incorporate ecology, but object to the term “ecosocialism,” arguing that socialism already includes ecology, feminism, antiracism, and other progressive fronts. However, the term ecosocialism, by suggesting a decisive change in socialist ideas, carries important political significance. First, it reflects a new understanding of capitalism as a system based not only on exploitation but also on destruction—the massive destruction of the conditions for life on the planet. Second, ecosocialism extends the meaning of socialist transformation beyond a change in ownership to a civilizational transformation of the productive apparatus, the patterns of consumption, and the whole way of life. Third, the new term underscores the critical view it embraces of the twentieth-century experiments in the name of socialism.

Twentieth-century socialism, in its dominant tendencies (social democracy and Soviet-style communism), was, at best, inattentive to the human impact on the environment and, at worst, outright dismissive. Governments adopted and adapted the Western capitalist productive apparatus in a headlong effort to “develop,” while remaining largely oblivious of the profound negative costs in the form of environmental degradation.

The Soviet Union is a perfect example. The first years after the October Revolution saw an ecological current develop, and a number of measures to protect the environment were, in fact, enacted. But by the late 1920s, with the process of Stalinist bureaucratization underway, an environmentally heedless productivism was being imposed in industry and agriculture by totalitarian methods, while ecologists were marginalized or eliminated. The 1986 Chernobyl accident stands as a dramatic emblem of the disastrous long-term consequences.

Changing who owns property without changing how that property is managed is a dead-end. Socialism must place democratic management and reorganization of the productive system at the heart of the transformation, along with a firm commitment to ecological stewardship. Not socialism or ecology alone, but ecosocialism.

Ecosocialism and a Great Transition

The struggle for green socialism in the long term requires fighting for concrete and urgent reforms in the near term. Without illusions about the prospects for a “clean capitalism,” the movement for deep change must try to reduce the risks to people and planet, while buying time to build support for a more fundamental shift. In particular, the battle to force the powers that be to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions remains a key front, along with local efforts to shift toward agroecological methods, cooperative solar energy, and community management of resources.

Such concrete, immediate struggles are important in and of themselves because partial victories are vital for combating environmental deterioration and despair about the future. For the longer term, these campaigns can help raise ecological and socialist consciousness and promote activism from below. Both awareness and self-organization are decisive preconditions and foundations for radically transforming the world system. The synthesis of thousands of local and partial efforts into an overarching systemic global movement forges the path to a Great Transition: a new society and mode of life.

This vision infuses the popular idea of a “movement of movements,” which arose out of the global justice movement and the World Social Forums and which for many years has fostered the convergence of social and environmental movements in a common struggle. Ecosocialism is but one current within this larger stream, with no pretense that it is “more important” or “more revolutionary” than others. Such a competitive claim counterproductively breeds polarization when what is needed is unity.

Rather, ecosocialism aims to contribute to a shared ethos embraced by the various movements for a Great Transition. Ecosocialism sees itself as part of an international movement: since global ecological, economic, and social crises know no borders, the struggle against the systemic forces driving these crises must also be globalized. Many significant intersections are surfacing between ecosocialism and other movements, including efforts to link eco-feminism and ecosocialism as convergent and complementary.¹² The climate justice movement brings antiracism and ecosocialism together in the struggle against the destruction of the living conditions of communities suffering discrimination. In indigenous movements, some leaders are ecosocialists, while, in turn, many ecosocialists sees the indigenous way of life, grounded in communitarian solidarity and respect for Mother Nature, as an inspiration for the ecosocialist perspective. Similarly, ecosocialism finds voice within peasant, trade-union, degrowth, and other movements.

The gathering movement of movements seeks system change, convinced that another world is possible beyond commodification, environmental destruction, exploitation, and oppression. The power of entrenched ruling elites is undeniable, and the forces of radical opposition remain weak. But they are growing, and stand as our hope for halting the catastrophic course of capitalist “growth.” Ecosocialism contributes an important perspective for nurturing understanding and strategy for this movement for a Great Transition.

