Peer2Politics

The Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC, pronounced “seek”) is surely one of the more audacious commons-based innovations to have emerged in the past five years.  It is notable for providing a legal and financial superstructure that is helping to support a wide variety of smaller self-organized commons.  Some of us are calling this proto-form an “omni-commons,” inspired by the example of the Omni Commons in Oakland.

"Instead of things being scarce the real shortage these days is people’s attention." David Bollier on Matthew B. Crawford's "The Cost of Paying Attention".

From David Bollier's website: "Over the past twenty years, there has been such a proliferation of computers, smartphones, digital devices, surveillance cameras, maps, mobile applications, sensors a...

Behind the superficial public discussions about Bitcoin you’ll discover a software breakthrough that could change the future of commoning on open networks

Photo credit: The Co-operative / Foter / CC BY. Article cross-posted from Bollier.org. Is it possible to imagine a new sort of synthesis or synergy between the emerging peer production and commons movement on the one hand, and growing, innovative elements of the co-operative and solidarity economy movements on the other?

“The power of open source principles, now proven beyond a doubt, is rapidly proliferating into many other areas of culture, production and social life.  The prospect of more participatory, socially convivial forms of production – accountable to communities and mindful of the larger common good – has never seemed more achievable.  Still, there are important organizational, legal and financial hurdles to overcome – not to mention cultural and political differences – that must be dealt with if co-operatives are to find common ground with digital commoners and peer producers.  Fortunately, there are emerging models such as multi-stakeholder cooperatives that could be vehicles for such cooperation.”

Governments are so accustomed to dictating their will, through coercion if necessary, that they find it unimaginable that people might willingly – and with creativity and enthusiasm – self-organize themselves to take care of urgent needs.  So pause a moment to behold the remarkable Zaatari Refugee camp in Jordan.  This settlement of 85,000 displaced Syrians is showing how even desperate, resource-poor people can show enormous creativity and self-organization, and turn their “camp” into a “city.”

The proliferation of activist initiatives calling for systemic change around the world has never been more impressive. Yet collaborations among like-minded organizations, projects and movements have been disappointingly modest. As neoliberal economics and policies tighten their grip on American society—notwithstanding the dismal misbehavior of financial institutions, corporations and the two political parties—can leading alt-economic and social movements find ways to work more closely together?

Amazingly, it is sometimes a criminal act to retrieve food that has been thrown away. Often it is simply seen as culturally inappropriate or embarrassing. But when an estimated $165 billion worth of food gets thrown away in the U.S. every year, surely it’s time to change our attitudes about food waste.