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Use-credit obligations

Introducing commons ideas at the Festival of Commoning

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At the Festival of Commoning (Sep 13-14, in Stroud), our Stroud Commons group has a one-hour slot on the Saturday morning. I’m going to give an overview of commons ideas, and there will be representatives of the housing, land, energy and climbing groups to talk about what’s happening in their groups. Then we’ll have around half an hour to answer questions.

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The role of the Credit Commons in the commons economy: Tom Woodroof of Mutual Credit Services

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Dave Darby of Lowimpact.org and Stroud Commons talks with Tom Woodroof of Local Loop Merseyside and Mutual Credit Services about the Credit Commons – a way to federate different groups all over the world that are building the commons economy (because you can’t get everything you need from just your community) – but it does it without centralised control.

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What makes the commons movement different? (A: it’s much more difficult to co-opt.)

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The commons is a movement to create a different world, not just the same system with a few tweaks to make it more bearable. If successful, obviously there will be entities out there that will try to undermine it, buy it and ultimately, to crush it. But there are aspects to the commons model that will, I think, make it more resistant to this than existing models.

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A ‘Transcender Manifesto’ for a world beyond capitalism. A seed.

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Dil Green is a founder member of Mutual Credit Services, who are working with Stroud Commons to design models for the commons economy for various sectors of the economy. This article first appeared on his blog 5 years ago, but it’s so relevant to the current commons movement, that we’re re-posting it here.

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‘Climbing commons’: community-owned climbing centres

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We’re following the exploits of Stroud Commons, in trying to build a commons economy for the town, and helping groups to launch in other towns. As well as a core group, there are now groups forming for various sectors of the economy, including housing, energy, land/food/water, community spaces – and now, climbing!

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Stroud Commons 5: forming a ‘commoners’ group for each sector of the economy

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This is the latest in a series of articles documenting our group’s attempts to build the commons economy in Stroud, in a way that can be implemented in other towns, and connected together to build the foundations of a new, commons economy. It covers what we’ve done so far, and how people can get involved.

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Regenerative traditions in Africa: inspiration for the commons everywhere

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Building the commons may be hard in wealthier countries, where traditions of mutual aid were lost many years ago. But they’re still alive and well in other parts of the world – as this article by Janet of Grassroots Economics / Sarafu Network shows. I interviewed the director of Grassroots Economics, Shaila Agha, who told me about ‘chamas’ in Kenya – mutual savings groups, built on trusted relationships in local communities.

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