Assembly
= concept and practice of political governance, book, and specific software tool
The Concept
More Information
For the concept, see:
Examples
- J30 Assembly Movement - UK
- Duncan Crowley on the 2011 Assembly 15M Movement in Barcelona
- NYC General Assembly ; How the NYC General Assembly Works
- Argentine Assembly Movement ; Disappearance of the Neighborhood Assembly Movement in Buenos Aires
- United States General Assembly
- People's Assembly Against Austerity
How-To
- General Assembly Guide ; General Assembly Process Guide
- Introduction to the Facilitation Methods at the Occupy Atlanta General Assembly
The Book
- Book: Assemby. By Toni Negri and Michael Hardt.
Interview
Interview of Negri conducted by Pascal Gielen and Sonja Lavaert:
* Q: In your book Assembly we detect a similar idea: assembly characterizes the aesthetic style and strategy of the commons. Likewise, in Commonism, we oppose the aesthetic figure with the abstraction that we associate with exchange value, finance capitalism and neoliberalism. What does the ideal assembly look like, in your view? What are the conditions for its realization? How can non-humans (things, nature) be involved in an assembly? What instruments or strategies are needed? In short, how should assembly be practically organized in order to function well, in your view?
A: We argue that the assembly is already there. It is already there in the structure of the present-day economy in which labour has transformed itself in language and in cooperation that is largely autonomous. The assembly is what we are confronted with. The problem therefore is how these labour forces or subjects / people who produce subjectivity can become political subjects. This is demonstrated by the recognition of the common, by the transition to the common and being together, by the transition of the mere finding of being together to being aware of it. The transition of collaboration and being-in-common to the production of common subjectivity is the central element of the assembly.
The comrades and activists who take part in the fight of the movement, from Occupy Wall Street to the Indignados in Madrid, have attempted to bring about such a transition, especially from the condition of people producing under capitalism and whose situation simply happens to them to a free condition in which the common is built and formed. This transition is fundamental and in addition it demonstrates that commonism is much more feasible today than in the previous situation, in which the workers were organized and brought together by capital. Before, the workers were brought together, they did not come together of their own initiative. This is no longer the case and precisely this means an enormous boost for the possibilities. The possibility for liberation is infinitely larger and wider today, because there is this being-together, an ontological fact that is also a point of departure.
The assembly is an ontological fact that must become political, that is the heart of the matter.
Marx has said of the working classes that they were made by capital and that therefore it was necessary for them to become aware of their situation through a political party, an external organization, an ideology, et cetera, in order to become political. Today we see a maturity and an original organization, so to speak, thanks to the transformation that occurred in labour and society. Labour today is no longer a labour under command. The aspect of the command is becoming increasingly alienated from the possibility to work together subjectively. What is important, is that the language that is formed by the worker comes before the command, precedes it. The importance of neoliberalism, by the way, is that it understood that this autonomous use of language can be reversed and can be made use of by capital. This is why the most important political work of today is to recognize this subjective and special use of language and to reverse again what capitalism and neoliberalism have reversed, and to bring about the liberation.
* Q: We are still not quite convinced, in the sense that we miss a concrete definition of what assembly exactly is. Looking at this as a sociologists, we look at examples of assemblies such as the Ex Asilo Filangieri in Naples, and we think: assembly is a tool, a meeting method, a more democratic way of organizing things, of taking autonomous decisions, of achieving self-governance. Can we say that assembly is a formula for organizing direct democracy?
A: What Michael and I have in mind is exactly the type of phenomenon like L’Asilo in Naples, where sovereignty has been reversed: to the common, to a space and a series of shared goods (beni communi) in the widest sense, both material and immaterial goods. In other words, where a series of remarkable initiatives is undertaken for the common good. The concept of common is always a production, something that is invented, made, shaped. The assembly is this: a body of people, a small multitude that manages well the shared (material and immaterial) goods and thereby constitutes a common. The fundamental concept of assembly is that the political and social are again joined and today we have a chance, an opportunity to do this. Unlike Lenin, we no longer find ourselves in exceptional conditions like it was with the Russian Revolution when there was only hunger, war and catastrophe and everything had to be torn down in order to create a new force. Now, today, we have the opportunity to transform the assembly into a force. Because that is politics: lending force. Or, that is aesthetics, if one wishes to use that term: lending form and force. There is no form without force. Politics is force, power – and that includes the aspect of violence. In politics it is about the force (the power, sometimes violence) to construct peace.
