Social Commons

Description

Francine Mestrum (Global Social Justice):

“Why do we use this concept and what do we mean by it?

Firstly, the term ‘social commons’ is meant to be analogous with the protection of the so-called ecological ‘commons’. Defending ‘the commons’ means focusing on that which is shared by all human beings. It is the very foundation of collective life of humanity. It also means resisting the current commodification of everything and a breakaway from the dominant logic. The ‘social commons’ are human-made commons, meant to protect individuals and societies.

Secondly, the notion of ‘social protection’ is, paradoxically, being hollowed out by the new global initiatives of the ILO, the World Bank and other international organisations. Some of their proposals have an important potential for improving the situation of poor people, but others barely go beyond the already existing poverty reduction policies. We think that in the long term, more is needed.

Thirdly, we noticed that the concept of ‘social protection’ has a very low appeal to young people who were raised in a neoliberal world in which individual freedom and competitiveness are presented as being natural. But these same young people do understand the value of solidarity and sharing with others. Changing the concept of social protection to social commons may change the perception and the understanding of an idea that may positively shape their future. It may also open up new analytical insights and lead to a new praxis fit for the 21st century. Fourthly, and most importantly, we think that not only individuals need to be protected, but also societies. With its focus on competitiveness, neoliberalism is destroying social relationships, societies and communities. This collective dimension is particularly important when one knows that poverty is never a problem of poor people alone, but is the problem of societies with a skewed income distribution. It thus cannot be eradicated if the whole of society is not involved in solving it. This requires solidarity and active participation of all. Universalism will therefore be a major characteristic of ‘social commons’. This is based on the fact that social relationships are not purely contractual but are constitutive of each one’s individuality. Indeed, society is necessary for the survival of individuals.

Then again, what exactly do we mean by ‘social commons’? The concept is based on an understanding of all – unequal - interests in society and of our common responsibility and possibility to care for them. The ‘social commons’ focuses on the collective dimension of the protection that is needed and on the collective endeavour to achieve it. The ‘social commons’ are thus not ‘public goods’ but refer to the ‘common good’ – that what humans share. Their emergence requires a participative approach without neglecting the necessary involvement of the State. It is collective action and the result of this action. It is based on a belief that people can master their present and shape their future within the framework of mutual respect and respect for nature.

The ‘social commons’ also aims to end the fragmentation of different social, economic and solidarity rights into different bits and pieces defended by different, often competing, social movements. Close cooperation in order to protect the poor, men, women, children, aged or disabled people, formal, informal and precarious workers, with assistance, social security, public services, labour rights and environmental rights. Too many grey zones have been created in the recent past, blurring the lines between different categories of citizens. These old and new problems cannot be solved without a comprehensive approach, cooperation and solidarity.

It is also a transformative project by which we mean that its achievement will require changes in other sectors of society that cannot be delinked from it. In the first place, this is true for the economy, which will have to be re-arranged so as to satisfy all needs, focusing on the use value of goods an on non-exploitative labour. It is also true for democracy, which will have to make room for a broader participation of all members of society in many different sectors. The boundaries of the ‘social commons’ are open. They start with stopping the impoverishment processes and can lead to production, distribution and decision-making.

In the same vein as the concept of ‘buen vivir’, the ‘social commons’ wants to defend individual and collective live, as well as the life of nature. It is the right of societies to organize themselves and decide on the way they want to live. It is meant to give people and societies social and economic security, to satisfy their material and immaterial needs. It is a comprehensive approach aiming to offer bread and roses. It goes far beyond the rituals and symbolic actions of traditional societies, but is based on the same premises of protecting the collective life of citizens and societies.” (http://www.globalsocialjustice.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=463:promoting-the-social-commons&catid=10:research&Itemid=13)

Discussion

Promoting the Social Commons

by Francine Mestrum:

"All major international development organisations, from the World Bank over the ILO and the European Commission, plan to promote social protection in all developing countries. This may seem bizarre, since, at the same time, social protection mechanisms are being dismantled in the region where they first came about: Western Europe and Scandinavia. It is important to know, then, that words do not have the same meaning for all, and the ‘social protection’ of the World Bank is not the same as ‘social protection’, let us say in Sweden. In other words, there are no ‘welfare states’ emerging in Africa. But these plans are now being implemented and social movements have largely been absent from the debates. Where are the alternatives? What can we do to avoid social protection being at the service of markets?