Walter Benjamin defined revolutions not as the locomotive of history, à la Marx, but as humanity’s reaching for the emergency brake before the train falls into the abyss. Never have we needed more to reach as one for that lever and lay new track to a different destination. The idea and practice of ecosocialism can help guide this world-historic project.

Endnotes

1. Joel Kovel, Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? (New York, Zed Books, 2002), 215.
2. Via Campesina, a worldwide network of peasant movements, has long argued for this type of agricultural transformation. See https://viacampesina.org/en/.
3. Ernest Mandel, Power and Money: A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy (London, Verso, 1992), 206.
4. The opposition between “having” and “being” is often discussed in the Manuscripts of 1844. On free time as the foundation of the socialist “Kingdom of Freedom,” see Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume III, Marx-Engels-Werke series, vol. 25 (1884; Berlin: Dietz Verlag Berline, 1981), 828.
5. Paul Burkett, Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy (Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2009), 329.
6. Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 1, Marx-Engels-Werke series, vol. 23 (1867; Berlin: Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1981), 528-530.
7. See, for example, Manuel Sacristan, Pacifismo, Ecología y Política Alternativa (Barcelona: Icaria, 1987); Raymond Williams, Socialism and Ecology (London: Socialist Environment and Resources Association, 1982); André Gorz, Ecology as Politics (Boston, South End Press, 1979); Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Man, Nature, and Technology (New York: Random House, 1971).
8. “An Ecosocialist Manifesto,” 2001, http://environment-ecology.com/political-ecology/436-an-ecosocialist-manifesto.html; “Belem Ecosocialist Declaration,” December 16, 2008, http://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/12/16/belem-ecosocialist-declaration-a-call-for-signatures/.
9. See https://www.greattransition.org/explore/scenarios for an overview of the Policy Reform scenario and other global scenarios.
10. United Nations Environment Programme, The Emissions Gap Report 2017 (Nairobi: UNEP, 2017). For an overview of the report, see https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/10/569672-un-sees-worrying-gap-between-paris-climate-pledges-and-emissions-cuts-needed.
11. E. P. Thompson “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past & Present, no. 50 (February 1971): 76-136.
12. See Ariel Salleh’s Ecofeminism as Politics (New York: Zed Books, 1997), or the recent issue of Capitalism, Nature and Socialism (29, no. 1: 2018) on “Ecofeminism against Capitalism,” with essays by Terisa Turner, Ana Isla, and others.

Michael Löwy is a French-Brazilian Marxist sociologist and philosopher. He serves as Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris and is the co-author, with Joel Kovel, of An Ecosocialist Manifesto (2001). His published works include On Changing the World: Essays in Political Philosophy from Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin and Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to the Capitalist Ecological Catastrophe.

Photo by markchadwickart

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A new initiative Collaboration for Change which is bringing together radical initiatives proposing solutions to the economic, social, environmental and cultural challenges we are facing.

Please keep Sat 6th Oct 2018 free for an event in Derry’s Guildhall which marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the Civil Rights Movement by bringing together radical environmental, economic, cultural and social initiatives to share and learn and possibly create something new together.

Eventbrite Invitation Link

This is an invitation for everyone involved in creating radical progressive alternatives and also for interested individuals.

The event will be a place where those who say it can’t be done take back seat to those who are doing it. (Laura Flanders)

Collaboration for Change is a gathering of citizen-led movements called to mark the anniversaries in 2018 of the Civil Rights Movement in Derry and the signing of the Universal Rights Declaration. We will explore the contributions already being made to building a just and resilient society in Northern Ireland and how we can develop that work by collaboration between the various economic, social, cultural and environmental alternatives. The organisers recognise that our own work can only be enhanced by learning and sharing and we are committed to creating spaces for this to happen.

American activist, speaker, economist and environmentalist Michael Albert will be there to offer his support and expertise.

The 6th October Gathering is the first of three planned events shaping a collaborative movement which puts people and planet first. After our first event on Sat 6th Oct, we will be building a network and making links with similar initiatives worldwide, including P2P.

