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Local co-ops band together to form larger co-ops of co-ops—power suppliers that run power plants, cooperatively owned mining operations, and democratic banks that finance new projects.

It’s also a neglected democracy

by member-owners of the co-ops

and by a society that forgets what cooperative economic development have achieved.

Electric cooperatives are conservative institutions, carrying out the business of reliability while balancing their members’ interests with formidable inertia. But they’re also poised to lead a radical shift to a more renewable distributed-energy grid. They can be fiefdoms for long-entrenched establishments, but they’re also bastions of bottom-up, local self-governance.

depends not just on the whims of investors or on the promises of presidents, but on the readiness of the people who use it to organize.

We Own It, for instance, is a new network started by young but seasoned cooperators determined to support organizing among co-op members

Heneghan believes that co-ops are uniquely positioned to benefit. Their lean, local, customer-centered kind of business has already made them pioneers in easy, low-risk financing for energy-efficiency improvements and renewables.

Co-ops not locked into G&T contracts have been especially ambitious in switching to renewables.

electric co-ops still lag behind the national average in their use of renewables. The local co-ops are bound to their decades-long G&T contracts, and the G&Ts say they can’t walk away from their past investments in coal anytime soon.

co-op staffs know as well as anyone that their democracy is in some respects nominal—an opportunity, but by no means a guarantee.

According to Derrick Johnson, the president of One Voice and the state NAACP, “Our ultimate goal is to help them understand how to develop a strategy to maximize members’ participation.” Then, he hopes, “they can begin to think about renewable energy differently.”

Without member pressure, for instance, managers often have an incentive to sell more power rather than helping members reduce their consumption, their costs, and their carbon footprints.

In particular, he pointed out the billions of dollars in “capital credits” that co-ops collectively hold—excess revenues technically owned by members, but that often go unclaimed, serving as a pool of interest-free financing.

“There are so many things that point to a structural change in the electrical industry.” He compared the change to what cellular did to telephones.

By way of explanation, a staff member repeated what I’ve been told by the leaders of other big co-ops: Low turnout means that members are satisfied.

“If the members are not involved in any significant way, the directors become very insular, and they can basically do with the co-op as they please.”

As the Trump administration assembles its promised trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, it seems unlikely to unleash a fresh spree of cooperative rural development.

the housing rights activist and feminist Ada Colau – took control of the Catalan capital

citizens started to wonder what would happen if the movement tried to occupy the institutions too

From the beginning, this was not a simple return to electoral politics but an experiment in transforming local institutions. It was to use municipal institutions not instead of movement organising but to support, expand and generalise the movement.

it’s about the blossoming of examples around the world where citizens are successfully winning their cities.

internationalist

the list of radical civic platforms standing up to entrenched political interests continues to grow.

there are a number of principles and practices that the new municipalist movements share

The political theorist Margaret Kohn once defined municipalism as ‘a politics of everyday life concerned with the issues that immediately affect citizens, including education, policing, jobs, culture and services. Municipalism is a political approach to community.’

The role of the municipality was to foster associations that challenge concentrations of power in the hands of a small elite. Capturing the city hall was never an end in itself but rather one method in expanding the scope of experiments in popular participation.

the continued erosion of basic living standards and increasing inequality driven by the myth that there is ‘no alternative’ has increased awareness that revolutionary change extends beyond ‘economics’ to every aspect of our lived experiences.

the new municipal citizens’ movements have arisen out of the failure of national political parties or street-based organising to deliver transformative change

This new municipalism may be picking-up where the alter-globalisation movement left off, retaining and reinvigorating the concepts of prefiguration, experimenting with ‘diagonal’ methods for dispersing power, and fuelling the expansion of non‑state, non-market ways of organising our societies.

This provides fertile ground for the development of a progressive post-capitalist politics that can win.

Women are at the forefront of many of these citizens’ movements

The feminisation of politics means encouraging a political style that openly expresses doubts and contradictions – backed by a values-based politics that emphasizes the role of community and ‘the commons’.

open spirit is at the centre of the new political culture

The commons is much broader than an economic strategy for resource management; it’s about building forms of autonomy and social solidarity as the substance of our day-to-day lives.

the Commons Lab

Department of the Commons

These are not occupied but liberated spaces.

social centres

‘citizen patrimony’, which would formalise and expand a network of spaces across the city where the municipality provides greater resources and public infrastructure for self-managed common use.