In today’s world, more than one billion people are extremely poor, almost half of the world’s population is just poor, and inequality is soaring. In many parts of the world, wages and labour conditions are particularly bad, and social services are hardly available. This means we do need social protection, though we should be prepared to re-think the formulas that were invented a century ago. Political, economic and social circumstances are now very different from what they were after the second world war, and no country can find solutions and implement them efficiently on its own. Popular demands have also changed.

We should be looking, then, for a new paradigm that offers economic and social security for all. We may think in the direction of ‘social commons’, since the needs of people, wherever they live and in whatever political or economic regime, are all the same. We might find divergent solutions, but there will always be common characteristics. ‘Social commons’ aim at achieving a common good, a situation in which people are free, equal and emancipated, in a world based on human rights and solidarity." (common good mailing list, March 2014)

Why Social Protection should be replaced by Social Commons

Francine Mestrum:

"Why turn to the ‘social commons’?

"The reasons why the concept of ‘social commons’ might be much more interesting than ‘social protection’ or ‘human rights’ are not limited to the philosophical reflections given above, though they do directly follow from them.

The principle of universalism allows for dispensing with targeting mechanisms. Even if social and economic rights can be implemented in different ways and may depend on people’s position on the labour market – formal or informal – there should be no question of dividing people between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, poor and non poor. While targeting beneficiary groups may lead to lower social expenditures, these savings are often totally absorbed by the high administrative costs of these mechanisms. Targeting also carries a high risk of patronage, information bias, stigmatisation, competition, etc. Moreover, as has been noted above, universalism implies that all benefit and all contribute, according to needs and possibilities. If high income classes are supposed to contribute, they also should be able to benefit, otherwise the protection systems will not have much support. Systems for the poor tend to become poor systems. In practical terms, this means that the wealthy should pay for and benefit from public health care, for instance, as well as pay for and receive pensions. At the global level, it means that the wealthy people in North and South, have to contribute to the protection systems for less wealthy people in North and South. This means we have to change from the current so-called development cooperation systems, which are donor-driven, to systems of global and national income redistribution or global solidarity. On balance, the contributions from the high income classes should allow for better protection systems and higher allowances for lower income classes. Levels of equality are higher in societies pursuing universalistic policies than those that rely on means-testing and other forms of selectivity. Moreover, targeting almost by definition leads to segmentation and differentiation. More comprehensive social protection systems prove to be the most cost-effective. This struggle will not be easy but re-thinking social protection in terms of social commons, focusing on collective and societal rights, may contribute to our winning.

A second reason is linked to the existing inequalities on which globalisation thrives. Whether we look at the North or at the South, we see corporations benefiting from differences in taxes and social protection systems. In Europe, Ireland and Holland attract lots of investments because of the tax advantages they offer to companies. As for workers, we see people from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania travelling to Germany, France and Great-Britain because of higher wages and higher social benefits. The same happens worldwide. Corporations left the US in order to produce in Mexico, and then left Mexico in order to produce in China. Now that wages in China are rising, they are coming back to Mexico. Workers from Mexico try to migrate to the US. In Asia, competition is very strong in several sectors, such as the textile industry, and migration is extremely high, with some countries, like the poor Cambodia, having as many outflowing migrants as inflowing ones. All this is highly distorting labour markets and societies. ASEAN is now envisioning a freer flow of labour, which is obviously an opportunity for many people, but is simultaneously a challenge for countries and labour markets. Whereas migrants can improve their living standard by leaving their country – and very often their families -, it is certainly not the easiest and most comfortable way of organizing one’s life, certainly not if one looks at the labour conditions in countries of the Middle East, for instance. Working in a context of social commons and trying to achieve a certain extent of social convergence can eliminate these problems. What is the advantage of having good wages, good labour conditions and good social protection, if people from a neighbouring country do not have them and may come and threaten your comfortable position? In Europe, we see and have seen in the past, how this can lead to xenophobia and conflicts. Social convergence, at the heart of a social commons approach, is clearly in the interest of all people.

A third reason is similar and can be seen at the national level. When wages and protection levels are very different between regions or between sectors within one country, again, competition will be stimulated and in the end, workers will suffer. The best example to be given here is the wage gap between men and women, allowing women to compete for men’s jobs and giving rise to frustration and domestic violence. The same argument is valid for child labour. It is clear employers always will try to have as cheap labour as possible, but social movements should try to have strict rules at the national level in order to make child labour impossible and to have gender equality. Social convergence is simply in the interest of all workers.

