everything for everyone
(2018) by Nathan Schneider
This is the start of what is going to be a potentially obnoxious spree of book promotion in the coming months. I will do my best, in the process, to focus on promoting not primarily myself or even the book so much as the tradition it depicts, especially the remarkable people I’ve met who embody that tradition. This process can be awkward, but I view it as a duty and a service, and from there it can turn into a pleasure. Thank you, in advance, for understanding that this will be my job in 2018. Thank you, in advance, should you help amplify these remarkable people’s good works and my attempt to share them.
I hope this book will be a useful tool. I think it might be.
___________
notes/quotes:
intro – equitable pioneers
1
grandfather from johnstown
4
co-ops tend to take hold when the order of things is in flux, when people have to figure out how to do what no one will do for them
imagining a better life.. if we just spent our day doing what we *need done.. trusting that
*have to be free first.. so that needs are authentic needs
5
this history carries evidence, from one century to another, that people can govern their own lives, if we give ourselves the chance..t
only works if it’s all of us.. which we haven’t yet tried
ie: meadows undisturbed ecosystem
6
rose schneiderman (1912): ‘the worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too’.. it ‘bread’ was the buying power of wages ‘roses’ was the right to the free time that comes from reasonable working hours – time for enjoyment and self managing
7
surveys suggest that something like 85% of workers world wide don’t feel engaged in their jobs..
why does it seem so hard to take that desire for genuine participation seriously..t
perhaps because our senses for genuineness have been scrambled.. evidenced in our thinking that visible participation and/or engagement is a sign of it (genuineness)
seeing participation and engaged ness as more of a voluntary compliance than of alive people.. ie: invited vs invented ness
when we seek participation or engagement.. generally means we have an agenda.. so not offering freedom.. even if it seems we are.. even if the (event/activity) seems good/friendly/nice.. like a host\ing a campfire
10
cooperatives themselves have fallen victim to this (poor way to run country).. many large credit unions, electric co-ops mutual ins giants, and the like have lost the kind of member involvement that they had at their founding.. and manager find it just as well not to remind the member that they are, in fact, co-owners.. the result is stagnation..
12
international coop alliance first met in 1895 in london.. principles it adopted to define and guide derived from rules.. in 1844.. evolved over years.. most recent approved in 1995 and framed on wall in boardrooms and kitchens of co ops the world over:
1\ voluntary and open membership 2\ democratic member control 3\ member economic participation 4\ autonomy and independence 5\ education, training, and info 6\ cooperation among cooperatives 7\ concern for community
i’m seeing these as disturbances to an undisturbed ecosystem: 1&2:membership (marsh label law); 2: control; 3: money/measure; 4: independence (declaration of interdependence); 5: ed, training; ..
the arteries and veins of the cooperative idea are participation and control.. those who use an enterprise should be those who own and govern it
again.. control is killer.. as it participation ness
hoping to get back/to undisturbed ecosystem
17
if this is where the cutting edge points, it’s toward a kind of paradox: employing the method of cooperative ownership so as to wither ownership away..t
ownership is disturbance to undisturbed ecosystem.. not sure employing it is a way to wither it.. ie: 10 day care centers
h&n property law et al..
the new equitable pioneers have bold ideas, as their predecessors did, but they also run the risk of capriciousness, of neglecting sturdy institutional forms on behalf of a specious liberation
sturdy institutional forms..? they’ve been turning us into whales in sea world..
1 – all things in common – prehistory
18
(on free jazz).. the band plays in the dark.. one beat for a while.. then changes o another.. a lot of time they’re each in their own tempo and key, if any, working something out for themselves. and then they come together – when they feel like it – and its a relief to a listener used to more dictatorial orchestration.. harmony becomes precious when it’s not a given, and so the discord obtains a beauty of its own. that’s the sound of freedom and free association, of living by choice and not coercion..t
love this
21
ostrom 8 principles
acts 2 – had all things in common
22
acts 4 – no one claimed any of his possession was his own..
