Date: 2024-05-15 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00010340 | |||||||||
Ideas | |||||||||
Burgess COMMENTARY | |||||||||
Proposed Strategy for the Commons Movement in 2015 Text Michel Bauwens, Galway, August 31, 2015: 'What do we need to work on NOW ? We are definitely going to a period of dislocation in 2015. The Greek debacle has shown the difficulty of any strategy based on national sovereignty and the end of any real political democracy for European nations ; the difficulties in China , Brazil and elsewhere show the period of high growth for emerging economies has come to an end; and the success of candidates like Donald Trump, which obtains 40% approval rating by promising to deport fifteen million people, shows the potential return of barbarism in the heart of the over-developed world. Do we have any realistic perspective at change right now ? In the current conjuncture, there are still mass political or electoral mobilizations that seem to have potential, and we are thinking here about the emergence of social justice (anti-austerity) candidates in Spain (En Comu, Podemos), Corbyn in the UK and Sanders in the U.S. Our CommonsTransition.org initiative, led by Stacco Troncoso and team, aims at bringing commons and peer production alternatives to these movements, so as to avoid too strong focuses on statist solutions. It is our hope to foster dialogues in the political world about the part of the commons transition in any alternative. However, the evolution in Greece should of course caution to any overt optimism, for example at the level of the real openness of such movements for commons and civic alternatives, as well as their true willingness to challenge the status quo. But I think the more long-term focus is to work on the civic-economic front, i.e. building alternative new modes of productions, new relations of production, and new property and governance models, right now, i.e. to 'hurry slowly' in rebuilding a true alternative base for different political and civic mobilizations. I have discussed elsewhere our political proposals , i.e. our proposals for the re-organization of emancipatory politics around the commons, through Assemblies and Chambers of the Commons, and our wish to see Commons Transition Circles. Here I would like to focus on the economic proposals. How do we create a new commons-oriented social fabric around the creation of livelihoods ? Three strategies come to mind:
None of these three strategies, all of which have started but are very emergent, will solve urgent crisis, but they will set the stage for a more broader transition later on. I am personally convinced that progressive strategies for resistance and change, like the ones we saw in Greece, that have no serious commons component, are in a great danger of failure ; and we know that neoliberal forces will use nominal commons strategies to destroy the solidarity mechanisms of the welfare state. Post-Keynesian anti-austerity proposals are no longer enough (such as Quantitative Easing for the People), if they are not accompanied with support for a real change on the ground, away from the capital-labor model and towards sustainable, open and free, and solidary production and value distribution models. In our vision, it is the integration of the economic work of peer production, outlined just above, and the broader work of social and political re-organization around commons-centric institutions, which will set the stage for a rebirth of an offensive social and political movement that will have a good chance to promote a phase transition to a commons-centric political, social and economic society.' http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketcapitalization.asp |