The collaboration between citizens’ groups, cooperatives and municipalities is also at the heart of many of the attempts to return public services to public ownership.

There are many reasons why cities and regions want to take services back under public ownership, but reducing cost (especially for poor people), improving the quality of services, and increasing financial transparency are recurrent themes. Efforts to create better conditions for workers are another key driver. In the energy sector, which accounts for around a third of the cases where services have been returned to public ownership, the shift is often driven by efforts to tackle climate change.

Taking control of the energy supply also means that the council can better coordinate efforts to reduce energy use.

A number of French municipalities have taken back control of school meals from corporations to protect local agriculture and improve the quality of meals.

Increasing citizens’ control is not just about taking over existing institutions, but building new democratic processes that involve citizens in the day-to-day decision making of their cities.

it involves changing how citizens interact with the city government.

participatory budgeting

These municipalist projects are beginning to define new ways for progressive movements to organise, challenging and moving beyond dichotomies that have traditionally haunted the left.

The objective is to use municipal institutions as part of a project of autonomy – to expand the commons, to build non-state institutions and to empower citizens (not their representatives) to control the collective conditions in which they live their lives.

The new municipalism isn’t about winning elections; it’s about building, transforming and distributing power.

We must do it ourselves. It’s time to win back our cities.

When the announcement to close the plant was made, the workers were told that their jobs would be terminated immediately, and that they would not be given their contractually obligated backpay or severance

The workers decided to occupy the factory in protest, and the community came out in extraordinary numbers to support them. See the Michael Moore Short about it.

The workers and the community won enough of this struggle to get the money that was owed to them. A new green construction company, Serious Energy, took control of the factory and partially reopened it.

Serious Energy's business plan, which only involved the windows factory in a tertiary role, never functioned

The plan to start a new worker owned cooperative business began.

The workers called in help in the form of the United Electrical Workers Union, whom had been with them since the beginning, The Working World, which had worked with dozens of worker controlled factories in Latin America, and the Center for Workplace Democracy, a new organization in Chicago dedicated to supporting worker control.

we have decided to call it New Era, as we hope it will be an inspiration

Everyone can participate in building the economy we all want

no one should be treated as temporary or just raw material for someone else's business.

We have built the highest quality windows ever made in Chicago, ones that are soundproof and extremely energy efficient, meaning they are both green and save money. Our windows will be the best on the market at prices no one can beat.

More resources on the formation of New Era Windows Cooperative   New Era Windows, The Working World  Grand Opening of Worker-Owned Factory, As Former Republic Windows Workers Launch New Era Windows Cooperative, United Electrical Workers Worker Co-op New Era Windows Opens For Business, CommunityWealth.org Republic Windows Opens New Era for Coops in Chicago, Race, Poverty, and the Environment New Era Windows Cooperative Is Open for Business in Chicago,The Nation Chicago Workers Open New Cooperatively Owned Factory Five Years After Republic Windows Occupation, Democracy Now Window makers start manufacturing cooperative in Chicago, ABC News Former Republic Windows Employees Start Their Own Factory, CBS News

Video and Radio

People participate in peer production communities

commons-based peer production refers to any coordinated, (chiefly) internet-based effort whereby volunteers contribute project components, and there exists some process to combine them to produce a unified intellectual work.

Pirate Bay

Wikipedia

Sourceforge

Linux

It can be argued, however, that in the development of any less than trivial piece of software, irrespective of whether it be FOSS or proprietary, a subset of the (many) participants always play -explicitly and deliberately- the role of leading system and subsystem designers, determining architecture and functionality, while most of the people work “underneath” them in a logical, functional sense.

it is the way food is produced and sold for profit, in a process controlled by agri-industrial giants and supermarkets – rather than food consumption or human population growth as such – that pushes at the earth’s natural limits.

food losses at one-third of what is produced, or 1.3 billion tonnes/year

In rich countries, farming practices are more efficient, transport and storage facilities are better, and much less food is lost between farm and shop. But then “modern consumer culture” takes over: supermarkets often “reject entire crops of perfectly edible fruit and vegetables at the farm” – e.g. 30% of the vegetable crop in the UK – because of its size or appearance.