24
unmonestary experiment in matera 2014
25
the international body sponsored the invention fo what came to be called edgeryders.. ‘an open and distributed think tank’ of people working thru an online social network and a series of conferences…. w the hope of figuring out better ways forward..
the idea was – find a place w unmet needs and unused space that could lend a building to a group of young hackers.. live together cheaply, building open source infra w the locals.. repeat until it becomes a network..
the unmonastery vision went viral amongst edgeryders..
this was the period too.. of nsa whistleblower ed snowdens’ leaks, of persecuted hacker aaron swartz’s suicide, of blockade against commuter buses in san fran.. google lobbying and amazon buying things up.. internet became the empire
26
city agreed to provide a small cave complex, as well as 35 000 euros (40 720 dollars) for travel and expenses for 4 months.. which stretched to 6
27
presiding unabbot was ben vickers.. theorist and coordinator.. documentarian .. he believed, documentation can trump even failure; others can study the attempt , tweak it and try again
ben – the highest poverty
28
monks expose themselves to go d thru prayer; unmonks publish their activities on the internet
as in real monasteries, much of he unmonastery’s piety went toward scrutinize the minutiae of daily life.. this was of particular concern to.. pavlik.. who had been living for 5 yrs w/o touching money or govt ids.. w nearly pure reason, he implored the others to *document more and more precisely what came and went, from food to tampons, so they’d learn to budget not be cost but in terms of resources themselves.. kept track of electricity room by room
why *measure at all..? just as poison as money
29
when things off.. reminded each other ‘everything’s a prototype’
the days in those caves were manic w the spectrum of old and new realities.. : tech/monk/nonprofit/local/art/protest/entrepreneurial/recession cultures.. all in the space of a few months and a finite budget they might have called themselves a co-op were it all not so ephemeral..
this is why i don’t think we can understand the cooperative past or imagine a cooperative future w/o these errant, fumbling stories
i don’t know..i think we need a fresh start from the heart.. stories from the past are about whales in sea world..
thru unmonastery.. walls s sticky notes.. schedules, sets of principles, slogans to remember, lists of things to do.. ‘who does the work calls the shots’
? dang
30
had been a kind of monastic routine.. first weeks.. at specified times, the group would sit in circles so share feelings and discuss concerns.. (soon) the circles and exercises were on indefinite hiatus..
dang.. why does everybody want to do that.. why do we think that will ever last..?
nathan – we need to focus on tech just listening to daily curiosities.. via self-talk and using that as data to connect people locally.. repeat.. everyday.. in spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove.. who does the work becomes irrelevant.. most work we keep thinking is work would become irrelevant.. and no one would care to call the shots.. they’d be so busy doing/being the thing they can’t not do.. w/no ones approval.. we’d all be caught up in eudaimoniative surplus.. as it could be..
we’d need no money/measure for that..
30
a few months in , the unmonastery’s communication had become a jungle of platforms, many of them proprietary.. w few clear lines between inward and outward..
31
back and forth they debated what the *real problem was: the decline of ritual? attempts to revive the morning exercises kept failing.. the lack of ties w people in mater? they knew here were grumblings among locals about that the city was spending money to support a bunch of foreigners… too much software, or not enough? they disagreed about the rules that governed them as well as whether there were any in the first place..
*has to be all of us.. has to be total freedom for each one of us.. so has to start each day from w/in.. all that begs a mech to listen to each voice.. and facil that
inside out.. not outside in
32
the prefix ‘un’ has its uses – for marking a new beginning, for putting aside certain inadequacies of the past – and yet one cannot go on negating a reinventing everything forever..
33
next.. to hell’s kitchen neighborhood in manhattan – first built in 1919 as a garage.. was being transformed to include an art studio.. and open plan office and cafe.. and a room for workshops and meditation..
be you house ness (might have gone better under unmonestary) – ie: sans money
34
this guild’s dozen or so members .. co owners.. which would manage the proceeds of their dues and pay rent..
35
adam smith referred to the guilds’ price-fixing practices as a ‘conspiracy against the public’..story since has held that guilds in fact stymied efficiency and tech innovation..
