Toward an Open Co-Operativism
To explore the possibilities of an Open Co-operativism, the Commons Strategies Group, a strategic partner of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, convened a workshop of a dozen notable activists, policy experts, academics and project leaders in Berlin on August 27-28, 2014.
A core question of the workshop “Toward an Open Co-operativism,” was: How can social cooperation in contemporary life be structured to better serve the interests of the co-operators/commoners and society in general, in a techno/political economy that currently insists upon appropriating surplus value for private capital?
Product details
Table of contents
Introduction
I. At the Crossroads: The Commons and Co-operative Movements
II. Open Co-operativism: An Emerging Vision with Green Shoots and Common Practices
- Bauwens on netarchical capitalism vs. global commons
- Dealing with the problems of netarchical and distributed capitalism
- Historical precursors to open co-operativism
III. New Synergies Between Co-operative Commonwealth Models and Digital Commoners?
- Community land trust movement
- Co-operative commonwealth strategies to address precarity
- Reviving co-operative capital and mutual credit
IV. Making it Happen
- Movement-building strategies
- Three general priorities for open co-operativism
- 1. Build and expand new regimes of law, governance and management
- 2. Aggregate patient capital (aka “co-operative accumulation”)
- 3. Blending co-operatives and digital/open platforms
Conclusion
Appendix: Conference participants