Why Ordo-Communalism is Necessary

Source

Reprinted from the Substack:

* The Ordo-Communal State: Why Ordo-Communalism is the way to go.

URL = https://4thgenerationcivilization.substack.com/p/an-ab-so-lu-te-ly-un-sexy-subject

With translated excerpts from:

• article of the AOC magazine, at https://aoc.media/opinion/2024/04/11/de-lordoliberalisme-a-lordo-communalisme/. The authors are Louise Guillot, Rémy Seillier and Sebastien Shulz.

Text

Michel Bauwens:

One of the key political concepts of the P2P Foundation was and is that of a Partner State.

It’s key idea is that today, because of trans-local and contributory peer production, civil society is itself becoming productive. In the new emerging productive system, organized by fourth-sector organizations, i.e. networks with commons, or in other words, open eco-systems that can coordinate a combination of market dynamics, public authority participation and NGO’s, but also crucially, permissionless contributions of all network participants, the commons is now at the core of value creation, on which all order productive agents depend. Google, Facebook, Open AI, the extractive shadow of this model, could not exist without open source code and their free and non-reciprocal usage of the commons. At the core of the new value systems are immaterial commons, of knowledge, code and protocols, and design, increasingly augmented by various forms of mutualization of financial or material assets, a process we call cosmo-local production.

But a key factor to understand remains the existence, and therefore the relation of the state with the commons. Libertarians generally assume the state is a negative factor, and are also, in my view, idealistic about what would happen to a society without a state. They generally assume the market would do fine, but historically, markets and states have been co-constitutive and co-dependent. The form of the state can change, and hypothetically, we could have a revival of tribal or caste-based societal forms, but generally speaking, I want to stress that we will <always> need some form of geographic living together, and therefore, of some type of generic institution that keeps the peace and the ground rules at the geographic level. Peter Turchin has convincingly found that no society with more than 200,000 inhabitants has been able to exist without a state function.

Here is Peter Turchin:

- “We love to hate bureaucrats, but large-scale societies cannot function without professional administrators. Our Seshat data says is that once the polity population gets to roughly 200 thousand (and certainly by the time you exceed a couple of millions), it must have sophisticated government institutions, including professional bureaucrats. A society numbering in millions simply can’t function without specialized administrators. Societies that try to do it, instead fall apart, which is why we don’t see them today, or (much) in history. The conclusion from this is that the way forward to sustaining and increasing the well-being of large segments of population is not to abolish government, but to evolve institutions that keep bureaucrats working for the benefit of the population, rather than themselves.”

(http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/an-anarchist-view-of-human-social-evolution/)

Soviet-style socialism on the other hand, was not just state-centric, but state-absolutist, and contemporary market-centric societies have shown themselves socially unstable, as well as ecologically destructive. The current economic format, in which value is deemed to come exclusively from extractive activities creating scarce goods, which are then taxed by the state for the purposes of social redistribution, no longer fits with the current reality of value production.

So, while the forms of the commons, the market institutions and the geographic institutions may change and evolve, I believe they are here to stay, and therefore, we need to think about their optimal inter-relation.

This is where our concept of the partner state came in. A partner state is a form of geographic-based administration that not just favors the markets, or dominates society, but one that is geared towards policy making that recognizes the productive role of civil society, commons and fourth sector organizations, and participates in the strengthening of commons-based capabilities, i.e. the individual and collective autonomy of its citizens.

The main form this could take is the creation of public-commons partnerships, but feel free to reverse that order, and talk about commons-public partnerships. All kinds of variants are possible such as public-private-commons, or regenerative versions thereof which focus on partnerships with generative forms of markets or commerce-based organizations. A public-commons partnership is a form of governance by which public authorities favor the creation of commons-based value creation in their sphere of authority. The key example has been the Bologna Regulation for the Care and Regeneration of the Urban Commons, which has been copied by 250 Italian cities. The movement for the partner state is particularly strong in France where it has been supported by a network of activists, many of them working for public authorities themselves, in particular through the work of the Société des Communs (https://societedescommuns.com/).

France has functioning bottom-up Assemblies of the Commons, but also different ‘Call for Commons’, emanating from public authorities, in which public funding is allocated to the most collaborative alliances that explicitly agree to put their research and outcomes in the commons.

It is from this context that the new theoretical innovation of Ordo-Communalism emanates, and it was expressed in a article of the AOC magazine, at https://aoc.media/opinion/2024/04/11/de-lordoliberalisme-a-lordo-communalisme/. The authors are Louise Guillot, Rémy Seillier and Sebastien Shulz.

Their contribution should be seen as a reaction to the ordo-liberal theory, which was of German pre-World War II origin, but became very influential in the context of the European Union. In this form of ‘Rhineland capitalism’, as it is sometimes called, the role of the state is to support the market, but also insure that the market functions fairly and to the benefit of all the citizens of a state. In other words, quite distinct from the Anglo-Saxon neoliberal model, while similarly market-centric.

