All civilisations fall in the end. The Roman Empire is long gone, along with the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Sumerians. Will the global civilisation of corporate capitalism buck the trend? Of course not, but how long does it have left? In such a complex system, it’s impossible to predict when there will be a sudden shift, but there’s good evidence that the process of breakdown has already begun. Damage to soils, water tables, forests, the oceans and climate is occurring alongside economic and political upheaval. No longer is this a theoretical matter about the distant future, but something we should be preparing for today. But how?
I come at that question after decades working on ‘sustainable development’. During the 90s, I was doing that in Eastern Europe, but was dismayed that most saw corporate capitalism as the path to follow. I founded Lowimpact.org in 2001, and our focus for the first ten years was on ‘sustainable living’ – which I soon realised is about as realistic as ‘health & safety’ on the Titanic (you may think you’re doing it until you see the bigger picture). So we changed our focus to self-provisioning and the commons – where local people own and control resources, rather than absentee landlords or corporations. Now in my 60s, I’m part of a team building replicable commons models in Stroud and Liverpool. It’s the way I try to help people respond to the accelerating collapse of industrial consumer societies. That’s because I’ve concluded:
1. we can’t adequately prepare for collapse from within the system that’s causing it. We must lay the foundations of a new system;
2. we’ll need to produce and distribute food and other essentials, and maintain houses, energy and water infrastructure outside of the corporate system – and that requires working people to do it;
3. modern social and environmental movements in the UK (and beyond) have failed to engage working people;
4. resources owned within the commons can lay the foundations of a new system, by providing affordable, secure housing, affordable utilities and jobs for working-class communities.
1. We can’t prepare for collapse within the system that’s causing it. We must lay the foundations of a new system.
We need to shift to a new system, so that we can be fed, watered, housed, cared for, and enjoy our lives as best as possible in a more environmentally-unstable future. In the West, violent overthrow of the current system is impossible, and all electable political parties are corporate, and therefore uninterested in ‘new system’ thinking, which means that it’s not achievable via the electoral process. The co-operative movement may have seemed like a viable alternative in the 19th century, but it doesn’t now (for reasons outlined here). We must build the new system quickly yet incrementally, in ways that bring immediate benefits to the majority. I’m talking about working people, whose income is from the work that they do, not from rent on property, interest on loans, dividends, or speculating on assets. Bringing assets into the commons is the one activity I’ve seen that can build that new system in ways that benefit people today.
2. We’ll need to produce and distribute food and other essentials, and maintain houses, energy and water infrastructure outside of the corporate system – and that requires working people to do it.
The immediate benefits for working people will need to be created by working people themselves (who else?), in ways that provide jobs and all the essentials of life without allowing profits, rent and interest to be extracted from communities and accumulated by the already super-wealthy. Our first steps need to be economic – to provide material interdependence in communities, and to cut off the flow of money to corporations from people’s employment and consumption. Home ownership has given working people a way to avoid paying rent (but not interest to banks). But now asset management firms like BlackRock can offer investments in packages of thousands of houses as easily as shares for the super-wealthy. After decades of house price inflation, mass purchases by investment funds will make it even more difficult for working people, and especially young people, to own a home. If more houses can be put into common ownership, we could start to turn the tide. That’s what we’re trying to do in Stroud, a town in the south-west of the UK.
3. Modern social and environmental movements in the UK (and beyond) have failed to engage working-class communities.
I’m from a working-class town, and I observe groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Transition Towns through the eyes of working people. They’ve been seen as very middle-class and alien (1), as well as being slightly annoying and out-of-touch (2). The mass media has played a role in giving that impression, but it’s not without some truth. My experience was with a Transition Town group in middle-class London. I believe I witnessed a lot of virtue signalling, but little understanding of the need for a new economic system and zero interest in practical steps towards economic alternatives. For instance, I had conversations about how to reduce inequality with members who were private landlords, which is a guaranteed way to transfer wealth from poor to rich. Nice people, but probably much too comfortable to want serious change (3). I’m not saying that working people are paragons of virtue, but they don’t add to economic inequality or have such high ecological footprints, because they can’t afford to. The working class has less to lose from the demise of the current economic system, and that’s why they can and must play a central role. It’s why this issue of the class profile of activist groups is not an annoying side issue, and should be central to any strategic thinking about pursuing major social change.
4. The commons can lay the foundations of a new system, while providing the essentials of life in working-class communities.
In a commons-owned project, whatever the business activity, there are investors, who hold commons vouchers, and are members of a commons group, who can limit the number of vouchers any one person holds (as savings or as part of their pension). So vouchers can’t be concentrated in very few hands, and by design there are no bosses, shareholders, moneylenders or private landlords. Workers in a commons group are also owners of the common resource – we’re all commoners.
Commons-owned projects can provide strong asset locks, obtain infrastructure without debt, reduce the need for money and banks, and federate to (global) scale – and working-class communities can benefit immediately from affordability, jobs, secure tenancies and cashflow solutions for small businesses.
Commons bring in investment to pay stewards to run the schemes and maintain the infrastructure – rather than relying on volunteerism like trusts, charities and activist movements, which are then inevitably run by middle-class people (4). Most working people can’t afford to volunteer (5), which has influenced the strategies and priorities of activist groups. Rather than talk about “involving” under-represented groups in a charity or activist group, a powerful movement needs to meet the real needs of working people today, while also building towards the future we want.
I also think commoning gets us past the left/right division in politics. For instance, it’s not about state provision, but it takes important resources, like housing and land, off the market forever. So a commons economy can also unite divided communities. Something that’s always been important but is increasingly so now, as we don’t want to be fighting each other as things fall apart.
If the financial system ever goes down, the commons can provide a way to operate a means of exchange, so we can keep doing stuff for each other without capitalist money, accounts and payment systems. We don’t need to make collapse worse by struggling with barter or failed attempts at isolated self-sufficiency. Instead, mutual credit accounting is the way to do it. If our technological capacity is significantly reduced by collapse, it can be done with a notebook and pen, or even in people’s heads, as they did in medieval villages. And if you’re lucky enough to have money to invest, then you can become a commoner by investing in your community, rather than placing all your bets on the corporate financial system.
Community Leadership
We’re going to need wise leadership to navigate through collapse, and our current system certainly doesn’t deliver wise leaders. Power today is ultimately economic, and so we need to decentralise economic power to communities to enable the wisest among us to attain leadership positions – and without addressing the needs of the working-class, that won’t be possible.
There are groups building commons in various sectors of the economy in Stroud. But we want to contribute to the movement more broadly, so are hosting a Festival of Commoning in September, that we’d love to see you at.
Notes
0. See https://www.regenerationjournal.org/michel-bauwens-on-cosmo-localism/ and also see Wolfgang Sachs on cosmopolitan localism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_localism
1. Research from Aston, Keele and Exeter Universities revealed that about 85% of participants in XR’s 2019 London protests held a degree, and two-thirds identified as middle-class.
2. This makes for very bad press for social and environmental causes.
3. Jeff Schmidt’s Disciplined Minds (2000) critiques how professional training instils ideological conformity, particularly among middle-class professionals, who may unconsciously reinforce mainstream political and economic structures rather than challenge them fundamentally.
4. Research indicates that volunteering within social movements is predominantly undertaken by individuals from middle-class backgrounds.
5. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) found that people in deprived areas face significant financial and health-related obstacles to volunteering.
This article was first commissioned for jembendell.com.
