Peer2Politics

Eventbrite - Commons Transition Coalition presents Sharing Value & Ownership for the Common Good: Building the Commons Economy - Friday, June 10, 2016 at Church of All Nations, Carlton, VIC. Find event and ticket information.

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.

The talks were originally held in Dubzland studios, north inner city Dublin, in late 2012, and were organised by the Provisional University, a group of researchers and social activists. [www.provisionaluniversity.wordpress.com]

The question becomes: how can crypto-money, once freed by institutional constraints, be able to lead the attack to the heart of oligarchy of financial big intermediaries? In other words, can crypto-money become, as instrument, the money of the common?

The money of the common should substitute finance money. That means that the money of the common should re-create a different economic circuit, in which material and immaterial production is no more financed by financial and credit market. And the simplest way is, from this point of view, to imagine a sort of community financial institution, able to generated no property money under the community supervision in a democratic way, which is irreducible and irreconcilable to the traditional financial hierarchies.

"By adopting an action research methodology, I inquire into how far the responses of citizens to the global economic crisis of 2008 lead to the emergence of a new economic culture in Spain and Greece. Since Southern European states follow austerity directives and do not offer sufficient support for their population, communities organise to provide for each other through cooperation and solidarity. Decentralised political and economic movements are building structures to challenge and replace established centralised institutions. As people drop out of the formal economy, they find material relief, ideological support and a sense of belonging in networks of alternative economic practices."

"Exvestment (Kleiner) is one element of the identity transvestment (Kleiner & Gottlieb) which elaborates how to channel value out of capitalist circulation into alternative communal organizations and keep the bulk of it circulating there. One legal instrument which has been created to generate more exvestment is the Peer Production License.

"In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin argues that the capitalist era is passing—not quickly, but inevitably. The emerging Internet of Things is giving rise to a new economic system—the Collaborative Commons—that will transform our way of life.

"The End of the Market argues that the credit crunch crisis of 2008 is not a bump in the road of the liberal era, but its end. But out of the ashes of rational individualism, a new vision is emerging where the community is the defining organisation and obligations, freely accepted and willingly discharged, become the engine of human progress."