"Cada vez que una civilización está en crisis, hay un retorno de lo común '
- Una entrevista con Michel Bauwens
Los comunes no son nada nuevo. La historia siempre ha contado a los ciudadanos agrupación recursos y gestión colectivamente y de forma autónoma
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/every-time-a-civilization-is-in-crisis-there-is-a-return-of-the-commons-an-interview-with-michel-bauwens/
Los comunes no son nada nuevo. La historia siempre ha contado a los ciudadanos agrupación recursos y gestión colectivamente y de forma autónoma
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/every-time-a-civilization-is-in-crisis-there-is-a-return-of-the-commons-an-interview-with-michel-bauwens/
‘Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons’
— An Interview with Michel Bauwens
The commons are nothing new. History has always counted citizens pooling resources and managing them collectively and autonomously.
The
commons are nothing new. History has always counted citizens pooling
resources and managing them collectively and autonomously. Cities and
states have the responsibility to identify, connect and support them.
The commons appear today as a social choice in a breathless world. A
society where the economic and productive systems will finally be
compatible with the major planetary balances.We often speak, and more and more, of commons. “Common good”, “public transport”, “Paris in common” … What is it exactly?
Michel Bauwens: Commons are three things at once: a (shared) resource, a community (which maintains them) and specific autonomous governance principles (to govern them). These are very concrete things, which do not exist by nature but are the result of alliances between several parties. “There is no commons without commoning”. It can be a renewable energies cooperative, a shared mobility project, a shared knowledge, an AMAP … In fact, everyone makes connections without knowing it, and has always done so … according to cycles of more or less intense mutualisation.
In fact, everyone makes connections without knowing it, and has always done so … according to cycles of mutualization more or less intense.
If pooling follows cycles, where are we today?
M. B.: There are long, civilizational cycles, and short economic
cycles. For the first, whenever a civilization is in crisis, there is a
return of the commons. For when class societies break down, when
resources are overexploited and run out, pooling becomes more and more
meaningful. Today, it is a global environmental crisis that gives rise
to a resurgence of the commons. Yesterday was the end of the Roman
Empire, the crisis of Japan in the 12th century, in China in the 15th
century …
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Short cycles are peculiar to capitalism, they are called Kondratiev
cycles. These are cycles of 30 years of high growth and 30 years of
financialization, which generally correspond to demutualization. 2008
marked the end of a cycle of this type: there has been a resurgence of
mutualization projects within capitalism itself.
So we would currently be in a high balance of mutualisation?
Mr. B.: The situation is nuanced. On the one hand, in the third
world, the commons are in danger. There is strong pressure for
privatization. This concerns, for example, natural resources and land in
Africa. On the other hand, the new technologies facilitate the
emergence of common knowledge, small and large, which was not possible
before. Finally, in the West, we can observe a renewal of the commons.
Since 2008, they have multiplied by 10. That’s what I found in Ghent:
there were 50 projects of urban commons in 2006, in 2016, there were
500.
If the commons are more numerous … do not they always remain a minority in the global economy?
Mr. B.: What is certain today is that there is a movement of false
mutualisation. What we call the “sharing economy” is really very
extractive models. We pool resources without giving users control, an
essential criterion for talking about common. I call it “captalist
capitalism”, a capitalism that exploits human cooperation.
On the one hand, it is Google and Facebook that share the knowledge
of humanity, facilitate its communication and sharing while mobilizing
our attention and data for market purposes – and without paying us for
it. On the other hand, it is Uber and Airbnb who pool personal resources
(a car, a parking space, an apartment …), allow their peer-to-peer
exchange and charge a commission on each of these interactions.
This refers to an old 19th century debate between Marx and Proudhon.
According to Marx, the exploitation came from the added value whereas
for Proudhon, it came from the cooperation … It is the idea that by
putting 100 craftsmen together, they will be more productive than if
they were separated. Today, Proudhon would be right: capitalism is
Proudhon!
According to Marx, the exploitation came from the surplus value whereas for Proudhon, it came from the cooperation …
That said, alternatives exist everywhere. In Ghent there is Uber, of
course, but beside that there are two shared mobility cooperatives. At
the city level, each human supply system exists on a common-oriented
model, particularly for food and energy.
While the commons are very advanced in some cities … they remain stammering in others … How to explain it?
Mr. B.: The first explanatory element is the historical context. In
Ghent he is quite unique. From the Middle Ages, the city was
self-managed by guilds, then became a Calvinist republic. It was the
cradle of the labor movement in Belgium, with the first textile
reindustrialisation. For 20 years, progressive coalitions were in power.
Historically, people have been able to take initiatives in Ghent, they
have always been supported. We find similar phenomena in France: Nantes,
Nancy, …
Can political interventionism encourage mutualisation movements within cities?