30% of what is harvested from the field never actually reaches the marketplace (primarily the supermarket) due to trimming, quality selection and failure to conform to purely cosmetic criteria”

the estimated average cost to households in the UK is £480/year per household.

The report suggests that it is not food production per se that is unsustainable, but production of food for the distorted market, i.e. the commodification of food. It is “market mechanisms” that deprive poor country farmers of the means to invest in basic infrastructure and “market mechanisms” according to which supermarkets trash millions of tonnes of good food.

■ Average crop yields increased by 20% between 1985 and 2005, “substantially less than the often-cited 47% production increase for selected crop groups”; ■ Globally, only 62% of crop production by mass is for human food; 35% is for animal feed and 3% for biofuels. ■ The land devoted to raising animals – including pasture, grazing and animal feed production – is an “astonishing” three-quarters of the total, and “the amount of land (and other resources) devoted to animal-based agriculture merits critical evaluation”. ■ Most agricultural expansion is in the tropics, where “about 80% of new croplands are replacing forests”. “Slowing (and ultimately, ceasing) the expansion”, particularly in the tropics, is “an important first step” to sustainability. ■ Irrigation accounts for 70% of global freshwater withdrawals, which is “of particular concern”. ■ Fertiliser use, manure application and leguminous crops (which fix nitrogen in the soil) have “dramatically disrupted” the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles.

VAWC recently launched an inter­cooperative loan fund. Through the fund, members tithe 5% of profits to help one another and to invest in new co­op ventures.

Even though only 1% of the cooperatives in the United States are worker owned, their organizing success has recently made them a focal point in the struggle for economic justice. Indeed, Occupy Wall Street participants launched a worker-run co-op print shop in Brooklyn called OccuCopy.

Guided by cooperative principle number six, which promotes cooperation amongst cooperatives, partnerships between co­ops were easily realized. They multiplied and soon turned to regional alliances, which snowballed into national networks.

Inspired by the Mondragon cooperative network, the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC) came together in Western Massachusetts in 2005. The group first met at the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy, and they are a direct result of national networks crystallizing at the regional level. What sets VAWC apart is a strategy of co­op-led development. The organization helps start­up or transitioning co­ops get their footing; they provide technical assistance to their membership in the form of skill­sharing and professional guidance.

The organization is structured as a worker co­op, and operates by consensus with a membership comprised of representatives from other worker co­ops.

information and resources according to the membership’s needs, such as meeting facilitation, or research into health plans

VAWC enjoys an exceptionally cooperative cultural context in the Pioneer Valley, where there is a strong desire for economic democracy, and a history of collective management.

A similarly rich cooperative culture exists across the country, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives, or NoBAWC (pronounced "no boss"), is a hub for the region, literally centralized within 30 minutes of each member organization.

A stunningly large network—nearly one out of every five U.S. worker co­ops are part of NoBAWC —most member co­ops are in Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley. Like other membership organizations, NoBAWC grew out of a need to collaborate and share best practices amongst like­-minded organizations.

The members now share resources and incentivize collaboration by offering each other reduced rates on their goods and services.

As the first and primary national hub, the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) brings together the full array of players within this movement. After many years of organizing, they were incorporated in 2004 to provide support to their membership, as well as educational outreach to the public. A small organization with a two­-person staff, USFWC’s extensive work to promote cooperation puts them in the center of a dynamic movement.

regular conferences and events

As many look for ways out of the capitalist morass of boom­-bust cycles, worker cooperatives have taken center stage. Cooperatives are democratic enterprises where both ownership and decision­-making power are democratically shared. As a result, they keep money and power in the hands of the community.

USFWC capably handles a membership representing over 1,300 workers

the Democracy At Work Network (DAWN), a peer adviser system

The co­op movement is gaining steam, drawing from new energies and a renewed interest in the model. All movements have these periods of acceleration, times when opportunity comes knocking at every turn. Typically, such are the times when reflection is most needed, because new dynamics can dramatically change the situation.