Fourth, by giving social rights to all people, whether they are active in the formal or the informal labour market, or whether they are not on the labour market at all, the autonomy of people can be enhanced, discrimination can be avoided, and the currently unpaid care work of women can be attributed value. In this way, all people will be able to play a role in society, based on equal value and equal rights, though they may be implemented in different ways. Migrans and non migrants, formal and informal workers should be integrated into society and be protected with the same rights, in the same way, as society itself should be protected. Social commons emphasize this equal value that benefits all people and makes exploitation more difficult.

Fifth, looking at environmental rights, it is obvious these cannot be claimed for just one group of society. All people need water and clean air. And all people have an interest in giving peasants the land they need to grow our food, or to guarantee biological diversity. Social protection in its traditional meaning is just impossible without these environmental rights being seen as basic rights and being respected. Water is a basic necessity of life, as is food. If these are lacking, decent labour conditions do not help. The concept of social commons can help to bring the social justice movement closer to the climate justice one.

Sixth, the concept of social commons thus allows for broadening social protection so that it includes contributory insurance systems, non contributory assistance, social services, labour right and environmental rights.

Seventh, if we want to achieve social convergence, in the interest of all, common struggles will be necessary. The movements working for decent pensions will have to make an alliance with the movements working for children’s rights, and with the trade unions. In the same way as movements working for and with the poor, will have to look at women’s movements and people working with the disabled. A victory for one sector can never be sustainable if other sectors and social groups are lagging behind.

Finally, and most importantly, social commons, by focusing on the collective and participatory dimension, allow for strengthening democracy and societies and for re-politicizing social protection and human rights. In neoliberalism, social protection has become a technical and governance issue, while human rights are purely individual. A political approach, re-involving States, other public authorities and societies themselves is urgently needed.

As these few examples clearly show, social commons offer a possibility of making the social struggles more sustainable, to achieve convergence, to eliminate unfavourable competition, to work in the general interest. Social commons are much more than a mechanism for insurances or for the redistribution of incomes. It is a cooperative and participatory model that strengthens democracy, communities and societies by working together and by developing an awareness that defending the rights of all is a way of better defending one’s own rights. In that way, it also becomes a system for the redistribution of power.

Walking along new paths

Many questions have not been answered yet, and cannot be answered at the theoretical level. They will have to be looked at in the specific circumstances in which people will work.

One of the unanswered questions at this moment is the role of the State. Clearly, States will have a major role to play in deciding, regulating and monitoring the social commons and giving them a political input. States will always have to guarantee the social and economic rights. But the commons have to be a bottom-up project, which means civil society has an important role to play in choosing priorities.

Also, the State is not the only public player, local authorities might play a part, as well as regional and global public authorities, especially at the level of the fulfilment of human rights and of redistribution of resources. At the global level, the relevant institutions will have to be developed.

The neoliberal State which has emerged in these past decades is not fit to play this role. We need a state that is open to participation of its citizens and open to cooperation with other authorities and States. We need a State that takes responsibility for the welfare of its people, allowing them and helping them to pursue their material and immaterial needs. We need a competent State able to raise taxes and redistribute their incomes.

Public services do not necessarily all have to be provided by States. Enough research has now been done to show that State services can function well but often do not, in the same way that private services can work well and often do not. No dogmatic approach is allowed at this level. What is absolutely necessary however, is that States are responsible for defining norms and standards, and for monitoring them.

A second unanswered question at this moment is the link with the labour market. Clearly, social protection can play an important role in formalizing the informal sector; but will it succeed in making it disappear? And should we be against the development of self-employed labour? Should we be against flexible labour markets benefiting workers and responding to their needs? Contributory systems will have to co-exist with non-contributory systems, how and to what extent is also to be negotiated among social partners and will depend on the conditions on local labour markets. Reducing working time in order to share the necessary labour to be done, will help to give jobs to more people. Also, the basic distinction existing in Western European welfare states between insurance and assistance should disappear.

A third unanswered question is how to regulate the rights of citizens and residents. Social commons are there for everyone, so there can be no way to limit its benefits to national citizens, ignoring non-nationals, migrants and refugees. But differences in standards of living being enormous for the time being, awaiting social convergence, systems will have to be developed to define the rights of migrant people, in order to avoid push and pull factors, as well as the distortion of social cohesion.

Practical steps: the how?

