Commons Economy
Description
Dave Darby of the Stroud Commons:
"It’s an economy in which the essentials of life – housing, energy, land, food, water, transport, social care, the means of exchange etc. are owned in common, in communities, rather than by absentee landlords, corporations or the state.
Commons have 3 parts:
a) resources / assets,
b) ‘commoners’ – local people who control and use them, and
c) a set of rules, written by the commoners, so that they’re not lost, by being sold or used up.
The kind of commons we’re interested in are based on the principles laid out by Elinor Ostrom in Governing the Commons. She shows that communities can develop systems of self-governance to manage resources without the need for top-down government intervention or privatization."
(https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/commons-economy)
Characteristics
Dave Darby on new characteristic of contemporary commons-economic projects:
"There are new tools and ideas that allow us to:
- bring assets into the commons without debt: by issuing vouchers sold at a discount. Imagine an energy group wanting to put up a wind turbine. At the moment, they’d need to go into debt or give away equity, which means the infrastructure will be in the hands of capitalists before long (like many co-ops and building societies). Instead, they issue energy vouchers, denominated in kWh, not £ (which makes them inflation-proof). People will want them because they’re sold at a discount, and they provide a store of value – interest-free security for old age or sickness. This basic idea can work in every sector of the economy.
- provide strong asset locks: to prevent appropriation of commons assets. Commons groups have members that are users / customers, investors and stewards (employees), but also a ‘custodian’ member class, who aren’t proactive – they just have a veto vote. They’re disinterested arbiters to make sure that the purpose of the commons isn’t compromised – such as selling commons assets to capitalists.
- reduce the need for money, banks and interest: by ‘credit clearing’. It’s something the banks do, to reduce the need for cash to pay debts. But we can do it too. Imagine A owes B £10; B owes C £10; C owes A £10. If everyone has all the information, it can just clear, without needing money to pay debts. For networks of trading small businesses, this can be done with algorithms, covering large areas.
- remove the need for money, banks and interest entirely: within those large areas, smaller clusters of businesses can be found that trade with each other regularly. They can share a ‘mutual credit’ ledger in which all members get an account, set at zero. When they sell, their numbers go up, when they buy, they go down. There are limits to how far anyone can go into credit or debit. It’s just an accounting system, for who’s done what for whom – no money required, so nothing to extract from communities.
- federate to form the basis of a new, commons economy: all these commons projects can be connected together via the ‘Credit Commons Protocol’ – a ‘language’ that they can all speak that allows them to trade between each other – but in a federation, with no centre. Each local group retains full autonomy. Everything is interoperable – so people can pay their rent, energy bills etc. (and get paid) in mutual credit, for example."
(https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/commons-economy)
Typology
The actors:
Builders
" ‘Builders’, already involved in developing the infrastructure of the new system.
This may well be you. The type of people we’ve been interviewing and will continue to interview, to help spread the word about what they’re doing.
Networking is key. No good is going to come from lone (usually male) individuals working in their bedrooms on ‘grand narratives’. Let it go. It has to be collaborative.
In 2019 we brought together CEOs and national co-ordinators of community energy, community-supported agriculture, tech co-ops, social care co-ops, land co-ops, housing and worker co-ops, transport co-ops, the Permaculture Association, plus representatives from Preston council (cf. ‘the Preston Model’), as well as the builders of Commons tools. We aim to host more of these meetings, as well as opening other channels of communication, to talk about: barriers to the development of the Commons in each sector, and how to overcome them; how to connect the Commons-building work in each sector to help build an overall Commons economy.
There’s ambition to launch a ‘Commons Society’, and to produce books, online courses and documentaries.
We need to build successful working networks, to demonstrate as examples to replicate. Then we can build ‘Commons towns’. I’ve recently moved to Stroud in Gloucestershire, which is a great candidate – initially for a Housing Commons – the ‘rock’ on which the Commons can be built. We’ll blog about it as things develop.
‘Switched on’ people
‘Switched on’ people, interested in system change via the Commons.
The people I talk with most. I’m assuming that as you’re reading this, you’re in this group – you can see the danger of the direction we’re moving in, and know that we’re not going to change direction with this economic system, but you maybe can’t see a route to system change. We’d like to invite you in to use and help build the elements of the Commons economy. We know that we’ve helped several ‘switched on’ people become ‘builders’ – including a nuclear physicist now helping build mutual credit schemes, and someone who co-founded a social care co-op with an internal mutual credit trading system – so we know it works, and we hope we can attract many more.
The mainstream
When the Commons sector is growing, we need to provide the mainstream with tools that will bring them immediate benefits – in terms of cost, but also of security, including housing and job security, or even fun. We don’t need any persuasion or appeals to altruism – and this is crucial to the spread of new ideas and practices; only a minority will act due to altruism."
(https://www.lowimpact.org/posts/new-tools-and-ideas-for-building-the-commons-economy/)
Tools
Dave Darby:
"Some tools and ideas are currently being developed that will, I believe, make it much easier to build the Commons economy.
For example:
Mutual Credit – moneyless trading that could allow us to take control of the money system from banks, and to replace fiat / bank credit with credit we create amongst ourselves. More information here. Credit Commons – a protocol that can link mutual credit and other trading networks around the world into a new global trading system. More information here.
Use-Credit Obligations (UCOs) – a way to build commons infrastructure without going into debt or giving away equity. They are future resource vouchers sold at a discount. So for example, a community energy scheme could issue energy credit obligations and sell them at a discount to raise the money to put up a wind turbine. When the turbine is built and generating electricity, purchasers of ECOs can redeem them for electricity. Purchasers of ECOs save money on electricity, and can use them as a savings instrument that can be redeemed or sold, and that is inflation-proof (ECOs are denominated in kWh not the national currency, and a kWh now is still a kWh in ten years’ time). Issuers of ECOs receive investment without having to go into debt or give away equity. The concept also works for housing, land, care, food, transport or any other sector of the economy. More information here.
Nondominium – a means of owning commons resources that can achieve the scale and longevity that other attempts at collective ownership find difficult (the Co-op Bank and most building societies are now owned by a hedge fund and the banking sector respectively)."
(https://www.lowimpact.org/posts/new-tools-and-ideas-for-building-the-commons-economy/)