Introduction

• A key Report on self-organization by independent workers: Not Alone. Trade Union and Cooperative Solutions To Self-Employment. By Pat Conaty, Alex Bird and Philip Ross. Co-operatives UK, 2016 [1]

• Manifesto for a Common Ground for Independent Workers calls for a new labor statute that combines autonomy and security

[2]

Worthy of attention and support

• The P2P Foundation supports the convergence of self-organized labor and multi-stakeholder cooperatives and solidarity economy entities on the one hand, with open models that sustain livelihoods and co-create commons. This is convergence of models is called Open Cooperativism and can take special forms like Platform Cooperativism or Data Cooperatives. This calls for mutual support and relations between productive communities based on open contributions (i.e. Commons-Based Peer Production, and post-corporate ethical entrepreneurial coalitions (see http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Post-Corporate).

• The P2P Foundation supports the emergence of Commonfare practices of social solidarity for networked workers who co-created commons and shared resources (see our special section http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Solidarity), as well as their integration with a strengthened welfare system. In particular we support the creation of 'labor mutuals', i.e. freelance coops which already exist in the French-speaking world (Coopaname in France ; SMart in Belgium, Bigre, etc ..; see the project of AltGen in the UK).

• The P2P Foundations supports the call for a New Mutualism by Sara Horowitz

Discussion

Rogier De Langhe:

How can we organize human solidarity in the p2p age?

One of the most common worries about P2P is that it will erode social rights. The key to understanding P2P solidarity is that P2P is not just a policy offering new solutions for existing problems, but a new system that changes the problems altogether.

Strong calls for income guarantees and social rights are specific to (and historically emerged together with) the system of industrial capitalism we know today, which reduces persons to isolated consumers trading in anonymous marketplaces. In a world of commons, income and social protection are much less problematic because

1) income is less important than access to networks: P2P causes a shift from ownership to sharing and hence from consumption of a good to participation in a network.

2) social protection is more straightforward in a world where everyone depends on one another.

Science fiction? No, actually it is typical for most non-capitalist societies. In many premodern societies social status is at least as important as personal wealth and for example the elderly continue to participate in society instead of being dumped in a retirement home.

It is common to assess new systems based on the standards of the old. Perhaps this is a mistake, because the absence of applications of P2P for income generation and social struggle might not signify a shortcoming of P2P, but its being hardwired to foster a society that is open and equal to begin with, thus removing further need for competition, conflict and struggle.

This is not to say that P2P is flawless by design, but simply that the challenges it will meet will be of a different nature. Needs will shift and classic social rights might well become meaningless and even counterproductive. How exactly this will play out is difficult to say. As with any genuinely new system, how exactly it will mesh with pre-existing structures and the tensions this will provoke are unpredictable and perhaps even unimaginable as long as the system has not been implemented on a large societal scale. New paradigms are only clearly articulated after they become adopted. As such we are bound to make the rules as we go along, just as unions and mutuals could only be conceived after the advent of capitalism.

In sum, to meet the very real worries about solidarity today, P2P can offer nothing more than vague promises about tomorrow. A paradigm shift always requires at least to some extent a leap of faith. A shift is never directed toward a clearly defined system, but can be an escape away from a clearly defined threat, a threat which sparked the need for social struggle to begin with. We do not advocate P2P because we know what it is, but because we know what it isn't.

Key Resources

Key Articles

• Using the Concept of the Social Commons to Rethink the Welfare State. Francine Mestrum.

• P2P Alternatives to Emergency Medical Services (on Street Medics and related initiatives)

Key Books

• Digital Solidarity. Felix Stalder. Mute Books and Post-Media Lab, 2013

• Mutual Aid Beyond Communism. Jeff Shantz.

• With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough. By Peter Barnes. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014

Background:

• Hauke Brunkhorst, Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community, trans. Jeffrey Flynn (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2005): " a comprehensive intellectual history of solidarity from Aristotle to the present, with a chapter devoted the related concept of fraternité in post-revolutionary French thought"

• Redesigning Distribution: Basic Income and Stakeholder Grants as Cornerstones for an Egalitarian Capitalism. By Bruce Ackerman, Anne Alstott, and Philippe Van Parijs. Verso, 2006. [3]

• Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

In French:

• Marie-Claude Blais, La solidarité: Histoire d’une idée (Paris: Gallimard, 2007).

Key Practices

(Neo)Traditional Gifting/Sharing/Cooperative Practices:

Via Co-Creative Recipes:

1. Ayni: a term with a meaning that’s closely related to minga. It describes a system of work and family reciprocity among members
2. Bayanihan: in the Philippines,'communal unity'
3. Córima: The Rarámuri people of Mexico’s Chihuahua mountains use the word “córima” to describe an act of solidarity with someone who’s having trouble.
4. Gadugi: a term used in the Cherokee language which means “working together” or “cooperative labor” within a community
5. Gotong-Royong: in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, Gotong-royong is a cooperation among many people to attain a shared goal with ideas of reciprocity or mutual aid.
6. Guelaguetza: a cross between a potlatch and a tequio. The term describes “a reciprocal exchange of goods and services”.
7. Harambee: a Kenyan tradition of community self-help events, e.g. playdraising or development activities. Harambee literally means “all pull together” in Swahili
8. Imece: a name given for a traditional Turkish village-scale collaboration.
9. Maloka: (or maloka in Portuguese) is an indigenous communal house found in the indigenous Amazon region of Colombia and Brazil.
10. Meitheal: the Irish word for a work team, gang, or party and denotes the co-operative labour system in Ireland where groups of neighbours help each other in turn with farming work
11. Mutirão: This is originally a Tupi term used in Brazil to describe collective mobilizations based on non-remunerated mutual help.
12. Naffīr: an Arabic word used in parts of Sudan (including Kordofan, Darfur, parts of the Nuba mountains and Kassala) to describe particular types of communal work undertakings.
13. Tequio: a very popular type of work for collective benefit in the Zapotec culture. Community members contribute materials or labor to carry out construction work for the community.