[p2p-research] [Commoning] commons, phronesis, power, history

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Massimo,

some friends of the p2p foundation are quite active in Greece around the
commons topic, in the context of the crisis,

I'm putting them in cc in case they have some particular contextual
information to add about their experience,

Michel

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Massimo De Angelis <commoning at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> happy new years, and allow me few observations on the current debates
>
> A commons cannot be conceived as a thing, although "things" are also
> elements of the commons. Commons are not ONLY use-values to a plurality
> ("things", whether material or immaterial), but also pluralities that claim
> ownership to those things, and IN SO DOING they enter particular social and
> power relations (hence they form not only communities, but also communities
> in struggle, where struggle here is very loosely meant). Hence "property"
> is *constituent* of the definition of the commons. Also, because the
> claiming ownership and the enacting of this claim involves the exercise of
> several powers often in contraposition to other powers, one cannot talk
> about commons without talking about powers and power relations.  If we do
> it, then our discourse is not prepared to forge the intellectual tools to
> deal with this essential aspect of commons formation, and we will be
> obviously more open to co-optation for the simple fact that if we do not
> cast our discourse on commons on the question of power, we will be unable
> to *anticipate* any threat to cooptation commons, since our discourse is
>  unprepared and naive about it. Strategically speaking, to leave out power
> from our *episteme, *is, I repeat, dangerous (or at least, it will appear
> as dangerous to those like me who think that the reproduction of our lives
> in all dimensions are intertwined with power relations).
>
> Now, if commons involve a "thing" AND a ownership claiming plurality, the
> fact that this list  has spent long time debating the importance in the
> nature of the "thing" but little or no time on the current political nature
> of (often conflicting) claims to ownership of those things is indicative of
> how there is the need to re-balance the current dominant discourse on
> commons. This, not only from a epistemological sense. But, following the
> Aristotelian lead given by Wolfgang, also and more crucially from the
> perspective of phronesis, that is capability to consider the mode of action
> in order to deliver change. At this level, obviously commoners in situated
> realities will consider all options given to them, including access to
> market to beef up their financial balances to pay for resources to pool, or
> a deal with a state authority that allow them to advance a particular
> project. But if it is true with Wolfgang that "Phronesis depends in part on
> intuition, as well as on one's values, and therefore can not be fully
> grasped by the epistemic approach", it is also the case that if our
> epistemic approach marginalises the question of power and subordinate it to
> the "nature of the thing", then our "values" and  "intuitions" giving rise
> to strategic choices will not be balanced by the historical *experience *that
> past generations of struggles can deliver us to inform our own actions (or
> by the experience matured by similar situations in different places). As our
> commons oracle (wikipedia) reminds us, "*Phronesis* is concerned with
> particulars, because it is concerned with how to act in particular
> situations. One can learn the principles of action, but applying them in the
> real world, in situations one could not have foreseen, requires experience
> of the world." But in so far as we understand commons as a *social force *of
> transformation, this is not only the case of "personal" biographical
> experience, but of historical and social experience.
>
> Two final remarks. People in this list have reacted very defensively to my
> previous post alleging that contemporary issues of power, capital and crisis
> were not central in the ICC. Reactions spanned from the type "check on
> google how many times my name has appeared associated to capitalism" to "we
> need to think positively and not negatively". I hope what written above is
> helpful to clarifying where I come from. This is not a question of
> ideological anti-capitalism (yet!), nor a question of wanting to "think
> negatively" rather than "positively". It is a question of thinking
> strategically in a field of forces, hence positively but with the awareness
> of social forces (and not just this or that "bad" guy) that run in the
> opposite direction.
>
> Which leads me to my second final remark. I agree that we should discuss
> real concrete cases, and perhaps, we should make these cases not only the
> objects of our intellectual speculations about commons, but also consider
> them as small projects of intervention, in which we can weave together our
> epistemologies and know how into  common phronesis proposals. For
> example, are there any Greeks,  or people familiar with the Greek situation
> in this llst?  Please tell us how the commons are relevant or not to your
> struggles in the context of the current crisis and the large opposition
> movement there, an opposition movement that I hear is weak precisely on the
> question of alternatives. Certainly, if among commoners we do not discuss
> the challenges of commons movements in one of the high points of crisis and
> social confrontation in Europe, then what are we discussing about? Or
> perhaps we could discuss the commons that are built/or destroyed in the
> post-2008 tent cities in the USA? What are the challenges there? What are we
> learning from the situations in which tent cities have not been evicted?
> What were the power alliances that allowed them to withstand the bulldozers
> that were sent in other places?  Or perhaps we could discuss the challenges
> that Community Supported Agriculture schemes are facing to accelerate their
> diffusion? Or perhaps trying to address the issues confronting the student
> movements in Europe with a commons perspective? And of course, we can
> discuss a large number of cases North and South, invite people with situated
> knowledge to contribute to the discussion, and aim at providing some general
> problematisation of commons as a social force of transformation. I mean, if
> commons are relevant at all, they must be relevant first  of all to existing
> social movements as a strategic framework, so, let us think how do we truly
> engage with these issues.
>
> best to all
>
> Massimo
>
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>
>


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