Header image, the Guildhall: Wikipedia

The post Event: Collaboration for Change, in Derry, Oct. 6 appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Birgit Daiber: After years of commoning in conferences, cooperation projects, networking, discussions on the diversity of experiences and designing strategies how broaden them – I think it’s time to discuss how to implement them on a political level: Commons as one dimension of initiatives to reclaim a social, ecological and democratic Europe connected with the reconstruction and democratization of public services.

Different from some of the commons networks in Europe which try to stay outside direct political debates, claiming commons as a fundamental new way of economic and social practice that is not assignable to one or the other political direction, I think commons are potentially an essentially left issue. Why? Very simple: The question of property is basic for all left politics from its (organised) beginning in the 19th century – until today. In his theory of value, Karl Marx revealed the contradiction between exchange value and use value. And this too is still relevant today. Within these two dimensions of left thinking we find the global movements of the commons. Francois Houtart says in his basic manifesto from 2011 that commons initiatives focus on use value, democratic participation and autonomy, being part of a new post-capitalist paradigm and in a short note from 2014 he is pointing out:

“Concretely, it means to transform the four ”fundamentals” of any society: relations with nature; production of the material base of all life, physical, cultural, spiritual; collective social and political organization and culture. For the first one, the transformation means to pass from the exploitation of nature as a natural resource merchandize to the respect of nature as the source of life. For the second one: to privilege use value rather than exchange value, with all the consequences with regard to the concept of property. The third one implies the generalization of democratic practices in all social relations and all institutions and finally interculturality means to put an end to the hegemony of Western culture in the reading of the reality and the construction of social ethics. Elements of this new paradigm, post-capitalist, are already present all over the world, in many social movements and popular initiatives. Theoretical developments are also produced. So, it is not a “utopian vision” in the pejorative sense of the word. But a clear aim and definition is necessary to organize the convergences of action. It is a long-term process which will demand the adoption of transitions, facing the strength of an economic system ready to destroy the world before disappearing. It means also that the structural concept of class struggle is not antiquated (fiscal heavens and bank secrecy are some of its instruments). Social protests, resistances, building of new experiences are sources of real hope.”

We are just in time, as left parties in Europe are preparing their national campaigns and their European performance for the next European elections in 2019. Election-campaigns always give the opportunity to discuss programmes and projects more intensely in public debates, and so the Common Good could become one of the core-issue for the Left. Practical initiatives and debates are already well developed on different levels in some countries – as e.g. Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and France and Belgium and there are hundreds of examples of successful initiatives on municipal, national and international levels. Just to give some few examples:

The municipal level: most of commons initiatives are local activities, in cities as well as in rural areas. Urban Commons are prominent and well documented. Cities as Seoul (KOR), Barcelona (ES), Naples (IT), Ghent (BE) and Frome (GB) show how to realise urban commons and how municipalities can work together with commoners. There are legal competences too supporting commons initiatives. The Berlin Senate for example has the right to confiscate abandoned property (but they don’t use it yet and there is no obligation for social use).

National level: The movement for Water as a commons in Italy initiated a referendum with the result that 51% of Italian citizens voted for it. The government must act and the Parliament has to discuss new laws – a still on-going struggle. The water-movement is putting the question of Commons in the context of re-thinking the role of the public in the management of goods and services related to the universal human rights.

The “old” left idea, that the State per se would guarantee public services, failed with processes of privatization – and even when the State is still holding the ownership, goods and services are often given to private companies. It is crucial to suspend market activities from public services to ensure that profits in this sector are re-invested for public use. At the same time, public services must be democratized and there has to be public control with the participation of workers and citizens (only?) to guarantee correct functioning of the common good.

On national levels, the laws on social and common use of property and the laws on cooperatives are decisive. An interesting example is the legal structure of SCOPs in France (“Societé cooperative et participative” or “société coopérative ouvrière de production“). In 2016 there were 2680 SCOPs with 45 000 active members – and they are still on the rise.