36
politics meant legitimacy but it also meant collusion..ogilvie believes that guilds enforced an exclusionary econ.. barring from their trades whomever they happened not to like.. ie: women, jews, and immigrants..
thus far at least, prime produces’ membership (in manhattan) had considerable diversity..
37
the practical guilds worked alongside the mystics in the monasteries.. to put property and commoning into balance..
preacher – thomas muntzer beheaded in 1525.. for believing ‘property should be distributed to each according to his needs’
38
muntzer was a contemporary of martin luther’s .. remnants of the ‘radical reformation’ .. persist today in .. amish and mennonites
none of these old communards exactly correspond w cooperative enterprise in the modern sense.. in certain respects they challenge coop principles; expressly religious communes have tended to privilege poverty over ownership and obedience over autonomy..
land that had long been available for shared use became patchwork of fenced off enclosures; work that before had been obviously communal started to be regimented into firms..
39
among .. were diggers.. muntzer and diggers tempt nostalgia, even if what they called for never fully existed.. yet their declarations carry in them, at least, the memory of a world in which habits of commoning were more familiar.. land not a commodity.. work a shared enterprise..
40
hard world.. for many reasons better having left behind.. but for those trying to imagine and carry out an econ future more equitably shared.. some nostalgia has value.. it can remind us of capacities latent among us that may be of use once again..
1 yr to try commons – don’t think anyone has ever tried it sans money/measure
2 – the lovely principle – formation
42
the conditions of the depression had spurred people to form coops across the country.. new deal programs were promoting co ops
the motto of the german movement, whose storefronts became nazi targets after kristallnact: ‘cooperation is peace’..
43
as geopolitical as warbasse’s vision gets, it’s also a vision of what kind of people we might become. in the books’ final words, he concludes that the point of it all is ‘the development of superior individuals appreciative of cultural values, and w a passion for beauty, truth, and justice’.. he’s talking about cooperation as a school, just as the earlier monks regarded their monasteries – not only a better society in which human beings might live, but a means of forming them, forming us, into better human beings…. it couldn’t be otherwise. the very possibility of such enterprise in the industrial age was not a given but became evident thru lessons that had to be learned..
sounds like civilization ness .. this cooperative ness.. schooling the world ness.. which gets us to be like whales in sea world
45
part of a long legal and philosophical tradition .. that has regarded the sale of one’s labor in an employment contract as akin to being sold into a life of slavery..
it was obvious to lincoln, at least, that a prereq for economic self respect was owning and directing the means of ones’ own livelihood..
the prevailing ideology nowadays regards getting a job as a celebration worthy accomplishment and a free choice.. it is now the politician’s ultimate convo stopper; nobody in washington can get away w arguing against more jobs.. a decent job, or a string of them, promises at least the possibility of a decent life..
46
how much of a choice..? already not a matter of whether but which (job).. a common criterion for a successful work life is having made excellent contributions to an undertaking whose purpose and benefits are somebody else’s..t
work – solving other people’s problems
this would sound altruistic if the path had been chosen w/o coercion, which is not usually the case .. we’ve forgotten the search for something better, t.. a search that in lincoln’s time was producing remarkable discoveries..
something better: eudaimoniative surplus via an undisturbed ecosystem..aka: the energy of 7bn alive people
47
1816 robert owen opened institute for the formation of character.. took on the ed of the millworkers’ children..starting when old enough to walk – early for period.. curriculum relying on children’s innate curiosity and self direction.. jacob holyoake explains.. a part of the co op scheme among those who understand it
owen instituted 8 hr work week (it was 10)
48
then to america.. circulating – cooperative industrialism.. owenism began to spread
earliest explicit mention of cooperation as an econ system that holyoakecouldfind was from the period of owen enthusiasm.. first issue of short lived periodical called the economist.. declared on aug 27, 1821 : ‘the secret is out.. it is unrestrained cooperation, on the part of all , the members, for every purpose of social life’
holyoake – railed against the scourge of debt
49
1844 co op store opens.. all cash.. no debtors.. this system depended on no patriarch for either wisdom or capital.. the store’s early success spread simply because of the visible effect it had on tis members, who ‘appeared better fed, children had cleaner faces.. new clothes..
