This is a
remarkable and inspiring movement in Spain, now involving hundreds of people in
what I regard as an example of The Simpler Way transition strategy … which is
primarily about going underneath the conventional economy to build our own new
collective economy to meet community needs, turning our backs on and
deliberately undermining and eventually replacing both the capitalist system
and control by the state.
The context
It is now
abundantly clear that a just and sustainable world cannot be achieved unless
consumer-capitalist society is basically scrapped. It involves levels of
resource use and environmental impact that are already grossly unsustainable,
yet growth is the supreme goal. The basic form the alternative must take is not
difficult to imagine. (For the detail see TSW: Summary Case.) The essential
concept must be mostly small, highly self-sufficient and self-governing
communities in which we can live frugally but well putting local resources
directly into producing to meet local needs … without allowing market forces or
the profit motive or the global economy to determine what happens.
Unfortunately
even many green and left people do not grasp the magnitude of the De-growth
that is required. We will probably have to go down to around 10% of the present
rich world per capita levels of resource use. This can only be done in the kind
of settlements and systems we refer to as The Simpler Way. Most of the alarming
global problems now threatening our survival, especially ecological damage,
resource depletion, conflict over resources and markets, and deteriorating
social cohesion, cannot be solved unless we achieve a global transition to a
general settlement pattern of this kind.
For some time
the Eco-village and Transition Towns movements have been developing elements of
the alternative we need to build, and there are impressive radically
alternative development initiatives in the Third World, notably the Zapatistas
and the Kurdish PKK. But the Catalan Integral Cooperative provides us with an
inspiring demonstration of what can be done and what we need to take up.
The CIC response
Although only
begun in 2010 the cooperative now involves many hundreds of people and many productive
ventures, 400 of them involving growing or making things. Although there are
far more things going on than those within the CIC its annual budget is now
$480,000! (More on the scale later.)
It is not
just about enabling people to collectively provide many things for themselves
underneath and despite the market system — it is explicitly, deliberately,
about the long term goal of replacing both capitalism and control by the state.
These people have not waited for the government to save them, they are taking
control over their own fate, setting up their own productive arrangements, food
supply systems, warehouses and shops, basic income schemes, information and
education functions, legal and tax advice, technical R and D, and even an
investment bank. Best of all is the collectivist world view and spirit, the
determination to prevent the market and profit from driving the economy and to
establish cooperative arrangements that benefit all people, not just co-op
members. The explicit intention is to develop systems which in time will “ …
overcome the state and the capitalist system.” In other words the orientation
differs fundamentally from the typical “socialist” assumption that the state
has to run things.
We are in an
era in which the conventional economy will increasingly fail to provide for
people. What we urgently need are examples where “ordinary” people, not
officials or governments, just start getting together to set set up the
arrangements that gear the productive capacity they have around them to meeting
their collective needs. The remarkable CIC shows that people everywhere could
do this, especially in the many regions Neoliberalism has condemned to poverty,
stagnation and “austerity”.
Stated principles and practices
Note that
this not just a wish list of future goals or ideals, it is mostly a list of the
aims and values guiding practices that have already been implemented.
Concern for
social justice, equity, diversity, mutual support, cooperation, inclusion and
solidarity, and for the common good.
Social
transformation here and now, informed by utopianism.
Focusing on
transformation of the whole of society, not just on securing benefits for
members of the participating cooperatives.
Applying
resources directly to meeting the needs of people in the region, as distinct
from enabling prosperity for individuals or co-op members, or stimulating
economic growth.
People
contribute according to their capacity to do so.
Getting rid
of materialism. Aiming at satisfaction with “non-material living standards”.
Sufficiency. “Not seeking accumulation as an end.”
…and above
all, getting rid of capitalism. Dafermos (2017) says, “The main objective of
the CIC is nothing less than to build an alternative economy in Catalonia
capable of satisfying the needs of the local community more effectively than
the existing system, thereby creating the conditions for the transition to a
post-capitalist mode of organization of social and economic life.” The long
term objective is “ … to be an organizational platform for the development of a
self-sufficient economy that is autonomous from the State and the capitalist
market.”
The CIC is
not a central agency running everything; it is an umbrella organisation
facilitating, supporting and advising re the activities of many and varied
cooperatives. Thus it is not like typical cooperatives wherein members focus on
a single mutual interest, and work only for the benefit of members.
It is
important to recognise the significance of the concept ”integral”. The word
“integral” refers to the concern with, “ … the radical transformation of all
facets of social and economic life.” That is, they are out to eventually bring
about comprehensive social revolution. Simpler Way thinking about settlement
design emphasises integration, i.e., the way interconnections between functions
that small scale makes possible enables synergism and huge reductions in
resource use. For instance backyard and cooperative poultry production enables
“wastes” to go straight to gardens, imperfect fruit to be used, chickens to
clean up garden beds, and elimination of almost all energy intensive inputs
such as fertilizer, trucking and super-marketing.
The CIC is
establishing projects which benefit all people in the region whether or not
they are members of the CIC or associated cooperatives. “Unlike most
cooperatives, the CIC develops structures and tools which are not reserved just
for its members, but are accessible to everyone.” For instance non-members can
use the arrangements that have been set up for providing legal advice, they can
use the technologies developed, and they can use the new local currency. There
are about six hundred people who are not in cooperatives but are self-employed
and are able to use the services the CIC has created. Similarly the machines
and agricultural tools developed for small scale producers are “…freely
reproducible”, i.e., their design information is available to all free, giving
anyone the ability to build them on their own and customize them according to
their needs.