International level: Bolivia and Ecuador included Commons explicitly in their constitutions. In 2010 the UN general assembly adopted the resolution on access to clean water as basic human right. The initiative for a fundamental declaration on the Common Good of Humanity goes beyond this – well aware that a proclamation has no legally binding character but can be an instrument for social and political mobilization, creating a new consciousness and serving as a basis for the convergence of social and political movements at the international level. Clearly it is a long-term task, but it needs to be started. Not only can the coming together of social movements like the World Social Forum and political parties like the Forum of São Paulo contribute by promoting such a Declaration, but individual countries through their representatives in international organizations like Unesco and the United Nations can also push this agenda forward.

Coming to the European Level: Since some European Parliamentarians from different political groups founded an ‘Intergroup’ on Commons and Public Services in 2014, the ‘European Commons Assembly’ developed with participants from nearly all European countries. ECA initiated conferences and various activities and published a general call: “We call for the provision of resources and the necessary freedom to create, manage and sustain our commons. We call upon governments, local and national, as well as European Union institutions to facilitate the defence and growth of the commons, to eliminate barriers and enclosures, to open up doors for citizen participation and to prioritize the common good in all policies. This requires a shift from traditional structures of top-down governance towards a horizontal participatory process for community decision-making in the design and monitoring of all forms of commons. We call on commoners to support a European movement that will promote solidarity, collaboration, open knowledge and experience sharing as the forces to defend and strengthen the commons. Therefore, we call for and open the invitation to join an on-going participatory, inclusive process across Europe for the building and maintenance of a Commons Assembly. Together we can continue to build a vibrant web of caring, regenerative collective projects that reclaim the European Commons for people and our natural environment.

How could the common good be important for European politics? Just to remind one of the prominent battles of the Left (including Greens and Trade Unions) in the years 2000: the battle against the Bolkestein-Directive. In the end it was possible to introduce the protection of public services as “services of general social and economic interest (SSIG’s) on European level. This could be a starting point for initiatives for commons tofight for the recognition of commons initiatives in different fields as basic citizens rights in Europe.

All these examples show at least the slightly fragmented situation. The political and legal conditions differ widely and there is a need to discuss demands on all levels – and there is the need to discuss them on the European level.

Opportunities for the European Left

The general interest of European Left is to re-think the role of public for goods and services with relation to universal rights and to prohibit market-logic in public services. The aim is to suspend the market from public goods and services and to democratize public services for the recuperation of public services as Common Good. This is the first dimension. The second is to re-think social and workers rights as common goods. And the third is the recognition of citizens’ initiatives as basic rights and the promotion of commons initiatives.

So, it’s a three-fold battle and it could start from the general statement:

Commons are of general public interest, thus the general demand is the political and legal recognition of citizens’ initiatives whose aim is to create, re-construct and recuperate resources, goods and services in a social, ecological and democratic way. But there are specific demands to add. As there are (just to give some examples):

1. Cooperative use of abandoned land and houses. Social use of confiscated property.
2. Right for workers to recuperate their companies and manage them collectively – before selling them to investors or going bankrupt.>
3. Open access for all citizens to information services that are democratically organised, and free public internet.
4. Collectively and self-managed funds for citizens’ initiatives and access to public funding.
5. Democratization of digital radio and TV by reserving e.g. 30% of the slots for non-commercial, community etc. stations.
6. Participatory re-communalization/re-municipaliyation of energy and water.

And I’m sure there are others to add…

It could be the right moment to start to discuss practical political proposals – not with the illusion to change European politics immediately, but with the intention to bring the debate into the light of a greater public.

Thank you for your attention.

About the author: As Member of the European Parliament (MEP), as director of the European Office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Brussels, as coordinator of transatlantic and international projects and as an expert for social urban development, Birgit Daiber has been involved for over decades in the building of Europe. She is the author and publisher of a number of books and articles on European and international issues. The common good of humanity, gender-oriented civil conflict prevention and the intercultural dialogue are in the focus of her present attention.

Photo by pedrosimoes7

The post Let’s talk politics: Conference on Social Commons, Barcelona, June 2018  appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This interview by Igor Stokfiszewski first appeared on politicalcritique.org.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski is the Director of the Culture Department of the City of Warsaw. He completed Polish studies, theatrical sciences and philosophy at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru? and the University of Warsaw. Professionally, he is associated with theatre and culture as manager and producer.