Mr. B.: We never start from scratch, the commons still pre-exist to
the action of cities. They are people, projects that work, are resilient
but sometimes isolated. The role of the city is first of all to
identify these initiatives, to listen to them and to respond to their
needs. On the other hand, the commons can never be done without the
city. There must be at least an agreement in principle, an unofficial
laissez-faire. For example, in Ghent there was an abbey that the city
could no longer maintain. The citizens of the neighborhood asked for the
key to the building. It has been going on for 10 years: they organize
cultural events every weekend. Elinor Ostrom said that no common can
succeed without the agreement of public entities. The city necessarily
has, at least, a role of steward.
The role of the city is first to identify the commons, listen to them and meet their needs.
In some cities, there is a strong political portage around the
commons. This is the case in Barcelona, with the multiannual plan
“Barcelona in common”, in Bologna where public-common institutions allow
citizens to take care of shared resources, or in Naples, with the
recognition and support of the mayor Luigi de Magistris to more than 60
towns in the city. Linking the Commons to the support of the city is not
without risks, it can create a dependency. What is needed are
public-commun structures: structures that bring citizens together and
stimulate their power of self-organization.
Could these public-commun structures be envisaged at the
level of a country, of the world? Or are the commons limited to the city
walls?
The political problem today, at the national level – for both the
left and the right – is the belief that value comes from the market. The
commons represent a completely different system in which all citizens
create value and contribute to the commons. If some cities have
understood this model, there is no political force that carries it to
the scale of a country. Instead, there are coalitions of pro-common
cities, with network governance. But ideally, political movements at the
national level should be convinced of the relevance of the commons.
The political problem today, at the national level – for both the
left and the right – is the belief that value comes from the market.
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How to pass pooling “on the scale”? How to transform the whole of a country according to a logic of common?
Mr. B.: Not everyone will follow at the same time but if we succeed
in mobilizing 10% of the population, we will win, the rest will follow.
Today, the actors of sustainable production represent only 2% and they
feel alone … At this level, the public power can play a role of example
and considerable drive.
One way would be to capitalize on the lifeblood of society by
supporting all initiatives in favor of the commons. This could be
translated into transition councils for each major supply sector: a food
council, a mobility council, a housing council … In these councils, we
would give a voice and a power to the pioneers of the transition: those
who work in the margins and show that another way is possible. I
sincerely believe in this model of democracy – neither participative nor
deliberative but contributive. You have a voice because you have
demonstrated that you do.
I sincerely believe in this model of democracy – neither
participative nor deliberative but contributive. You have a voice
because you have demonstrated that you do.
Another way would be to regulate. A state could for example impose
“100% of food produced locally, healthy and organic”. In Ghent, we have
more than 100 million meals a year, which already corresponds to
hundreds of local jobs. In the same way, cars could be produced locally,
cars that are both sustainable and bio-degradable.
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To return to a local production, distributed … would this be a way to put the commons at the service of the environment?
Mr. B.: That’s what I call cosmo-local production. Neither
protectionist nor liberal, it is to share knowledge (which is light) at
the global level but produce (all that is heavy) at the local level, on
demand. In this way, we decrease the thermodynamic weight of people on
the earth. We already have all the technologies to make this system
change, but they are not yet put together.
If it is not a technological problem, what prevents to return
to local production systems? As long as there is a difference in
production costs, delocalization will always be justified from an
economic point of view …
Mr. B.: Today, we spend a lot more on transportation than on
production – it’s nonsense! To change things, there needs to be a strong
political will, both social and environmental. It is about recognizing
other forms of value than market value and taking into account the level
and limits of global resources in our productive, economic and
financial systems.
For example, our accounting systems should be thermo-dynamic:
balancing the material used for production and the global ecological
limits. Today, you can know how much you use rare metals, how much gas
you throw, how much energy you use – without any information about the
world around you and its limits. The world can collapse, it does not
show up in accounting.
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Today, the world can collapse, it does not show in the accounting.
This must also be reflected in our trading currencies. Currently,
money is nothing. It could nevertheless represent the outside world and
the finitude of its resources. For example, with the project “fish
coin”, the currency represents the stock of fish that can be fished
without damaging their reproduction.
To make the right day-to-day decisions and to achieve a truly
sustainable circular economy, all economic and political actors must be
judged by the good and the harm they do – both to the planet and to the
planet. Human being.
About Michel Bauwens
A peer-to-peer theorist, Michel Bauwens is the founder of the P2P
foundation, a think tank focusing on peer-to-peer alternatives and in
particular their mode of production, governance and ownership.
His latest report analyzes how permafrocord distribution chains,
distributed registers, protocol co-operatives and new post-capitalist
forms of accounting would lead to a socially just and economically
resilient world.
P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival: Towards a P2P Infrastructure for a
Socially Just Circular Society. By Michel Bauwens and Alex Pazaitis.
Foreword by Kate Raworth. P2P Foundation, 2019.
—This post was previously published on OuiShare and is republished here with a Creative Commons License.
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"Cada vez que una civilización está en crisis, hay un retorno de lo común '
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Una entrevista con Michel Bauwens.
- https://transicionsocioeconomica.blogspot.com/2019/10/every-time-civilization-is-in-crisis.html
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