David Morgan is a worker-owner at the Toolbox for Education and Social Action, a worker-owned cooperative created to democratize education and the economy while furthering the cooperative movement. The Toolbox designs curriculum and next-generation resources for learning, such as Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives."

These crises are sharpening our awareness of the existence and importance of the commons. Natural commons are necessary for our survival, while social commons ensure social cohesion, and cultural commons enable us to evolve as individuals.

A reduction in the GDP does not necessarily signal a reduction in the real wealth of a society. Recognizing this fact widens our perspective and opens doors for new types of solutions.

The commons can help us overcome the crisis, but it requires systematic advocacy.

What are the commons and why are they are significant?

Commons

include knowledge and water, seeds and software, cultural works and the atmosphere. Commons are not just „things,” however. They are living, dynamic systems of life. They form the social fabric of a free society.

Commons do not belong to anyone individually nor do they belong to no one. Different communities, from the family to global society, always create, maintain, cultivate, and redefine commons

We have to constantly revitalize our commons, because everything we produce relies upon the knowledge we inherit, the natural resources that the Earth gives us, and cooperation with our fellow citizens. The activity known as „the economy” is embedded in our social fabric.

There‘s something new afoot – a movement to reclaim the commons!

Commons are being rediscovered and defended.

Commons are newly created and built upon. Countless people are creating new things for all and meaningful social and physical spaces for themselves.

Taken together, scientists and activists, citizens and politicians are developing a robust and innovative commons sphere – everywhere.

Commons are based on communities that set their own rules and cultivate their skills and values. Based on these always-evolving, conflict-ridden processes, communities integrate themselves into the bigger picture. In a culture of commons, inclusion is more important than exclusion, cooperation more important than competition, autonomy more important than control.

Neither no man‘s land nor boundless Property

The commons is not only about the legal forms of ownership. What matters most is whether and how community-based rights to the commons are enforced and secured.

The usage rights of fellow commoners are the stop signs for individual usage rights.

Absolute and exclusive private property rights in the commons therefore cannot be allowed.

Each use must ensure that the common pool resources are not destroyed or over-consumed.

No one may be excluded who is entitled to access and use the shared resource or who depends on it for basic needs.

What is public or publicly funded must remain publicly accessible.

The commons helps us re-conceptualize the prevailing concept of property rights.

Our shared quality of life is also limited by knowledge that is excessively commercialized and made artificially scarce. In this manner, our cultural heritage becomes an inventory of lifeless commodities and advertising dominates our public spaces.

We all need commons to survive and thrive. This is a key principle, and it establishes why commoners‘ usage rights should always be given a higher priority than corporations‘ property rights. Here the state has a duty to protect the commons, a duty which it cannot abandon. However, this does not mean that the state is necessarily the best steward for the commoners‘ interests. The challenge is for the commoners themselves to develop complementary institutions and organizational forms, as well as innovative access and usage rules, to protect the commons. The commoners must create their own commons sector, beyond the realm of market and state, to serve the public good in their own distinctive manner.

For a society in which the commons may thrive

The rules and ethics of each commons arise from the needs and processes of the commoners directly involved. Whoever is directly connected to a commons must participate in the debate and implementation of its rules.

Commons are driven by a specific ethos, as well as by the desire to acquire and transfer a myriad of skills. Our society therefore needs to honor the special skills and values that enable the commons to work well. A culture of the commons publicly recognizes any initiative or project that enhances the commons, and it provides active financial and institutional support to enhance the commons sector.

This challenge requires a lot of work, but it is also a great source of personal satisfaction and enrichment.

Our society needs a great debate and a worldwide movement for the commons.

The reaction of Stuttgart workers to the destruction of public services and the perversion of co-determination indicates that austerity measures are coming slap-bang up against the legacy of two periods of democratic and egalitarian reform. The first is post-war reconstruction, including the welfare state. The second is the system of co-determination, which was strengthened in response to rebellions in the 60s and 70s. However, the resistance now, in Stuttgart as elsewhere in Europe, is not simply over the erosion of the institutions created in these periods of reform – after all, that erosion has been taking place for at least a decade. It is a profound and uncertain clash of cultures, expectations and increasingly activities, shaped by these periods of reform and rebellion, across generations. People’s expectations, or at least sense of legitimate claims, are for cultural equality as well as moves toward economic equality, and for meaningful and dignified work to match the decades of expansion of higher education.