Igor Stokfiszewski: The Culture Department of the City of Warsaw requested two teams – one led by Professor Jerzy Hausner and the second headed by Edwin Bendyk – for the preparation of roadmaps for the reform of Warsaw’s culture. The work of the first team was concluded with the publication of a document entitled Improving the cultural policy in Warsaw – area: cultural institutions. The other team published a document entitled The development of creative potential and support for creators. Their publication in April of this year, as well as the process of social consultations, were accompanied by somewhat controversial reactions. Two main accusations were made against the Culture Department – that the department was trying to impose cultural reform and that it was attempting to commercialise certain institutions.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The reform of the cultural governance of Warsaw, the implementation of which the two studies are part, is not a new idea, but resulted directly from the document The city of culture and citizens. The Culture Development Programme in Warsaw until 2020. The document was consulted on by a social group, the authorities of the capital city, and creative circles, and then adopted under a resolution of the City Council in March 2012. It has been in force for four years now! We, the Steering Committee, assumed that while roadmaps for changes to Warsaw culture are not ready, the Programme will be a dead document. The studies by teams headed by Hausner and Bendyk will act as such roadmaps.

Igor Stokfiszewski: I have to admit that I am a big supporter of the Programme, although I was watching its preparations only as a spectator. It is not a coincidence that it was prepared around 2010. I recall the social agitation following the Congress of Culture in 2009, the democratic agitation in the cities that resulted in urban movements…

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: I sensed a similar atmosphere. It is worth saying that the Culture Department did not recognise the Programme as its “constitution” right from the beginning. When, as a result of the contest for the post of Director of the Department, proposed in the Programme, I came to work for the City of Warsaw in 2013, that document was treated rather as something from the outside, not “ours”. The quite common perception that the Programme is the basis of thinking about Warsaw culture is a quite recent phenomenon. It cost us a great deal of effort.

I have the impression that we do not appreciate how innovative this document is in terms of the participation of social groups in the decision-making processes. The adoption of the Programme resulted in the establishment of the Social Cultural Council, the second term of office of which has been started recently, and the role of which is to issue opinions on the main principles of cultural policy. The Council and the Steering Committee operate at the Culture Department and serve as a body making joint decisions regarding social culture. Our collaboration is definitely not a success story only, but this is also the first systemic attempt to establish relations among official structures and the circles of the people of culture. This is a serious and systemic attempt to implement creativity in the structure of decision-making processes. We are still in the process of learning – “we” being the office and society.

Igor Stokfiszewski: And what progress has been made?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: It depends. To some extent, the quality of this dialogue definitely reflects the quality of the public political debate, and, frankly speaking, it is also a lot to do with our involvement. For example, immediately after the first term of office of the Social Cultural Council, in agreement with its representatives, we conducted the reform. We also requested an analysis of the quality system for collaboration with all social bodies affiliated with the office. We want to develop in these areas too. Social dialogue is not something to be taken for granted.

This document makes us aware of the huge creative resources that Warsaw owns, and that a lot of them are still utilised only to a limited extent.

This is a joint responsibility which you have to work out. We need responsibility, huge energy reserves, mutual trust and patience. I believe it is worth perceiving and appreciating these efforts, especially in the environment of the threats to democracy which are starting to appear in Poland…

Igor Stokfiszewski: Let’s go back to the studies prepared by the teams headed by Professor Hausner and Edwin Bendyk. What story did they tell to the Culture Department in terms of cultural governance in the capital city and the direction of their manoeuvring to fulfil the guidelines of the Programme?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: Most of all, these documents show the metropolitan complexity of Warsaw – the chances and threats corresponding to this complexity. On one hand, the capital city attracts artists and the attention of whole cultural environments, and its openness and dynamics create a circulation of a unique nature on the scale of Poland and Europe. On the other hand, this complexity makes the opportunity for shaping the cultural environment very difficult, and it also hugely increases competition in terms of access to resources. Therefore, we are dealing with huge potential and dispersed centres forming its shape and dynamics. In my opinion, there are two most general conclusions to be drawn from these two studies. First of all, we should test various and innovative instruments for impacting on culture. This means the necessity of trying out various solutions in the form of pilot projects, analysing the results and testing further instruments.