whereas owen wanted to abandon private property to a paternalistic commons, the rochdale store was a commons that put its members in better stead for a world of property
store was means of ensuring quality sourcing (of product and labor).. prefigured how co ops would later pioneer the organic and free trade movements
51
coop wholesale society began in manchester in 1863.. created federation .. a secondary coop – a co op of co ops.. it’s how coop endeavor around the world since have met challenge of scale.. while retaining units small and autonomous enough to be responsive to members.. reflected in 6th coop principle ‘coop among coops’. as well as elinor ostrmo’s 8th design principle of nesting commons w/in the commons
the breadth of the co ops offerings bears witness to that old and comprehensive idea of local co ops linking into commonwealth
52
simply sharing everything w everyone wasn’t what made the rochdale model work.. .. they didn’t try reenacting the act of the apostles.. they struck a balance.. since.. as coop of this sort has spread.. there has been research – not enough – to explain the competitive advantages of co op enterprises.. advantages come w costs.. barriers to obtaining capital and more demanding forms of governance
mixing as compromise/disturbance
53
horace greeley, founder of ny tribune.. became one of 19th cent most effective propagandists of cooperation in the us.. greeley co.. where my grandfather got his stat in business and where members of my fam still live.. takes its name form him.. co ops , greeley predicted, would be ‘the appointed means of rescuing the labouring class from dependence.. and need..
59
(just after telling of largest most renowned worker coop on record – mondragon corp.. in spain.. which employe more than 70 000 people.. most of them co owners): the medieval commons found new expression in modern co ops..
i don’t see any ie’s of co ops.. that are common ing.. (to me it has to be all shared w all w/o measuring)
60
leo: ‘the law should favor ownership and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners’
?.. so toxic
even while asserting the priority of property, he retained the spirit of that old idea of the universal destination of goods, by which property should be treated somehow as if everything were really everyone’s..
not good enough.. obviously.. otherwise we’d have had a revolution (of equity) by now
61
(on race mathews and formation) – since 80s mathews had made a series of visits to mondragon.. the remarkable network of worker co ops .. a system of *factories, schools, banks, retailers, and more.. all owned and governed by people who work in them.. tis’ a beacon of possibility the world over that **democratic business can thrive, employing high tech and large scale, though it has yet to be outdone or replicated..
i’d’ say *factories, schools, banks, retailers.. are all disturbances (or symptoms of disturbances) of our ecosystem.. fine tuning their running is not a beacon
mondragon, he realized, is a monument not only to a particular way of doing business but to a vision for forming the souls who partake in it
screw the soul.. then comply the soul..?
‘it has been said the cooperativism is an econ movement that uses the methods of ed’ arizmendi once wrote. ‘this defn can also be modified to affirm that cooperativism is an educational movement that use the methods of economics’.. the centrality of this kind of ed for mondragon is hard to overstate
that says is all right there.. coupling coop w ed (& w econ).. whales in sea world… at their best.. you see soul in that nathan..?
mondragon continues to be uniquely successful mode of coop industrialism, but as a coop expression of catholic social teaching it is far from alone.. the knights of labor ranks ..et al
62
this model took inspiration form journalist and *children’s book author clare hutchet bishop’s all things in common, a lyrical dispatch form among the worker-coop industries that appeared throughout france after ww2 around the world, mission agencies have supported co ops among poor farmers and craftspeople, **enabling them to bring products to global markets on terms more of their own choosing.. catholic relief services calls this methodology ***’integral human development’
dang.. wtf
*scrambling in action..
**enabling.. them to sell stuff..
*’integral human devel’ .. crazy
mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity – Luma Mufleh
64
on coops in kenya.. had never been so a place where coops were so ubiquitous and so vital.. modern coop had come to the country as an instrument of exploitation
66
upon independence in 1963 kenyans turned this means of exploitation into one of liberation; coops became the basis of state sponsored ‘african socialism’ in the country.. the official ideology reinterpreted the coop system as a return to the precolonial communal way of life – the econ expression.. harambee meaning ‘coming together’
ugh.. not if measuring things.. better maybe.. but not humane.. not communal
today nearly half of kenay’s gdp flow thru coops.. 63% of pop derives livelihood from them
67
the uni’s job has taken on new significance. ‘members used to look at coops as extensions of govt.. now coops take ed very seriously’ – esther gicheru
dang.. for a while i thought you/this-book .. might head to common ing..
