Commons Thinking Offers a Road Map to Transform Society! - by Michel Bauwens on the FLOK project in Equador There seems to be a growing schism between civil society actors and a government that was originally derived from civil society. The government has embarked on an extractivist policy against its own promises and plans (Yasuni), disbanded oppositional civil organisations like the Pachamama Foundation, and exerted pressures against critics in the press. There is a growing schism between the beautiful and enthusing political programs and principles as expressed in the Constitution and the National Plan, and the actual policies that are often contrary to it, and many of those that believed in these ideas are increasingly isolated in institutions like Senplades and Senescyt. They are losing power and influence. The radical sounding ‘neo-socialist’ language of the government is not matched by structural reforms that go into the direction of anything that is beyond capitalism. On the contrary, the real policies, even though to the left of European social-democracy, are essentially redistributionist and actually aim to create better conditions for capitalist development. The poor are less poor, a middle class is being created, but the economic policies do not fundamentally challenge the global political economy. The current direction seems to be towards more adaptation to the demands of the global system. But there is no doubt that the situation of the country and its people has improved. One of the key lessons is that we have to abandon the romantic idea that we can ‘hack a country’. A country, and its people, are not an executable program. For future projects, it will be necessary to ascertain with more due dilligence, the maturity of both the political will and the social basis of such a transition. Commons transition programs should be embarked upon as a more clear co-production process and not undertaken as political gamble. Commons transition should be bottom-up supported processes, enabled and facilitated by supportive public authorities. For Ecuador, we can hope that seeds of new thinking about transformation have been sown, and that some pilot projects will be successfully carried out. The Global Impact But the FLOK project also has a global impact, and I am quite optimistic about this. First of all, this is the first time that an integrated Commons Transition Plan has been crafted, representing a new political and policy orientation towards achieving a post-capitalist society based on shared knowledge, that has both a theoretical underpinning, and fifteen concrete legislative frameworks. This means that from now on, a concrete third way that is different from both statism and neoliberalism, does exist and can be discussed. Despite the local difficulties of the process, we believe that because of the relative legitimacy and credibility involved in a national project, the commons transition is now a geo-political fact,: it’s anhistorical pivot.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 00:25:28 +0000
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