There are also the spreading networks of autonomous hackers and geeks creating open, non-proprietorial, software and therefore effectively creating a key part of the infrastructure of today’s society as a digital commons

They all involve forms of labour which cannot be understood in the same terms as the conventional wage contract

nd the list also includes trade unionists who are taking on the role of organising for the common good in defence, or for the improvement of public services, or to push their company towards climate jobs.

All kinds of co-ops, cultural and social centres have emerged or been strengthened by these combinations of refusal and creation.

What this variety of activity has in common is that it is based on collaborative forms of creativity

and more recently ‘The coming of the commons’

can the public sector be transformed in a democratic, open and egalitarian direction against the forces of marketisation? If so, it can be a major economic player, especially in urban centres, with considerable bargaining power as contractor, as employer, and as trend-setter and creator of new communicative infrastructure.

The spread of information, knowledge and communication technologies not only enables theoretical expertise and practical knowledge to be shared on a previously unimaginable scale, but also creates tools for co-operation and self-managed co‐ordination of the most complex, multi-actor, transnational processes.

They illustrate ways in which labour could be self-organised, on the basis of social values underlying its purpose, use or context.

What would it mean to think about industrial policies not so much in terms of the goal of nudging the private sector to invest, but more in terms of how to release, develop and extend the creativity of labour in its broadest sense?

How to expand and strengthen ‘productive democracy’? How to enhance the capacities of those whose ‘only’ means of production is their creative potential – and the social co-operation through which they can develop and realise this potential?

First, it’s come from the kinds of challenges that the trade union movement is facing in defending jobs in manufacturing as well as public services.

The second sphere for the rethinking of labour has been through the renewal of the co-operative movement. And a third development is the powerful and ambiguous trend opened up by the new technology towards new kinds of collaboration is the peer to peer, distributed productions and the digital commons, as referred to earlier. This ‘sphere’ is not separate: it could expand both the transformative power of workers already rethinking labour in conventional employment, and the scale and reach of co-operatives.

One increasingly significant context of convergence is over ‘climate jobs’. We’ve noted already the growth of co‐operatives creating and distributing renewable energy. The ravages of climate change are leading some trade unionists to demand that workers, whether currently unemployed or employed in high-carbon industries, be allowed to deploy their know-how to manufacture wind turbines, solar water heaters and other parts of the infrastructure of a low-carbon economy.

Another potential focal point for the mutual reinforcement of different forms of productive democracy is cities.

All these developments also illustrate the significance of democracy – transparency, participatory decision- making, the recognition of and means of sharing plural sources of knowledge – as a source of productivity, a base for a new economics.

The implication of my argument here is that policymakers now need to work on how to support the economic creativity of millions of people, whether in existing workplaces or working precariously outside the formal labour market. At present these capacities are being wasted.

They need specific forms of support, some of it from the state, and some of it from organisations that share or could be persuaded to share their goals. These could include the trade unions, the co-operative movement, some parts of the church, foundations, and the growing experiments in crowdfunding, democratically controlled loan funds and so on.

As far as existing workplaces are concerned, we need states to not only restore and extend rights that protect trade unions in their struggles over wages and conditions, but also to give workers rights to control the purpose of their labour: for example, a legal prohibition on closures or redundancies without alternatives being publicly explored, and in the case of large companies, public inquiries at which alternatives would be presented. Labour is a commons – it should not be wasted. We need a new kind of ‘industrial strategy’ – one designed to support the creation of value that is not only monetary and requires autonomy from the pressures of the labour market. These should include a basic ‘citizen’s income’ (see page 34). Shorter working hours would be another measure that would serve a similar end.

We also need a regional policy that gives real support to cities as hubs of economic development, through direct public employment, and through support for co-ops involving regional banks. These could learn from the operations of the Mondragon bank and become a source of support and co‐ordination to networks of co-ops and other collaborative means of nurturing and realising the creativity of labour, rather than operating as banks of the traditional kind.