Q: What we see in the practical functioning of assembly, for example, is that the practice of language becomes very important. After all, people have to speak to each other and try to convince others through dialogue. Now this mechanism has two problems: 1) those who speak more and better have an advantage in winning the debate; and 2) there is a class phenomenon. In the situation of an assembly the middle class becomes dominant: those who are white, educated and can speak well have the floor, so there is an element of selection. My question to you is: how can the assembly be organized in such a way that there is no such selection or that this shortcoming is compensated for by letting basis-democratic principles prevail? How does one give a voice to those who remain silent?
We are of course discussing examples and I think that especially in Naples, if one looks at the periphery, in the surrounding region, in all those places where the casa del popolo are strong and many initiatives are taken by the people, one definitely sees a direct proletarian use of language, and in quite dominant forms. There are also initiatives such as L’Asilo that already have quite a tradition, that have statutes and a legal structure. And yes, in those cases a certain political class is involved. However, I think that the assembly is both cause and product of a break with class distinction. The obvious objection one could have against these assembly initiatives is that not everything has been properly defined. We are after all speaking of a process that is not free of contradictions and downfall, but it is an extremely important process and it has begun.
The problem is that we have to develop a different model than that of parliamentary democracy, or, rather, we need a post-parliamentarian model of democracy.
* Q: In Assembly you regard the new leadership of the commons as a possible strategy of the multitude and as a tactic of the leader. The leader can only temporarily – and depending on her or his expertise – make certain tactical moves in the general strategy of the multitude. How can this be organized and in how much is your reversal of attribution of the strategy (to the multitude) and of tactics (to the leader) different from a representative democracy where leaders are also only appointed temporarily?
I think that we are faced with the problem of removing or eroding the political relationship between movement and leader. What is at stake is decision authority. What exactly was the formula of political parties? A party gathered a great number of people along a certain political line that was decided upon by the top, by the leader, and which was literally imposed on or taught to the people in a top-down fashion. In our work, Michael and I take the critique by movements as our starting point, because these movements reject the existing institutions. Today, we have to reject leadership but not necessarily institutions as such. So we are now faced with the problem of the institutions and we have to solve this, we have to face this, and study it together. Or, in other words: we have to bring back the leadership to the movement and it is within the movement that the hegemonial strategy of leadership must be developed. We have to take the decision authority away from the leader, or rather, take the abstraction and transcendence of the decision away from the leader." (https://www.onlineopen.org/the-salt-of-the-earth)
The Software Platform
= Assembly is a platform for creating crowd-founded, open source startups built and owned by their makers.
URL = https://assembly.com/
"using the service, he was able to set rewards for different tasks and distribute them onto the web where anyone who felt they were right for the job could pick it up" (http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/21/7258667/assembly-collaborative-work-open-source)
Description
via Ben Popper:
"the strength of Assembly will come from its community, which currently includes designers, engineers, marketers, and even lawyers. These folks might contribute to a half dozen different projects, all remotely, based on what draws their interest.
"I think Assembly is the next step for the open source movement. Instead of contributing to just software and getting better and free software in return, people can now contribute to an entire company," wrote Wesley Lancel, a developer from Belgium, who has contributed to a number of projects on Assembly. "It's not just contributing code, but also setting the direction and strategy of an actual company and helping out to make that company a success. And in return you don't just get better software or people using your code, but a real share in a company."
Assembly is leveraging technology from the world of Bitcoin to help create a shared ownership structure for each product. "App Coins (the ownership in a product on the blockchain) is not equity in the traditional company sense," explained Assembly founder Matthew Deiters. "They can't be transferred or sold. Instead they are used to determine an individual’s monthly earnings as well as verifiable ownership control used in voting decisions."
Each project has a core team the brings the original idea to the Assembly platform. That team decides what tasks need to be done and how many App Coins they are worth. Anyone can contribute towards that work without permission, the model borrowed from open source, and just like many big open source projects, the core team approves or declines the final work. Assembly serves as the platform for all this and also a financial and legal steward." (http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/21/7258667/assembly-collaborative-work-open-source)
Characteristics
... of Open-Source Startups:
- Everyone has ownership
- Everyone contributes where they are most effective
- Collaboration can happen around-the-clock by people everywhere
- Revenue is split equitably between contributors, monthly