The ‘social commons’ is a concept and a methodology to envisage a better future for all people and to re-think and re-politicize social protection. It is not a blueprint, it is not a defined project with a clear end result. It is a concept allowing for thinking of other solutions than the one we already have and the ones that are now proposed. Most of all it is an attempt for including all people in a protective environment, making room for diverse interests and alternative lifestyles, taking care of material and immaterial needs, individually and collectively, in a cooperative instead of a competitive way. The concept has no boundaries, it remains open to include more dimensions. It is a long term objective and a conceptual framework within which we can work at global social convergence as well as at economic and political transformation.

It is clear however that, being built bottom-up, the protection system will be different from country to country, from region to region. Respecting a couple of common basic rules and standards, which can be agreed upon at the global or continental level, social commons can take different forms according to the needs and priorities of people.

How and where to start?

A positive way to start is the social protection floors from the ILO. They are worded in the language people, companies, governments and trade unions understand. They do not go very far, but do at least have a certain potential to break with neoliberalism, to prevent poverty and to fight inequality. A second step should be to start reflecting on national legislation, allowing for going further and drawing a large framework in which different elements of social commons can be positioned in later. It also should allow for different territorial levels to shape economic and social rights. Defining the basic principles of universalism and multilevel solidarity, is a fundamental starting point. In the same way, rules should be defined for the functioning of citizens’ initiatives at the local level. At each level an inclusive ‘we’ can be constructed.

A third step can be a reflection on taxes and how to better organize and redistribute them. This also implies international cooperation for raising international taxes, eliminating tax havens and stopping illicit capital flows. Important steps – at the theoretical level – have already been taken by the G20 and OECD. Taxes are an essential element in the organization of solidarity at the national and the international level.

Four will be the building of alliances. We are the 99 %, but it will probably not be 99 % that will support a new approach for social protection. However, large majorities should be possible if the focus is put on the universal benefits of social protection and if the overall advantages of social commons are being accepted. Putting an end to the fragmentation of social rights and of movements, nationally and internationally, is a very important part of the work to be done.

Participatory budgetary planning and identifying the major priorities will be extremely important. It is about writing a national development strategy, being aware of the inter-linkages between all sectors: schools, food and agriculture, roads, health, housing, water, etc.

Finally, developing social commons will require a long term educational effort. People should be aware of the interdependence of everyone’s interests. Social commons require another way of looking at the world and at society, of looking at generations and at nature, of looking at life and at the re-production of life. This means we all have to abandon the economic framework in which our thinking has been moulded for several decades. Social commons is a political and societal long term project, at the heart of democracy, not of the economy. Our debates on social protection should be de-technologized and re-politicized.

Conclusion

Planning social protection in terms of social commons basically means creating an awareness of the inter-linkages between people, sectors, countries and regions, of the need to expand social, economic and environmental rights and to build broad alliances within and between countries and regions. It also means an awareness of its potential to become a building block of another world and other societies, with an economy for life and a democracy for all.

The concept of social commons implies much more than the re-wording of social protection. It has a new content in that it broadens social protection and introduces new rights and new dimensions. It is based on human rights but also goes beyond them in strengthening their collective dimension and adding the protection of society itself. It implies a multilevel approach and focuses on participation and the existence of political communities at different scales.

The ‘social commons’ can become a tool for systemic change, for another economy, based on solidarity, possibly with co-operatives and/or self-management, an economy for life. Many possibilities are there, to be decided on by people. The systemic change should also lead to building another type of State, with responsibility for the welfare of people.

At this moment, the ‘social commons’ is nothing more than a conceptual proposal that allows to re-think our social protection systems, to broaden the scope of social, economic and environmental rights, to experiment with new practices, to develop new knowledge and finally to allow for the emergence of new theories and new social protection systems. The outcome is unsure. There are many constraints, mainly at the ideological and political level. Whether social commons will ever be a reality depends on our openness to reflect on innovative solutions, our awareness of our common interests, our potential for making alliances, our strategies for our struggles and our ability to change the power relations.

Today, there is only one certainty: our current world of development, industrialization and consumption has come to a dead end. We are living a civilisational crisis, with serious problems at the political, the economic, the social, the environmental and the cultural levels. We need new directions for the economy and for development. Growth and profits cannot remain the over-arching objectives, because they lead to the destruction of life on Earth. With social commons we can work at the extension of our freedoms and rights in order to guarantee life and the reproduction of life. We need a new logic, because the old recipes will not help to solve this systemic crisis. We have to come up with something new and we know there is not much time left. It may sound utopian, but a new utopia is indeed what we need. With this contribution, I hope to have given a bit of hope so as to motivate and mobilize for a better world. Because another world is necessary, a world of cooperation instead of competition. A world of emancipation." (email, May 2014)