These are mere illustrations of industrial policies which recognise the capacities of generations shaped by expectations of cultural as well as political and economic equality. To realise these capacities as a resource for a new model of economic development requires rebuilding the distributional gains of the welfare state – but it also requires going further than that. We need to create not simply full employment, but the conditions by which people can creatively collaborate to meet the needs of a changing society and a precarious planet.

collectively our choices and agency are the ultimate guarantors of any values we may wish to secure

They can create their own cultural spaces to deliberate, collaborate and share resources without market and state structures that are often cumbersome, expensive, anti-social or predatory. 

A key political challenge of our time is to figure out new ways to preserve and extend the democratic capacities of ordinary people and rein in unaccountable market/state power, otherwise known as neoliberalism. 

Neoliberal economics and policy insist upon debt-driven economic growth, extractivist uses of the Earth, consumerism and nationalism

the creative use of new digital technologies on open network platforms could inaugurate liberating new forms of “open source governance.”

The superstructures of law and governance can achieve only so much without the consent of the governed.

Benkler

Rifkin

Tapscott

Mason

Bauwens

potentially transformative Commons Sector

the innovations now unfolding in various tech spaces suggest the outlines of new post-capitalist institutions

new types of group deliberation and governance software platforms such as Loomio and Co-budget; digital platforms that enable better management of ecological resources; and “blockchain ledger” technology, which is enabling new forms of network-native self-organization, collective action and “smart contracts”

online guilds

commons

open design and manufacturing communities

citizen-science

a process of commoning

to create functioning commons

The collaborative communities now emerging on digital platforms do not worry so much about resource-depletion or free riders – problems that affect the management of water, fisheries and land – as how to intelligently curate information from the multitudes and design effective self-governance structures for virtual collaboration.   

The point of the commons paradigm, despite its many different flavors, is this:  It provides “protected” space in which to re-imagine production and governance. 

“digital divide”

more accessible and transparent than conventional state democracy and more solidly grounded through bottom-up participation and ethical accountability

Digital networks are becoming deeply entangled with all aspects of life

our lives with digital technologies are profoundly affecting how we regard property, political life, and economic life

Facebook, Google, Uber, Airbnb and other corporate “gig economy” players

Unlike these capital-driven enterprises, the collaborations that I am describing are fundamentally non-market and socially mindful in character. They are less defined by technology per se than by the new social forms and political /cultural attitudes that they engender. 

to move people beyond the producer/consumer dyad and formalistic notions of citizenship, and enable people to enact a more personal, DIY vision of self-provisioning and governance. 

The state, having cast its lot with capital accumulation and growth, is losing its credibility and competence in addressing larger needs. 

With the rise of market-centrism and rational choice economics, government was devalued and allowed a role only in cases of ‘market failure.’ 

standard economics today largely ignores the fundamental, affirmative role that government plays in facilitating functional, trustworthy markets.

popular distrust of government has soared.  And why not?  Government has lost its actual capacities to serve many non-market social and ecological needs. 

Given this void and the barriers to democratic action, many citizens who might otherwise engage with legitimate state policymaking have shifted their energies into “transnational, polycentric networks of governance in which power is dispersed,”

the solidarity economy, Transition Towns, peer production, the commons

Thus the impasse we face today:  The neoliberal market/state agenda is inflicting grievous harm on the planet, social well-being and democracy – yet the market/state remains largely unresponsive to popular demands for change.

The (Still-Emerging) Promise of Open Source Governance

commons based on open tech platforms will play a central role in transforming our politics and polity

Electronic networks are now a defining infrastructure shaping the conduct of political life, governance, commerce and culture.

many legacy institutions and social practices continue to exist.  But they have no choice but to evolve

online commons are lightweight social systems that, with the right software and norms, can run quite efficiently on trust, reciprocity and modest governance structures

that enable users to mutualize the benefits of their own online sharing

Rifkin notes that the extreme productivity of digital technologies is lowering the marginal costs of production for many goods and services to near zero.  This is undercutting the premises of conventional markets, which are based on private owners using proprietary means to extract profits from nature, communities and consumers.

We are glimpsing at the outlines of a new economic system based on sharing and the collaborative commons. It is the first new paradigm-shifting system since the introduction of capitalism and communism. 

The “collaborative commons” that Rifkin describes is a hybrid capitalist/commons economy that is able to exploit the efficiencies and higher quality produced on open networks. 

