Cooperative Housing Usership Design
http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_in_Multi-Unit_Housing
See Usership discussions Proposal for Usership models
http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_Usership
http://sharewiki.org/en/Leipzig_project
Multi-Layered Property
Questions arise concerning property definitions, and how various modes of property definitions co-exist, or trans-exist.
Hence, do nodes in a network of private property become commons ?
http://www.onthecommons.org/stem-cord-web-relationships
" the commons is concrete and graspable, both personally and collectively, because the commons is a node: a stem cord of a web of relationships. "
http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Commons
If property is considered as hierarchy, what does private property become in a distributed network of inter-dependent property ?
Such understanding related to peer property may be well documented in the field of knowledge, but what about housing ?
http://p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Property
Dante imagines that a "Rhiz-Home" project enables the creation of a commons, through a network of various forms of properties, as long as each of these properties enables inter-dependence, when choosing to "contribute" to the "Rhiz-Home".
Hence a commons becomes the results of the participation of individual properties, who benefit in choosing to participate by opening up their space, either punctually, either more permanently.
It are the conditions of such "meta inter-dependence" which may, according to Dante, determine the "Rhiz-Home".
Such conditions can be seen as a network, but also potentially as a multi layered set of property definitions.
Cooperatives by themselves may already have such kind of characteristics.
Can we develop architectures of networked property definitions that structurally make it possible to route around any centralized attempts on dependency and control ?
Debt and Control
"relation between money and control/hierarchy/governance/property"
Dante Is interested in understanding how participation in the buying of use value infrastructure in euros ( / artificially scarce debt+interest based currency ) leads to control of "investors".
Usership
Can "Usership" be a least coercive approach to debt based property ?
For example enabling debt based currency to buy use value, which entitles access to the use of resources, as long as one uses the resources.
Various forms of Usership
Can we imagine various forms of definitions of usership ?
Such as
- Usership based on shares of a "specific" property (such as a building bought with other people)
What can such shares provide access to ?
- Access to the use of living space corresponding to a right for an individual private and nominative flat, specifically defined in space ?
or
- Right of Specific Governance of a specific amount of space within a cooperative housing ? Enabling modularity of such space by opening the option of choosing to contribute space into a commons ?
- Participation into an economic and governance network ?
Governance of Usership
Do the other members of the building make choices as for the use of the Usership of a non-used space when the owner of the usership does not delegate its use ?
Demurrage
When a specific space is not used, does the owner of the "usership" still govern its space/resource ?
Who is entitled to the space when it is not used?
Does the "owner" loose a certain value from its total shares based on the amount of time of its non-use, such as a form of "demurrage" ?
Can the owner of the Usership delegate the use of the resource to other entities ( group, individuals ), as to not loose value of its shares, and if so, under what conditions ?
Demurrage Vs Hoarding Tax
Although a "Demurrage" may have similar effects as a "Hoarding Tax", it is in effect not a tax, but a reduction of the total value of each of the shares corresponding to the non-used property.
Hence "Demurrage" in this context does not lead to a form of income for the cooperative. A demurrage in this context corresponds to loss of influence in the governance of the cooperative.
Loss of Usership Rights
It may be chosen to define if there is a threshold at which one loses its right to use property, or have a priority in the access to the use of the property, based on one's Usership shares.
It may also be chosen to define who benefits from such loss of usership rights.
Re-appropriation of Usership by Cooperative
One option may be to allow the cooperative ( meta-structure ) to buy over the remaining value of the shares,
either at a moment where the owner of the Usership expresses to opt out,
either at a point of threshold, if at such point of threshold the Owner of the Usership shares does not express an interest in maintaining its Usership.
The value of the shares bought by the cooperative can be chosen to be based on the remaining value of the shares, after the effect of the demurrage.
Dante believes that, to preserve a networked and autonomous micro economy, it is preferable that compensation for the value of such Usership shares through an appropriation by the Cooperative does not correspond to mainstream debt+interest based currency ( euros ),
but rather to an equivalent, in use value/resources, or in usership rights, produced or related to the networked micro-economy.
Although in such case, a challenge may be to determine a common unit for value definition.
Furthermore, as to discourage both speculation or accumulation, such access to resources may be limited to needs of the individual who transfers its usership rights.
Usership Rights Exchange
A market can enable usership rights exchange, within the networked micro economy, based on approval from each unit of which the shares may be part of. ( such as a building unit )
Legal status
Ideally, a non taxed entity could re-appropriate the Usership rights, as to avoid needing to depleted the networked micro-economy from its limited access to euros.
Better still, such *not for profit entity could be the owner of the property*, and contributions in euros to initially buy, and then maintain any costs or taxes in euros related to the housing infrastructure, can be paid by the "members" who in exchange benefit from usership rights
Access to credit
A not for profit, or even a cooperative, is likely to have more difficulties in having access to credit.
Apparently ( needs references ) a corporation ( Gmbh in Germany ) can more easily have access to credit.
How can such structure be included into a networked system related to responsibility related to debt.
Debt Responsibilities
How to create limited liabilities for individuals, but also for the micro-economy in which the housing cooperative may be involved ?
If credit is to be repaid to a bank, is it done individually or through a corporation?
Is the corporation governed by a not for profit, which itself may be part of a cooperative ?
Is there an interest in using existing frameworks such as Mithause syndikat ? http://www.syndikat.org/
Usership rights as IOU's ?
It may also be chosen if such shares can be used as IOU's within a local networked economy, although any taxes on such IOU s are likely to be needed to be paid in euros, and may deplete the local networked micro-economy.
Hence preferably any transfers would be recognized not as "debt", but recognized by the micro economy as "donations".
See below: Recognition of Donations
More on Usership
http://p2pfoundation.net/Usership
Donation and Reputation
Recognition of Donation
Can a "recognition of donations" within a tool visualizing interdependencies, be used to "route" around centralized forms of control, and enable individual choices for support towards other participants.
In such model, the only thing an individual or a project owns, is "recognition".
Rhiz-Home?
http://ww.p2pfoundation.net/City_as_a_grid
Other concepts
... to consider :