68
just as the coop idea needed forming by trial and time, cooperators need forming too.. ed was among the founding principles of the rochdale store..t
perhaps the need to train as a red flag.. we’re doing it wrong.. (ie: meadows undisturbed ecosystem – her words there.. not all the other stuff she did in measuring ness)
despite representing a sector w significant scale and a distinctive logic, coop principles and practices nearly disappeared form econ textbooks after ww2.. several profs of management and econ i queried about coop business weren’t sure what i was talking about..
70
the uni system itself has origin in coop.. europe’s early uni’s emerged from self governing guilds of scholars.. a legacy that lives on in dreaded faculty meetings and committee work. perhaps this legacy is in need of revival.. t
dang
co op schools
71
leland stanford (stanford) said in the 1887 congressional record ‘the adoption of them (coop principles) in practice will, in time i imagine, cause most of the industries of the country to be carried on by these coop association’.. despite his best efforts at the uni he founded, .. his supposition remains mainly untested. those turning to coop today have had to rediscover the lovely principle for themselves..
love ly.. ?
3 – the clock of the world – disruption
72
i went to detroit looking for the concrete, the tangible stuff i’d heard was there – guerrilla farms carved into abandoned lots, foreclosed homes turned into communes, peeks into the apocalyptic future that other cities might have coming their way when the american dream abandons them too.. those were there alright..
detroit understands the disruption of our time w particular acuity. it also knows esp well the new longing for cooperation
for coop? or for a&a..
73
i met blair evans – the elder member of the field street collective.. not long since out of prison for black panther era activities..
how much of this was really working? if something works in what remains of detroit surely it can work anywhere.. to the model acquiring frame of mind alone, however, the first day of new work new culture was an almost total waste of time..
74
the most frequently repeated phrase among speaker was: ‘what time is it on the clock of the world’ – words of grace lee boggs.. she joined the black panthers and malcom x to build a revolution of local economies.. she preached the power of ‘critical connections’ over ‘critical mass’
75
the clock of the world is a call to notice where we are and where we might go next.. boggs had long used detroit as a clock that could see into the future.. that could predict the crises soon to spread elsewhere and the means of surviving them.. the best hope was ‘a way out of no way’
to boggs’s big question, gender theorist kathi weeks won applause when she replied ‘it’s quitting time’ she didn’t trust work enough to entrust her passion to it
work ness
76
i joined a tour of a state of the art fab lab…
fab lab ness – and to belong rev ness
the utopias of detroit, as best i could judge, were mostly in the process of being steamrollered by capital, or co opted when doing so was profitable.. the tide was raising some boats and sinking others. the only way for the others was no way. the error on my part was failing to see enough value i the primary tip or trick or model these holdouts of detroit had to offer: the stubborn cultivation of faith
79
we deify serial disrupters like steve jobs and elon musk. but what about the disrupted those who endure the effects..
80
the new equitable pioneers don’t tend to salivate at the thought of disruption the way startup bros do.. when you’re accountable to fellow members, to others struggling to get by, there’s not much to like about wiping away the basis of their livelihoods..t
81
the most sudden, remarkable volunteer wrangling operation was occupy sandy, and undertaking of organizers who had been sharing things in common at occupy wall street a year earlier.. before long they were creating co ops too
82
occupy’s co op affinity was only part of a revival in the us during the great recession..
84
moved to colorado in 2015 – found coops here too
85
for the denver taxi scene, green taxi was game changing. for members, it was a better deal
90
paris is not detroit.. but here was another conference (oishare fest) meant to ascertain the time on the clock of the world.. to confront widespread disruption w critical connections..
