[p2p-research] P2P Foundation and Las Indias

[Josef Davies-Coates]

2010/11/25 Sociedad Cooperativa de las Indias Electrónicas <
info at lasindias.coop>

> El 25/11/10 00:15, Josef Davies-Coates escribió:
>
>  All sounds fascinating :)
>>
>> One thing I think that needs further explanation/ elaboration:
>>
>> How are Phyles different/ distinct from co-operatives?
>>
>
> Few headlines:
>
> 1. Phyles are real communities -meaning distributed networks with its own
> deliberative process- who develop an economic structure (some firms,
> markets, etc.). So... its not the community of the members of a cooperative
> company, but a community with economy, and community interests and values
> rule over economic interests and logics.
>


Sounds a bit like the Radical Routes network here in the UK. In my
experience are a real community too.
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/

But I'm not sure how you are defining a "real community"?



> 2. Phyles are transnational, coops are local, related to a geographical
> environment
>


Not all co-ops are local. I'd imagine there are quite a few transnational
web development co-ops out there.



> 3. Community + transnational = strong own real identity. Real means that
> its not based in an abstraction (like "European") but in a real community
> where everybody knows each other.  In consecuence, we are not Spanish,
> European, Venezuelan, African nor LatinAmerican with independence of the
> drawings in our personal passports, we are «indianos» and thats incompatible
> with a national, gender, racial, etc. «imagined» identity.



OK, so by that definition I'd say Radical Routes is a real community too. In
part, because to become a member co-op you have to attend at least 3 of
their quarterly gatherings where you meet and get to know people face to
face.



>   From what I've read so far they just sound like co-ops to me, albeit
>> co-ops who take better advantage of the networked age than most co-ops do.
>>
>
> mmm we organize our economy with working cooperatives, but our identity and
> way of living and working its quite different from traditional coops.
> Concepts as comunitarian economy or transnationality are really far away
> from the majority of them.



Fair point. Lots of co-ops aren't very radical/ forward thinking/
co-operative! :P

But some are.



>
>  Also, what, if any, is the existing relationship to the wider
>> co-operative movement?
>>
>
> Yes of course we have, indeed in this moment we are funding a new
> cooperative with Mondragon Corporation (MCC, the biggest workers coop group
> in the world) and every year we impulse the «Transnational meetings on
> Economic Democracy».
>
> Our relation with the «traditional» working coop movement couldn't be
> better, they are our customers, friends and partners, we recognize each
> other as fellows but a lot of differences too, mainly in the concepts of
> growth and community :-)
>


Could you elaborate on the growth and community differences?

BTW, I've not read it yet, but just came across this that sems very relevant
to this discussion:

Co-operation in the Age of Google
http://www.uk.coop/ageofgoogle

I think they should've called it Co-operation in the Networked Age, but
still :)

Salud,

Josef.


-- 
Josef Davies-Coates
07974 88 88 95
http://uniteddiversity.com
Together We Have Everything
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20101125/8b951180/attachment.html>