Socialisation and Commons in Europe
* Book: Socialisation and Commons in Europe: Constructing an Alternative Project. Ed. by Chantal Delmas et al. Transform eBook, 2016
URL = http://www.transform-network.net/uploads/tx_news/Socialisation_and_Commons_in_Europe.pdf
Description
"We present our first transform! eBook, which deals with the promising topic of the Commons. It is a reiteration of the essential discussions held during a European seminar in Paris in November 2014. You can download the eBook in EPUB (for eBook readers) and PDF format (for printing and everything else) on the right.
The seminar was organised by transform!, the Association pour l’Autogestion, the Workers’ Control Network, Espaces Marx, Fondation Copernic, and Omos under the theme Socialisation and Commons in Europe: How to Construct an Alternative Project. It brought together around 50 actors and researchers from the social and political movement from nine different countries.
Among other things, its aim was to bring into the dialogue different experiences of the commons, cooperatives and public services and start creating a coherent narrative in order to decipher what these different experiences can contribute to constructing an alternative project.
A number of issues were debated:
- What relations need to exist between the struggles and the institutions to make these new experiences permanent?
- What can we change here and now by using what already exists?
- What is the public-private link and how does it relate to the commons?
- Do state-owned entities currently act in the interests of the people or of money?
- How does the state relate to constructing commons based on its politics?
Commons institutions do not exist; the right of ownership alone is legally valid in our society. How can we change this situation that is paralysing the dynamism, actions and creations of the peoples involved in struggles?
Through this eBook, we will try to answer some of these questions by sharing and analysing concrete experiences and will then look at the initial reflections of the researchers on these issues.
This eBook is the first in a series on this issue, in which transform! europe will look in greater depth at the challenges for an alternative project – through European seminars and world social forums, as it is closely involved with the networks addressing these issues." (http://www.transform-network.net/publications/publications-2016/news/detail/Publications/socialisation-and-commons-in-europe.html)
Contents
A selection:
Introduction: Socialisation and Commons in Europe
Self-management as an antagonistic force: Commons-based responses to the Greek structural adjustment 11 Theodoros Karyotis
Contemporary commoning: A diverse economies perspective 17 Peter North
The Self-Organizational Seeds Planted by the Occupy Movement 33 Marina Sitrin
To Begin With, an Initial Attempt at Defining the Commons 40 Elisabetta Cangelosi
What is the Principle of the Common? 48 Christian Laval
Privatisation, public and commons 55 Dario Azzellini
Mutualism Between Tradition and Modernity 61
First Thoughts for a Phenomenology of the Commons 75 Ugo Mattei
Towards new ways of collective appropriation 88 Marie-Christine Vergiat
Co-operative ownership and Common 90 Benoît Borrits
Self-management, Social Reappropriation and the Commons 97 Pierre Dardot
A Political Vision for the Commons 107 Benoît Borrits & Chantal Delmas