Community Wealth Building: what works, and what are the constraints to it working where you are?

I'm struggling to keep up with the "Quiet Revolution" that is taking place, but understand that Preston is at the vanguard of that revolution.

Can't recall where I got that snippet of info from and will endeavour to follow a few of your links ... but hope I'm right and that you'll gain a following ...👍

Really helpful links have you engaged with the Well-being Economic Alliance?

Preston model seems a groundbreaking development in community wealth building, driven by local council. Are there any limits to how the council work in relation to the individual, neighbourhood and social entrepreneurship initiatives springing up in the community?

It feels as if a partnership needs to be developed between what is grown by the council and what starts elsewhere, more independently. Michel Bauwen's concept of the 'partner state' with the state in service to the autonomous commoning of the people is one vision of that. Any thoughts?

Interesting! I had a look at the 'partner state' concept, and it resonates with the recent article I discussed with a few friends. This journal article "Degrowth and State" is written by Giacomo D'Alisaa and Giorgos Kallis. The analysis of Gramsci's theory of the integral state is very interesting in that article. (Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was an Italian intellectual and communist politician). Giacomo and Giorgos analyze Gramschi's argument :

"What grassroots practices often do is construct a counter-hegemony that reorders common-senses – the fate of this counter-hegemony depends on its ability to occupy the political sphere and use the collective force of the state to spread the new common senses in different sphere of the society, transforming the current institutions and (re)producing new ones."

According to the analysis, a collective force of state can bring forward pockets of alternative ways of organizing the society within the existing system. These are eco-villages, self-sufficient communities, mutual credit/time-banks, as well as many more "alternative ways of organizing economy" that are already present in the current system.

These alternatives act as "windows for a better life" (compared to the neoliberal growth economy and "cheap nature, cheap labor" exploiting nature and people for wealth creation and accumulation - however alone, without the state and policies opening space and releasing resources in support of the new practices, values and common senses alternative economies convey, these "alternatives" will not reach a scale in transforming the society.

Note that according to Gramsci's theory, the definition of "integral state" includes a civil society besides the state institutions. According to Gramsci "civil society and political society are not separate – they are organically in interpenetrated and mutually reinforcing".

So perhaps following the idea of 'partner state' and thinking about the role of the state in the transformation for a wellbeing economy and community wealth the question that comes to my mind is: Can we use the state to spread "the new common senses" created by "alternatives" in different spheres of the society?

Hi Katja..that is more or less the position of the progressive Left. If you go to a platform like Compass they are huge fans of Gramsci and have developed a concept called 45degrees politics which tries to make a relationship between the grassroots - horizontal - and political parties - vertical axes. The difficulty is that the vertical has much more power than the horizontal and is also quite dysfunctional. So the grassroots never takes off, waiting for the state to empower them - which, so far, it hasn't been able to.

However, if you look at commoning movements and Michel Bauwens' (and our) idea of partner state, it suggests that the grassroots, community groups build more autonomous bases of organisation and economy (CANs) so that they can better shape the relationship with the state on their terms. In some cases, CANs might stand independent candidates to take over the local council, Flatpack Democracy style.

Hi Indra, thank you for the clarification on the difference between these two concepts is now more clear to me. Would democratic innovations such as popular assemblies (participatory budgeting), mini-publics/citizen’s assemblies, direct legislation and e-democracy be in line with the 'partner state' concept? Or would it be up to CAN’s to define their terms, rather than waiting the state to create opportunities for deliberative governance and democratic participation?