Second, we should do this while taking care over the participation of all stakeholders, not giving up on the efforts of social dialogue. These documents gather information that was unordered before. And we do need rationality and knowledge in actions for culture.

Igor Stokfiszewski: The Programme obliged the city to create an adequate environment for differentiated creations and building a wide participation in culture …

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The study prepared by the team of Edwin Bendyk achieves the first of the goals that I named. This document makes us aware of the huge creative resources that Warsaw owns, and that a lot of them are still utilised only to a limited extent.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What resources?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: Each year, nearly 12 thousand creators from various fields graduate from Warsaw universities. Moreover, the capital city attracts other graduates from other centres – ?ód?, Katowice, Kraków… All of them hope to gain a job utilising their creative talents. The question is, how do you create the optimum conditions to let them all stay in Warsaw and grow? Is it possible on this scale of this phenomenon? Research shows that the most attractive work opportunities in Warsaw are created not by cultural institutions but by the creative industry – advertising, architecture, design, the film-making industry – financial instruments being at the disposal of City, e.g. scholarships for creators are somewhere near the bottom of the list. The assets of the Culture Department are only around 25% of all the resources involved in the market for Warsaw’s culture. As a result, it is hard to effectively send impulses that would stimulate activities beneficial to the circles of creators and the performance of the public mission.

We have to obtain larger assets for culture, and also engage non-financial resources at the disposal of the city in an innovative way.

Therefore, we have to obtain larger assets for culture, and also engage non-financial resources at the disposal of the city in an innovative way.

We should develop residency programmes, utilise the accommodation resources of the city, create platforms for communication, facilitate environmental networking and building individual relations. We should also improve the quality of the management of public assets. Building the prestige of creators, stressing the role played by them in the modern metropolis, development and the democratic debate, should be stressed.

Igor Stokfiszewski: Improving the cultural policy in Warsaw – area: cultural institutions is the document prepared by the team under supervision of Professor Hausner. I assume it was prepared as an attempt to achieve the second goal defined in the Programme?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The need for the reform of Warsaw’s cultural institutions is the subject of common consensus. Definitely, various circles visualise reform in different ways, but its sense is perceived by nearly everyone. The cultural institutions of Warsaw are the most important players in the area of culture for which we are the host, because we are able to influence them directly. Additionally, they create work posts for creators, own resources and know-how, and, finally, connect artists with audiences. Therefore, cooperation with artistic institutions is also a method for building wider participation in culture.

The main statement of the document prepared by the team of Professor Hausner is that Warsaw’s cultural institutions should be de-hermetised and more open. Yes – they are home for artists, but it should be also home for the citizens of the city of Warsaw. They should be aware of the goals of their activities, define its social goals more clearly, refer to the community for which and in which they exist.

Igor Stokfiszewski: Is the accusation of the hermetism of cultural institutions not justified? Their resistance to reforms was – for many years – real resistance to commercialisation. Quite often, hermetism was a result of a defensive attitude serving as a tool for the protection of the public and the experimental dimension of artistic creativity.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: I am aware of the fact that cultural institutions have been subject to extremely ruthless market mechanisms for years. They have been financed insufficiently, so sometimes they are based in inadequately equipped buildings, and they have to compete for the attention of audiences with commercial entities, etc. I know this because I worked in one of those institutions long enough to be acquainted with these problems down to the slightest detail. At the same time, the potential presented by these institutions for the citizens of Warsaw is huge. We cannot throw it away. Warsaw institutions have to be reformed in order to fully utilise their potential, and, later, to make them the engines of the city’s development, open to all citizens of Warsaw. We have to support them in their missions, ensure permanent and reliable support, and also encourage their self-reflection, evaluation and development.