“prosumers”

are able to create their own goods and services

But when some good or service is offered for at no cost, it really means that the user is the product:  our personal data, attention, social attitudes lifestyle behavior, and even our digital identities, are the commodity that platform owners are seeking to “own.”  

To combat corporate exploitation of open platforms, many efforts are now afoot to establish digital commons as viable alternatives.  The new models are sometimes called “platform co-operativism.

Digital commons are materializing in part because it is easier and more socially satisfying to participate in a commons

the most valuable networks are those that facilitate group affiliations to pursue shared goals – or what I would call commons

Open source tools and principles could unleash this value – but it would subvert the business model.

“hacktivists,” makers, software programmers and social media innovators who are consciously attempting to build tech platforms that can meet needs in post-capitalist ways, often via commons

the underlying architecture has potentials not only for the future of money, but also for the future of networked cooperation.

Blockchain-based technologies may still have a role to play.

Just as Bitcoin makes certain financial intermediaries unnecessary, new innovations on the blockchain remove the need for gatekeepers from other processes

The broader implication is that the blockchain could support the activities and resources necessary to the commons

A lot of what follows is pretty speculative, but worth discussing in the context of peer-production.

The blockchain is the distributed ledger that keeps track of all transactions made using the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Arguably this is Bitcoin’s key innovation

the blockchain could support new forms of peer-production, and fully decentralised infrastructures for applications as varied as finance, mesh networks, cloud databases and share economies.

claim is that blockchain-based technologies such as Ethereum can support and scale distributed forms of cooperation on a global scale.

There are a number of start-ups and groups currently innovating in this space such as Ethereum, Ripple and Mastercoin.

extends the decentralised capabilities of Bitcoin beyond financial transactions

Bitcoin involves two parameters: a trustless database (more on this later) and a transactions system capable of sending value from place to place

Ethereum builds a generalised framework that extends the capabilities of the blockchain to allow developers to write new consensus applications.

Distributed Organisations & the Trust Web:

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations.

it doesn’t matter whether I believe in my fellow peers just so long as I believe in the technical efficiency of the blockchain protocol.

Where questions about how to reach consensus, negotiate trust and especially scale interactions beyond the local are pervasive in the commons, the blockchain looks set to be a game changer.

‘consensus’ algorithms

Cohen and Mougayar have dubbed this innovation the “trust web”

Ethereum incentivises participation, encouraging actors to contribute without introducing centralisation

Node Incentivisation:

In order to use an Ethereum application, users make micropayments to the developers in ether, Ethereum’s coin, or ‘cryptofuel’ as they term it.

Monetary transactions aside, this encourages people to contribute to the commons and puts systems in place to try and protect its resources from commercial expropriation.

a change to infrastructure

Decentralised Infrastructures:

Instead, we can imagine infrastructure as something immaterial and dispersed, or managed through flexible and transient forms of ownership.

The payoff seems to be that new blockchain-based technologies have the potential to support new forms of commons-based peer production, supplying necessary tools for cooperation and decision making, supporting complementary currencies and even provisioning infrastructures.

Other issues concern the design of trustless architectures and smart property.

Trustless Architectures: First of all, what kind of subjectivity does the blockchain support?

‘trust in the code.’

proof-of-work is not a new form of trust, but the abdication of trust altogether as social confidence in favour of an algorithmic regulation

the blockchain could support not only cryptocurrencies but also other financial instruments like equity, securities and derivatives; smart contracts and smart property; new voting systems; identity and reputation systems; distributed databases; and even the management of assets and resources like energy and water.

proceeds from a perspective that already presumes a neoliberal subject and an economic mode of governance in the face of social and/or political problems. ‘How do we manage and incentivise individual competitive economic agents?’ In doing so, it not only codes for that subject, we might argue that it also reproduces that subject

Smart Property:

new controls implied by smart property also have worrying implications

Property doesn’t disappear, but instead it is enforced and exercised in different ways. If rights were previously exercised through norms, laws, markets and architectures, today they are algorithmically inscribed in the object.

There is real potential in the blockchain if we appreciate it not as some ultimate techno-fix but as a platform that, when combined with social and political institutions, has real possibilities for the future of organisation.