91
rachel botsman showed slides of arab spring crowds.. as ‘insurgents’ against old fashioned hierarchical businesses, engaged in ‘revolution’ ‘democratizing’ and of course ‘disruption’
at this all english conference in paris, the kinds of people most likely to be disrupted were not around to speak.. t
dang.. begs we bag all the conferencing and book writings and whatever else.. and focus on a mech/means to hear every voice.. everyday.. first.. and then facil that.. no..? tech as it could be..
which you could hear me.. wish we could talk.. i’m only 20 min away.. and even when right next to you.. you couldn’t hear me.. not picking on you.. showing ie.. that we need to be better at listening to every voice.. if we want a quiet revolution..
in a network econ the power lies w whomever controls the points of connection – the web servers and databases and terms of us..t
let’s try this as data base: self-talk as data into hlb that io dance
this as points of connection.. terms of use.. et al: 2 convers as infra
92
the idea of a real sharing econ based on shared ownership and shared governance remained mostly an afterthought.. t
is ownership and governance part of sharing?
i see real sharing as common\ing.. ie: sans measuring so sans ownership/govt)
in the us i’ve noticed a particular chasm between the entrepreneurs and the protesters.. between those building functional enterprises and those who felt he inadequacy of the status quo in their bones.. questioning the system would mean giving up too much; we’ve become victims of our won success.. unable to se beyond the particular business models with which we so marvelously disrupt.. maybe it’s also because protest becomes a habit that’s hard to break
93
among those who cluster around ouishare, the corps of elite organization scientists are the new zealanders, in particular the member of enspiral..they’re best known for an app called loomio.. collab and decision making tool initially derived from occupy wellington 2011..
94
new zealand has the world’s larges coop econ as a % of gdp..mostly dairy co ops
enspiral’s power lies less w the stuff it manages than the connections it enables.. it links like minded people and groups.. and they pool some of their money for whatever they want to invest in together..t
imagine.. 7bn people being linked everyday.. by curiosity.. then able to do whatever they were curious about.. sans money.. ie: 2 convers as infra via tech as it could be..
95
as vial showed me the various tools and tasks.. i asked questions about how they prevent bad actors.. he replied.. it’s a high trust network.. we don’t try to optimize for low trust situations.. t
gershenfeld something else law
from boulder to new zealand.. but not longmont.. how crazy are we
96
there’s a local talisman around boulder known as niwot’s curse – to the effect that the beauty of the place, the gentle wealth and soaring rocks would draw people in and those people would destroy the beauty that drew them.. the curses namesake was a peaceable arapaho chief from boulder valley who died of wounds suffered in the 1864 massacre.. trying to lift the curse.. ie: 2017 – city council passes a measure that enabled housing coops to form in boulder’s neighborhoods..
97
the phrase i heard most that night ‘you’re legistlating isolation’.. w regulations of how many could live in a house ie: family of grandparents parents grandkids could have 10 sharing house.. but 1- people unconnected by blood could not.. this was a claim onto the right of intentional community.. the right that so many monastics, artists colonies, friends, and co workers have shared.. more affordable et al
99
catholic workers in denver trying to set up coop tiny house villages for the homeless.. the policy for packed houses on the table in boulder was just a start, a wedge in the door..
4 – gold rush – money
105
money itself cold be a cooperative, if meaningful democracy held sway over its issuance and nature..
why measure at all..? wastes our time.. and compromises our spirit/peace/community.. ie: marsh exchange law; 10 cay care centers; et al
111
last few pages on bitcoin.. not vitalik and blockchain.. daos…ethereum.. smart contracts..
bitcoin.. vitalik.. blockchain.. daostack.. ethereum.. smart contracts..
suggesting blockchain or holochain or whatever for hosting-life-bits.. no measuring/validating
117
fair coop (enric duran – saw banks as problem but thought maybe solution too.. became known as the robin hood of the banks) .. fromm.. zapatistas
121
on rainy night in paris, i was in the middle of articulating some long winded question about ‘the commons’ trying to ascertain where duran stood in some theoretical debate or other, when he interrupted me. ‘i don’t want to build commons for people who talk about the commons.. i want to build commons for commoners..’
