Berlin Commons Conference/WorldCafe

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World Cafe

We had a very short - one round World Cafe. Here is the stories of the table hosts.

1 "Which are the fundamental & key principles of generative commons?" 2 "What do commons need to realize their potential - for example in the legal and societal spheres?" 3 "How to ensure that people use and reproduce their commons without harming but rather enchancing somebody elses commons?"

Michel Bauwens

We dealt with the third question. So we asked ourselves: what makes for "selfish commons". We agreed on a paradox result: The weaker the internal organisation of commons, the weaker the ethical rules towards the outside. Another paradoxical statement was: global commons have weaker rul es than local commons. Some global commons can weaken local commons. For example, there is a DNA Project called "Barcode for Life". So companies can take biological findings in a database without having to deal with local communities and sharing the benefits of their findings.

So how can you deal with that? The answers given were either by external regulations or by conditional access; so if you dont abide by the rules you cannot enter that commons. Pat Money explained that companies who use Open Patents could modify the code and privatise it. Interestingly, the people from the digital commons that were present on that table did not contradict this.

Patrice Riemens

We also had the third question to deal with. The first remark was wether this would apply to natural commons only or to the commons in general, which was later reformulated as "the digital commons". The answer was that it did not matter, the concern was common to all kinds of commons. The differences are there, but there are issues of potential harming in all kinds of commons. The question as it was formulated was thought to give a negative inflection to the issue, it would be better to talk in terms of enabling commons in such a way that the issue of harming will not arise and / or solve itself.

The reason for that is simple: commons are not stand-alones, Commons need Commons....Repricocity is the main characteristics of the commons, a principle that applies within and outside (between) commons.

When the interests of a local commons collide with the interests of a larger commons the question arises: is there a hierarchy of commons, are some commons more imortant than others? Several examples were put forward, usually in the fields of (natural) conservation (putting up a natural reservation and excluding humans). The answer to that was to prioritize the local, its is more concrete while the general is more a construct. The conclusion was: Prioritize the local and the general will take care of itself.

The discussion then focussed again on the traditional-rural-physical, especially on the agricultural as the most typical common. We were talking about commons practises in rural areas - and alternative ways of life. Doing that you minimize the potential of harmful interaction between commons. At that moment we were running out of time. Two points were raised and not finished:

• The tipping point issue: if enough people would do it, the commons could become mainstream (where we obviously are far away yet).
• The other one to look at property and property laws as essential to create an enabling environment for the creation of commons -as opposed to the current system, which is defined by the corporate / state -nexus.

The conclusion was that is possible to create an enabling environment for commons which takes care of its inherent conflict potential by itself.

Gudrun Merkle

Third Question

The initial question was not discussed in particular - rather the discussion unfolded on its own terms according to the interests and composition of the group.
First at debate was the format and structure of the conference itself, which led to a broader discussion of structure in relation to the possibility and potential for the realisation of commons: to which degree do structures (and perhaps a strict format) make commons possible or not? This was a sharing of opinions, rather than a discussion and it was suggested that further conversation was needed and that a more intimate and personal discussion - beginning with plain conversations and sharing of opinions, ideas, fears and so on. It was noted that it can be intimidating to speak out and up in a setting of people with whom you are not familiar and in the context of concepts that are new to you. Not that commons as such was necessarily a new term, since on some level all participants are commoners in one way or another, but because the term and concept is used in very many ways.
Everyone has dreams, but keeps them private. Sharing dreams means understanding and in that way a higher level of knowledge can be attained and resonance between ideas and dreams be found. If dreams are left unspoken much potential for coming together and realizing commons is lost.
Human are searching for a collective dream, but we are living in a fragmented, yet collective nightmare. Some commons processes, however, find their origins in those very nightmares.
The fragmented nightmare that is characteristic of the modern, developed world entails a privatization of the social - the urban dweller shares less songs and dances with her neighbor- and therefore the common dream is not realized. An example to illustrate this was a story of a group of Europeans in India who were unable to collectively create a mandala, but perfectly capable of creating beautiful mandalas on an individual basis.
In this dystopian reality the antidote to the nightmare is the common dreams that is realized in the commons - when coming together, recognizing each other, living with joy, and empowering each other and building resilient communities. In this sense, it is envisaged that the commons is a sort of reskilling.
After all, in conclusion, humans have much more in common than they have differences - we are practicing commons all the time, but often we do not realize it. An example was presented of a muslim who participated in a Christmas celebration and both her and her hosts realized that many aspects were shared.
We agreed that commons is much more a verb, not a noun.

Valerie Peugeot and Stephan Dohrn

Question 1: Which are the fundamentals and key principles of (generative) commons?

Commons = non-market
Contracts are market mechanisms

Governance
 Open governance
 Governance relates to resource, community (users), norms

Resource
 Physical characteristics of resource influence governance regime

Community:
 can be different according to resource, e.g. software – comm is made up of contributers, culture – comm are are artists with audience
 size of community may vary according to type of resource – digital tends to be bigger and more lose, unclear boundaries
 role of identity: local community, indigenous people, nationality can make membership/belonging to a group uncertain

Norms:
 Rules to share a resource fairly – not just written rules but also social conventions

Social Construction
 Resource becomes a commons when it is socially constructed
 What is a resource considered to be managed? Who assigns value to a resource that requires management?

Existence of a threat to the resource of enclosure, free-riding may lead to the creation of a commons regime
For existing commons: risk of control of the development (evolution) of the commons

How to protect resources?
 Centralized versus distributed – could be complementary crucial issue is democratic access
 Expl: Seeds
o Centralized: Seed banks freezing seeds (Seed stay the same)
o Distributed: local in situ seed networks (commons like) – Seeds evolve

What is generative commons?
 Commons is self-replicative – give birth to new commons
 A resource managed as a commons creates more wealth/value (brad menaing, not just monetary value) than under individual management?
 One added value is more sustainability