From Platform to Open Cooperativism

@miguelnovik I'll skip your complaints, although you can expand on them if you wish, because those are really interesting details. Will come back tomorrow and comment at more length.

(If I wish to escape the limitations of private property that does not mean I don't understand it and don't understand we are in a transitional situation.)

Bob complaints sounds like "somebody else fault".... Please, that is not the idea....
I just describe the difficulties I have had in bringing people together to build a common vision and to implement it.
In my opinion if any "peer to peer common project" can not be replicated (implemented elsewhere), or if it does not really serve others, it means that there is "a failure or error" in the proposal.

Thanks for note it to me....

Sorry, Miguel. I didn't take anything you wrote as being somebody else's fault, just the usual difficulties in communication between people. I'm sorry if I made it seem like a complaint about you. As I wrote above, the project seems good.

when I talk about prices, trading and private property, I feel there is an incomprehension on the part of you.

We have a good friend who works on local business ecosystems. They are composed, for the most part, of conventional small businesses who collaborate to help themselves and their local economies. They all deal with prices, trading, and private property.

I think those efforts are useful and hope to see more of them.

I would help with a project like that if it were around me, locally, in my community. The global projects I work on are trying to get beyond those factors and relationships. It's a transitional stage, I hope to a better economic system, but it could also be a transition to something much worse. So I'm happy with anything that seems like it's going in the better direction.

Bob, please let us talk by whats up or skype... I really would like to understand what do you mean about prices, trading and private property.
+ 972 584881158
[email protected]
Thanks
Miguel

Miguel, I don't do whatsup and skype hasn't been working for me lately. Jitsi or Appear.in has been working. Would either of those work for you? If so, when? I'm in US Central Daylight Time, UTC-5.

But really, I use those words with the common meaning, I have no special meaning. Or do you want to know why I am working globally with projects who are trying to get away from all three of those economic factors? If so, I think I can explain. Might be good practice in bridging the kinds of communication gaps we have talked about in this Loomio group, to try to explain right here and see if other people can help or disagree or suggest style improvements.

Miguel, thanks very much for the detail. I'll read all in the next few days.

And I think I understand the difficulties you run into trying to bridge the discussion between people who are deeply into P2P or left theory, and people you work with on your projects on the ground, say the coop. I'd love to figure out how to do that better myself.

If anyone -- myself, you, Miguel, or anyone -- makes a proposal and is inviting support, or indeed any kind of constructive feedback, I guess we need to explain what it is we are proposing in terms that the other person can understand well enough to respond. That's just a commonly understood starting point. In a forum such as this, the next question in my mind is, how do we go about explaining it?

One general approach is to take a current aspect of common experience, and point out how the proposal is similar, and how different, in practical, concrete terms.

One of the things I find quite difficult is to consciously let go of my own way of conceptualizing things, and approach it from some common ground that I share with my audience. So, what is the common ground you share with the people you are in contact with, Miguel? Explaining that to us will also help us to understand...

I'm then wondering if the challenge with people here is that "the commons" etc. is our common ground, so how do you relate you proposals to our shared concepts and values? Maybe that could be in terms of a journey or path, for which your proposals are one step along the way. And yes, we need those practical steps, just as much as we need to know the paths that step leads along.

Hope my generality is helpful here. As always, please ignore if not ;) Just to say that I haven't yet understood what you are proposing in a way that I could explain simply to anyone else. I'd like to.

Simon:

Thanks a lot For being direct and honest.

I hope I understood you correctly (je je je je) but, believe me I am totally agree with you and I will try to answer….

I know that I can be I confused (even in spanish..je je je ).

You said:
..¨One of the things I find quite difficult is to consciously let go of my own way of conceptualizing things, and approach it from some common ground that I share with my audience. So, what is the common ground you share with the people you are in contact with, Miguel? Explaining that to us will also help us to understand...¨

..I think ¨ you hit the nail…¨. If we want to build a common future vision and/ or to have a fruitful dialogue, we have to ¨let go of my own way of conceptualizing things. (as you said)...

And how do we do this???

In my opinion, with questions. I try to do questions and try to open my door to understand your thought, your vision, your preconceptions….

Please let me know if is there is any other way, but questions, to achieve so….

I will answer your questions, please let me know If I did not understand correctly your questions…

The common ground with the people in my coop are the three values that are in the beshutaf.org: rectitude or righteousness in society, community feelings and reasonable prices. I general every member is willing to give some time to the coop, to care about others and, in some way, we agree that the current economical system is not sustainable at all and we try to buy at the coop as a way of ¨do something ¨.

The common ground with you (in this forum), I think, is that we all would like to live in a common based peer to peer society..(Although we should try to clarify what does it means and try to build a common future vision).

How does it fit the project in ¨our common ground ¨….?..

If we buy products/ services from companies that prove that they implement ¨common peer to peer practices¨, and If we are a big quantity of people that prefer to buy to these kind of companies, we would get a ¨common based peer to peer society ¨.

Or as I explained before:
The main idea of the whole project: ¨ If a good number of people decided to prefer to buy to companies that prove to be ¨Generatives¨ (Marjorie Kelly) , we would have a ¨Generative Society¨.

If everybody want organic products, you will not find other products but organic…

Could some body dispute or question this???

Of course you can say that it very, but very hard to measure which companies are common peer to peer oriented you also can say that most people do not care, you also can say that is very hard that the people get informed about it with out marketing or publicity . etc etc etc, and I think ( I may be wrong) that the project allow to build a way to learn how to measure any value, or practices, any thing about companies and products and to bring them closer (more connected) to the customers (coop members).

I will open a new thread just to reinforce this concept as a possible way to achieve a common- based peer to peer society ..

The project proposal itself I think I explained before (including the attachments). I really do not know how to explain it better. Please send me by email all the phrases that not make sense to you, or even easier if you can build a questions regarding each one…

May the force be with us…. :smiley:

ok. I will load down one of those... or Can I call you to a fix phone (for me is free). Let me know to my email.
It will be ¨¨¨strong¨¨¨ (maybe a little traumatic) to understand how can you to get away from all three of those economic factors.....
...( I want to make them ¨ transparent and honest¨, but I can not even imagine how would be a society with out trading....

We have to talk :smiley:
thanks

While I am waiting to talk to Miguel, I can practice explaining here. I don't think we can get away from all of those factors immediately or all at once or altogether. As I wrote above, we're in a transitional phase in human social-economic-cultural-political development.

Let's deal with price first. You want low prices for food. Farmers would like to make a living. Many people don't have even the low price for cheap food, or the slightly higher prices maybe for better food.

The price mechanism means that human and ecological needs without money don't count. And if all people want is lower and lower prices (called a "race to the bottom" by farmers and workers), the farmers can't make a living. My cousin Leon is a farmer. For many years, Leon needed to drive long-haul trucks to make ends meet.

One working example of getting away from the price mechanism a little is community-supported agriculture. http://www.csacoalition.org/about-csa/

People support a farm financially, usually with yearly subscriptions, and return get regularly deliveries of whatever the farm grows. Sometimes the community even owns the farm, maybe with a community land trust, so they get away somewhat from private property as well. Often community members work on the farm as part of their support.

Money does change hands (from the community to the farmers), and there is a trade of sorts (regular deliveries of food), but it's whatever the farmers can grow. In a bad year, the community takes a risk as well as the farmers.

That's one example of transitional practices. https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/ has a lot more.

Does that make sense? Traumatic?