122
that stuck w me. it humbled me for one thing. and it was also a lesson and warning about cooperativism in general: none of it is worth much of anything unless it is of use..t
ie: mech simple enough to be accessible/usable for 7bn.. today
rest of ch about duran – jail – and learning cryptocurrency – and wanting to hack it to fund integral revolution and.. wanting to be a banker
5 – slow computing – platforms
150
bunch of stuff/people.. to .. lisa gansky, neal gorenflo, trebor scholz.. what if we owned the platforms.. platform coop.. internet of ownership
lisa.. neal.. trebor.. platformcoop.. internet of ownership
155
ai should be a wonderful thing, but so far the bulk of it is being owned and controlled by a few big data giants..t
not to mention.. all its current data is non legit.. it’s data from whales in sea world..
we need ai to be augmenting interconnectedness.. to wake us up first
161
barcelona has taken steps to enshrine platform coop into its econ strategies..
165
my suggestion that the people buy twitter.. ended as a no go.. but one fan – fred wilson
6 – free the land – power
207
7 – phase transition – commonwealth
209
flok – michel
212
he zeroed in on the notion of commons based peer production.. a new rendition of the old medieval commons.. he set out to find ie’s of where this world transformation was already talking place.. bulk of his wiki.. p2p foundation.. more than 30 000 pages.. compiled w more than 2 000 online coauthors.. his life’s work take the form of a commons..
bauwens tends to talk about his vision in the communal ‘we’.. he borrows a lot of the terms he relies on form others.. then slyly fits them into a grander scheme than the originators envisioned.. one is hard pressed to locate any enemies; rather than denouncing others, he tends to figure out a place for them somewhere in his system
thurman interconnectedness law
213
it was in and for ecuador .. bauwens mapped out the next world historical phase transition for the first time. he believes that cooperatives are the event horizon.. they’re bubbles of p2p potential that can persist w/in capitalism.. and they can help the coming transition proceed.. they can decentralize production thru local makerspaces
coops as passageway to p2pcommons..t
215
‘recognition by a nation state bring the whole idea of the commons to a new level – bauwens said.. ‘we have to abandon the idea, though, that we can hack a country. a country and its people are not an executable program’
perhaps we can instigate a quiet revolution
14th century tunisian polymath ibn khaldun describe world history as an interplay between two groups of people: the sedentary and the nomadic.. there are those attached to a place, who build power thru buildings and *property and civilization and then there are those who swirl at their world’s edges.. ibn would be first to point out that no single distinction explains everting. but today his distinction strikes me as esp useful again. it helps describe the ‘phase transition’ that so concerned bauwens. it’s a distinction about how we own and what we need..
esp w words used.. ie: *property and civilization.. seeing the sedentary as not us (disclosure.. i think we’re nomadic at our core.. nomadic in a great desire to follow our whimsy).. as how whales in sea world are.. and so to that.. we really have no idea what we need.. and end up hoarding/asking/working for too much ..and for the assumed security in owning it
i’m thinking.. if we were all truly free.. we would find we need less and hence all would have all they need easily.. ie: have/need ness; affluence w/o abundance
(on owning less than his dad.. some of it due to ie: ed debt). my wife and i see value in owning less so we can move around more easily, following opps as they appear.. we know there are benefits to staying as nomadic as we can manage..t
yeah.. i think we all benefit from that
216
this is a sort of chosen kind of nomadism. others come by their nomadism less voluntarily
yeah.. not that.. can’t be that
surely bauwens is right that something world historical is going on here.. but the outcome may not be an egalitarian commons of borderless, permissionless, p2p productivity..t alongside the new nomads, there remains an enormous sedentary class.. those of us not swept up in either jet setting or sudden migration, whose fortunes have been constant or declining.. on the whole, in the us, geographic mobility is on the decline; the new nomadism is too expensive.. the sedentary people denounce both the involuntary migrants and the privileged ‘globalists’.. this mass of us is voting for firmer borders, for ethnic retrenchment, for brakes on democracy until the world stops changing so quickly.. the postindustrial id crisis for some is built form the trauma of an industrial revolution happening all over again for billions more
siddiqi border law and our trauma begs a quiet revolution.. for all.. today..
part of the sedentary peoples’ complaint is that ownership has become nomadic too..
