Michel Bauwens on the Role of the Commons and Peer Production in the Current Transition
"Commons-based peer production at the edge of a chaotic transition — with Michel Bauwens."
Description
This was the most popular podcast so far in the series hosted by Simone Cicero, comparing/contrasting/integrating platform thinking with commons thinking.
"Michel Bauwens believes that because societies are complex adaptive systems, the only way to move towards a new, stable system is through a chaotic transition. The current pandemic shock will serve as a wake-up call, exposing the fallacies of our current systems. What we need forward are strong commons-based institutions that can provide a complimentary, counter-balance to powerful nation-states and existing multilateral organisations."
Here is how they synthesized our talking points:
Key insights
1. There are two main layers of the transition from the “old” to the “new”: Epistemological and Political/Regulatory:
- The epistemological layer needs a new educational approach, since the current one is largely reductionist and rooted in the “old” system.
- The political and regulatory space need stronger commons-based institutions and governance protocols, where the nation state becomes a “partner state” and you have a public commons protocol, like for example in the Bologna regulation for the care and regeneration of the urban commons in Italy.
- We will also see the emergence of trans-national institutions that connect local constituencies globally and virtually and which are able to protect planetary boundaries.
2. We’re moving towards a mutation of consciousness where Western countries are increasingly questioning modernity/progress paradigm, while many Asian countries still think they can get capitalism right (modernity-nature). Nonetheless, the fact that we’re currently consuming five times our planetary resources to maintain the capitalist economic model might indicate that we’re moving towards a next “pulsation”, or regenerative reaction, from a period of unsustainable extraction.
3. There’s a need of coherence driving decision-making mainly based on accounting using energy flows, which go beyond double-entry accounting — creating winners and losers — making transparent the three-dimensional, real impact of activities."