They write:

"Unlike the ordoliberal State which guarantees free and undistorted competition, an ordo-communal State would have the role of guaranteeing free and united cooperation. This fundamental principle would make it possible to think about a transition towards a more collaborative, fair and sustainable economy. It establishes cooperation within and between companies, citizen participation and concerted decision-making to achieve economic objectives while taking into account social and environmental issues.

From this perspective, the market retains a place to organize certain sectors of economic activity, although with significant regulations. Rather than considering competition as the sole driver of economic efficiency, this approach recognizes the value of solidarity to build more resilient and inclusive societies. In short, ordocommunalism establishes a society in which actors have a greater interest in cooperating."

(https://aoc.media/opinion/2024/04/11/de-lordoliberalisme-a-lordo-communalisme/)

Let me know briefly contrast this with my own description of the dynamics of the partner state: (https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Partner_State)

How would a future commons-centric society look like, institutionally speaking ?.

At its core would be a collection of commons, represented by trusts and for-benefit associations, which protect their common assets for the benefit of present and future generations

The commons ‘rents out’ the use of its resources to entrepreneurs. In other words, business still exists, though infinite growth-based capitalism does not. However, it is unlikely that traditional corporations, wo do not take into account externalities, will still exist without modification. More likely is that the corporate forms will be influenced by the commons and that profit will be subsumed to other goals, that are congruent with the maintenance of the commons. Also likely, these entities will be owned by the producers, and not by abstract capital (we’re talking after the phase transition here)

The state will still exist, but will have a radically different nature. Much of its functions will have been taken over by commons institutions, but since these institutions care primarily about their commons, and not the general common good, we will still need public authorities that are the guarantor of the system as a whole, and can regulate the various commons, and protect the commoners against possible abuses. So in our scenario, the state does not disappear, but is transformed, though it may greatly diminish in scope,

Here is how Louise Guillot, Rémy Seillier and Sebastien Shulz describe how they see the characteristics of a ordo-communal state:

"We propose here a first set of principles which can constitute a basis for discussion with political movements and citizens wishing to build a society of the commons.

Monetary democracy: Money becomes a tool for social justice and environmental stability. Citizens, businesses and public authorities collectively take control over the currencies they use.

Preservation of resources: Economic actors are accountable for the preservation of the shared resources on which they depend and which they affect in the exercise of their activity. This principle places limits on the market and affirms the collective (and not just public) responsibility to maintain resources for future generations.

Social property: Forms of social property make it possible to overcome the defects of the proprietary order by more equitably sharing the rights to use and manage resources useful for human flourishing. They make it possible to rebalance the power of owners, whether public or private, with that of citizens and workers while guaranteeing the interests of future generations.

Cooperation: Cooperation is becoming a central organizing principle of the economy and society. It is about favoring lasting partnerships rather than competitive relationships without constraints.

Right to citizen contribution: Every citizen is able to demand from the State that it allows them to actively contribute to the production and management of the resources and places that concern them. This means investing in education and social inclusion to ensure that all people have the opportunity to fully participate in the economy and benefit from its benefits.

Horizontal subsidiarity: Public authorities favor citizen organizations in the conduct of activities of general interest. But they remain present in the event of a failure in the self-organization of citizens by intervening to guarantee fundamental rights and collective well-being when necessary."

(https://aoc.media/opinion/2024/04/11/de-lordoliberalisme-a-lordo-communalisme/)

They further write as a kind of conclusion to their article:

“The transformation of public authorities through the logic of the commons would also lead to a move away from bureaucratic logics or logics dictated by new public management and towards more open, cooperative and democratic public institutions.

As an illustration, when Social Security was created, it carried out a mission of general interest while being administered by private law organizations which were subject to democratic governance, with the election of representatives of contributors. Despite successive reforms, Social Security constitutes a fine example of how commons thinking allows us to design “de-stateized” administrations, organized in accordance with the principles of cooperation, shared ownership and subsidiarity.

Another example of a transformation of the administration, attempting to move away from the private management model, is the recent development initiated by the IGN, taking direct inspiration from the commons: training of agents in the use and deployment of “geocommons”, contribution of public agents to the development of these open and shared (non-public) resources, cooperation with the communities maintaining these digital commons.

It is urgent to democratize the State and regain control of its reform.

The strength of the neoliberal offensive lies in the fact that it was able to make the State a weapon to organize society around the free market, productivism and consumerism.”

While this is not <exactly> the same as the Partner State model, it is clear that it belongs broadly to a similar way of thinking. What makes it important, is the desire to start thinking out a coherent political theory, which can guide to the reformation of the state, and its moving away from the exclusive support of capitalist markets, to a support of the emergence of the new commons-based forms of value creation.

So, this is without doubt, a seminal contribution to a new direction for our complex societies."