217
the domains of the new lords are virtual, and thru the virtual clouds they own and control, their reach is far beyond what feudalisms of the past could have imagined.. these lords depend on everyone else’s respect for their ownership claims – over warehouses full of whirring servers, over proprietary algos, over rights backed by the force of govts and treaties..
the tech industry has long sought to claim otherwise.. john perry barlow’s 1996 ‘declaration of the independence of cyberspace’ asserted on behalf of the internet that the industrial world’s notions of property and control no longer apply.. ‘they are all based on matter and there si not matter here’..
no need to own a car – uber.. no need to manage data – fb.. replace old fashioned institutions and bureaucracies w free form projects among freely associating commoners..
the ownership oriented coop tradition that has been the subject of this book might be verging on obsolescence..
god i hope.
part of me wishes we could dispense w the freight of property as easily as barlow imagines..t
we can ie: tech as it could be..
the early anarchists were onto something when they declared that property is theft..t
indeed – h&n property law
but as commoners relinquish ownership today, the lords of the cloud do not.. they keep on claiming their ownership rights.. if there is to be a new era of sharing, they want it to be on their terms.. by their rules.. for their benefit..t
we just need to model/offer a nother way .. one the lords are craving too..
lawyers talk about ownership as a bundle of rights..
of course.. that keeps their job of inspectors of inspectors in tact indefinitely.. both ownership and rights (and lawyers) are disturbances (or symptoms of disturbances) to an undisturbed ecosystem
the bundle can be untied, picked apart and rearranged.. this is what has happened on the clouds.. a historic unbundling and rebundling is happening again, and how it turns out will depend on how we org ownership..t
rather.. how we disengage from ownership is how we set ourselves free.. (all the bundling.. rebundling.. rearranging is futile busyness/distraction)
223
to him (chris hawkins) the appeal of basic income lies in its bureaucracy-killing potential..t
but money is bureaucracy.. ie: graeber f&b same law
bi ness
224
giving people free money could surely help vanquish poverty, lessen ineq, and liberate time. but under what terms would the lords of the platforms deliver it..
231
lisa dorigatti: cooperative shave transformed into institutional loopholes’
constructing a commons wealth means insisting on principles while tolerating compromise
the canon of international co op values and principles that i began this book w can be deceptive; it seems to claim that there’s a formula..t
mufleh humanity law: we have seen advances in every aspect of our lives except our humanity – Luma Mufleh
240
included in acknowledgments: david bollier, alexa clay, marina gorbis, neal gorenflo, ben knight, pia mancini, douglas rushkoff, trebor scholz, stacco traoncoso, erik olin wright
david, alexa, marina, neal, ben, pia, douglas, trebor, stacco, erik..
__________
day after finishing book
YES! Magazine (@yesmagazine) tweeted at 3:00 PM – 14 Sep 2018 :
It would seem that a movement that provided livelihood for more than 300,000 people in California alone would merit discussion in the history books. https://t.co/lG3fIdrozG (http://twitter.com/yesmagazine/status/1040706902735368192?s=17)
__________
then email short exchange leading to – a bit too abstract
(things we’ve been referred as .. crazy ridiculous, esoteric, abstract.. just a few)
__________
next day.. this on democracy now
Ten Years Since Economic Collapse Sparked Occupy Wall Street, the Cooperative Movement Is Surging https://t.co/jsHcgPQxxahttps://t.co/ccUQWzADd0
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1042089651480264705
51 min – in the midst of this lack of imagination there has been a growing movement on a grass roots and increasingly on a policy level to recognize there is an opp to make a diff thru this tradition co-op enterprise..t
co-op was the original crowdfunding/sharing econ.. i’ve been following people around the world trying to build real sharing econs
54 min – it’s striking how that idea of practicing democracy in every day life that was happening in that square is something that is a kind of hope that we’ve lost.. t.. something that even in the 1930s the govt was supporting
55 min – the opps we have before us right now are tremendous
__________
ie: hlb via 2 convers that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
the energy of 7bn alive people
gershenfeld something else law
__________
be you. 