Definitely there are dynamically changing institutions in Warsaw that are willing to redefine themselves all the time, and better manage their resources, better understand and respond to the needs of their audiences. We are interested in supporting and propagating such processes and attitudes. Public cultural institutions should search for answers to the question for whom do we exist? What are the goals of our activity? What is the way to develop an open, tolerant and wise society? I see numerous reflections of such acts in the institutions of Warsaw: just let me mention the programme of support for debuts in the Ochota Theatre, the programme of Warsaw Praga District Museum for local craftspersons, the cooperation of the Studio Theatre with the third sector and the involvement in the revitalisation of the Praga District on the part of the Powszechny Theatre. I also appreciate opening to the young artists of TR Warsaw and the creative utilisation of the new HQ and the international fame of the Nowy Theatre.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What recommendations are specified in the study prepared by the team of Prof Hausner to make Warsaw institutions function in a similar way?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: First of all, the document recommends the implementation of the process of defining the social mission of each and every institution with the participation of the representatives of the institution itself, the Culture Department, experts and society, as well as including the missions in the statutes of cultural institutions. Second, we want to oblige the institutions to establish their own developmental strategies and adjust the reporting system to them. We are trying to do so while signing agreements with directors of institutions, i.e. we want the programme’s attachments to agreements concluded with directors to be a proof of really deep thinking about how the institutions should function, and what role they should be playing. Third, the “roadmap …” focuses on the consequent observance of contests for directors and limiting the option of prolonging an agreement only to two terms of office. The second recommendation provoked tense debates, so we will calm the reactions in the steering committee, in order, on the one hand, not to lose the abilities of managers with experience and seniority, on the other, to include in the game new people with a fresh and often non-obvious perception.

Igor Stokfiszewski: I agree with the basic outlines of the diagnoses presented in both documents and with the directions towards which they suggest the development of Warsaw’s culture. I believe that the mechanisms for the utilisation of the available public resources should be subjected to a thorough review in order for them to have a higher impact on the creative potential of Warsaw. I also agree that the public mission of cultural institutions is performed not only by means of supporting high-end culture or, specifically, showing plays, exhibitions, etc.; that it has to be accompanied by clearer thinking about social placement and the impact of culture. I also believe that the transformation of culture must confront the processes of the democratisation of attitudes and the expectations of the citizens, I agree that politics at central level forces us to accelerate the intense efforts for the benefit of the development of the participating models of the presence of society in decision-making processes at the municipal level, but also at the level of the co-management of cultural institutions.

But until this very moment, in this interview we have not talked about the area that, in my opinion, has become particularly important in recent years. I mean non-governmental organisations and social movements. A lot of issues mentioned by us, such as co-management, criticism of the hermetic nature of institutions, social participation and missions are based on knowledge practised de facto in the non-institutional area. In recent years, this area was largely developed, got more professional, and created individual tools of creative activity and cultural production. What role in the reflection on the reform of culture of Warsaw is occupied by the third sector and other more or less organised forms of social activity?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski:  There is no shred of doubt in my mind that the non-governmental and non-institutionalised sector is a very important value in the field of culture. The borderlines within culture and everything that is non-institutionalised are only conventional in these days. The creative processes function in many areas, culture-forming phenomena appear in non-obvious places, and, very often, in the centre of the debate, we still see those created outside the official, institutionalised environment. We should mention that Warsaw is the city with the most developed network of non-governmental institutions. Recommendations concerning strengthening this area can be found in both documents, but I would say that they support the justification of actions already taken.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What are these actions?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: We have implemented long-term contests for non-governmental institutions – three years long and one and a half years long – with a positive impact on the financial stability of organisations and facilitates the better planning of their activities. We attempt to simplify and improve procedures of applying for local-government resources. This year we hope to agree a totally new formula for the contest tasks, already adjusted to the logic recommended in the Programme. We are working on an electronic generator of applications, which will serve as a tool for the collection of knowledge and data concerning non-governmental institutions in Warsaw. We want to work out a new, more efficient expert system, because the previous one was not substantially sufficient, and, moreover, it made the grant awarding procedure longer. In the multiannual Programme for the Development of Cooperation with non-governmental institutions, we have obliged ourselves to increase the resources assigned to non-governmental institutions each year. Today, we spend nearly 10% of the Department’s budget. I also have to stress that none of the decisions concerning the third sector is made without the participation of its representatives. There is no doubt that, concerning the phenomena occurring today in Poland, strong non-governmental organisations are among the key elements in a healthy social ecosystem.

Igor Stokfiszewski: Does the de-hermetisation of public cultural institutions mean involving commercial players in their co-management? For example, part of the circle of theatre people interpreted the recommendations of the team supervised by Professor Hausner in this way.

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: I am and will be the guardian of the presence of social patronage in culture. In the previous years, the State and local governments did not appreciate the role of culture for social development as well as development as such to a sufficient extent. Our goal is to show the key function of culture in building the capital of trust necessary to develop the cultural competences of citizens and the quality of the public debate. Culture is an area of building senses and values, and therefore it has nothing in common with commercialism. The wise and effective management of resources in this field is a totally different issue, and we have to rationally utilise all opportunities for supporting and developing artistic institutions.

The de-hermetisation of institutions that we were talking about is not a matter of paving the way towards their commercialisation. It is the other way round – while preserving artistic identity, we rather want to direct them to the path of a social mission.

For the last three years, we have increased the budget of the Culture Department from around PLN 180 million to over 220 million. We are increasing expenditures for cultural education, theatres for children and experimental theatres. We are invest money in the construction of prestigious locations of the Museum of Modern Art and TR Warsaw, The Museum of Warsaw and the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra. We have upgraded the building of the Roma, Kwadrat, Ochota and Nowy Theatres. We are preparing to invest in the Baj Theatre, and many cultural centres. In 25%. of the budget of the Integrated Programme for Revitalisation prepared for the Praga District refers to cultural tasks.

The de-hermetisation of institutions that we were talking about is not a matter of paving the way towards their commercialisation. It is the other way round – while preserving artistic identity, we rather want to direct them to the path of a social mission. Open the opportunities for the better utilisation of their resources, building various models of management.

Igor Stokfiszewski: What statement from social consultations regarding both documents do you remember best?

Tomasz Thun-Janowski: The remarks that we obtained during consultations to a large extent referred to very specific matters, yet the statement regarding the limitation of directors’ terms of offices in institutions to two was controversial, a lot of discussions referred to social welfare issues. We have also received some comments concerning diagnoses prepared by teams of experts. I do not neglect any of those signals. Consultations were the forum for expressing fears and also mentioning issues not related to the subject matter of both documents. It turned out that the most significant problems in the field of culture are “down to earth”, current matters, and they pose a real barrier to strategic planning. Once again we had the occasion to see how important and real they are for the people of culture. There are no simple recipes for complex problems, but I believe that we can jointly appeal to creators and culture in Warsaw.

About Igor Stokfiszewski

Igor Stokfiszewski (1979) is a literary and theatre critic specialising in politically engaged art. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Polish left-wing movement Krytyka Polityczna, where he works as activist, editor and journalist. He was a member of the team overseeing the 7th Berlin Biennale (2012). He is author of the book Zwrot polityczny (The Political Turn, 2009).

The post “Culture in Warsaw needs to become more social” [Interview] appeared first on P2P Foundation.

From the abstract:

“In this article, we review the workplace battleground and explore the potential of social media for mobilizing social movements in labour conflicts and beyond. By conducting a case study with empirical accounts obtained from the 2010–2011 British Airways cabin crew dispute in the United Kingdom, along with secondary sources, we discern social media in the workplace as a contested field. Inquiring into the unfolding dynamic of social media and workplace conflict, we investigate the mobilizing prospects of theoretical concepts like ‘distributed discourse’ and ‘accelerated pluralism’ through the analytical prism of our interviews. Our analysis of these empirical accounts will tease out certain empowering potentials in the use of social media to shape discourse and mobilise movement. However, we also note that these same communicative actions may challenge internal union authority, generate counter-mobilising efforts and constitute an integral part in exposing both our private and working lives to the processes of marketisation and commodification.”

Photo by Rosaura Ochoa

The post Essay of the Day: Striking with Social Media appeared first on P2P Foundation.