Thus the
concern is to prevent goods being treated as commodities produced to make a
profit, but to see them as things that are produced to meet needs; “… basic
needs like food and health care are not commodities but social goods everyone
has access to.”
To be part of
the CIC cooperative projects need to practise consensus decision making and to
follow certain basic principles including transparency and sustainability. Once
the assembly embraces a new project it enjoys legal and other provisions and
its income is managed via the CIC accounting office, where a portion goes
toward funding the shared infrastructure.
The huge
significance of all this could be easily overlooked. In a world where capital,
profit and market forces dump large numbers into “exclusion” and poverty, and
governments will not deal properly with the resulting problems, these people
have decided to do the job themselves. They are literally building an alternative
society, not just organising the provision of basic goods and services, but
moving into providing free public services like health and transport. Note
again the noble and radically subversive world view and values here; people are
working to meet the needs of their community, driven not by self-interest or
profit but by the desire to build good social systems. This ridicules the
dominant capitalist ideology that is conventional economic theory!
The Scale
Many people
in different groups participate in varying degrees. There are about six hundred
self-employed members, mostly independent professionals and small producers,
who use the legal and economic services made available by the cooperative, such
as insurance at less than the normal rate in Spain. There are more than 2,500
who use the LETS system. Many are involved in the Catalan Supply Center (CAC),
which is the CIC committee coordinating the transportation and delivery of food
and other items from the producers to the “pantries”, i.e., distribution
points. In addition there are several co-ops associated with the CIC.
The
headquarters of the CIC is in their 1,400 square metre building, which includes
space for a library and for rent. The “eco-network” has 2,634 members. The
scale and numbers are also indicated by the food distribution system described
below.
Economics
As noted
above the project involves creating an economic system which contradicts and
rejects the mainstream economy. It is an economy that is not driven by profit,
self interest or what will maximise the wealth of those with capital to invest.
There is social control over their economy, that is, there are collective
decisions and planning in order to set up systems to meet community needs.
People work to build and run good systems, not to get rich.
Non-monetary
forms of exchange are encouraged, including free goods and services, barter,
direct connections between producers and consumers, and mutual giving. The CIC
regulates the estimation of fair prices, and informs producers of consumers’
needs.
There is a
LETS-type currency, the ECO, which cannot be converted into euros, and cannot
be invested or yield interest. About 2,600 people have accounts. Anyone can see
the balance in another’s account. “The currency is not just a medium of
exchange; it’s a measure of the CIC’s independence from capitalism.” There is a
“Social Currency Monitoring Commission whose job it is to contact members not
making many transactions and to help them figure out how they can meet more of
their needs using the currency.”
The CIC’s
financial operations do not involve any interest payments. No interest is paid
on loans made by the cooperative. In this radically subversive economy finance
is about enabling the creation of socially-necessary production, not providing
lucrative profits to the rich few who have capital to lend. (The US finance
industry was recently making about 40% of all corporate income.) The committee
entitled ‘Cooperative of Social and Network Self-financing’ deals with savings,
donations and project funding in order to “ … finance self-managed individual
or collective projects aiming at the common good”. It has 155 members.
Contributions to this agency earn no interest, so “… it is truly remarkable
that the total amount of deposits made in the last four years exceeds
€250.000.”
It is
especially noteworthy that emphasis is put on the sustainability of activities,
Permaculture, localism, and De-growth. National and global systems are avoided
as much as possible and local arrangements are set up. As advocates of the
Simpler Way emphasise, unless rich world per capita levels of resource use can
be cut enormously sustainability cannot be achieved, and this requires local
economies and happy acceptance of frugal lifestyles. Frugality is an explicit
goal of the CIC.
The creation
of commons is of central importance. There is “Collective ownership of
resources to generate common goods.” That is, they seek to develop common
properties for the benefit of whole communities. Some lands have been purchased
by cooperatives, and some donated by individuals. Included in the category of
commons are non-material “assets” such as the LETS system, the software for
accounting purposes, and other services made available. Each of these is
managed by a committee. “We promote forms of communal property and of
cooperative property as formulas that … enhance … self-management and
self-organization …” Again the intent is to develop systems run entirely by
citizens and that do not involve either capitalism or the state.
One
participant says, “I cultivate a garden and I hardly buy any food in euros: I
acquire everything I need in the eco-network and through the CIC with the ecos
I earn by selling my vegetables.” Fairs and market days are organised. “Going
to the markets and the fairs is like recreation, it’s meeting up with friends
and family in a spiritual sense.”
Note again
the remarkable anti-capitalist element that loans are extended to assist the
establishment of new ventures enabling people to begin producing … but no
interest is charged. (Kennedy, 1995, estimated that in the normal economy
interest charges make up 40% of all prices paid.) Another radical element is
the refusal to regard things like food as commodities, that is to be produced
and sold to make a profit. In seeing the point of economics as producing to
meet needs they are contradicting a central taken-for granted premise of the
conventional mentality.
Income
The CIC has
two main expenses: the ‘basic income’ paid to the members of its committees and
the funding it provides for projects. It pays half of these expenses with fees
levied on the 600 member individuals, firms and co-ops (e.g., E25/month from
the self employed businesses). Most of the remaining 50% of income comes from
tax refunds the CIC’s legal people are able to engineer. In addition donations
are received.
“Shops”: The distribution outlets
Many goods
are distributed through the “Catalan Supply Centre”, one of the most active CIC
committees. It is a network for the transportation and delivery of the products
of many small producers across the entire Catalonia region. These are brought
to “… the self-managed pantries that the CIC has set up all over Catalonia –
twenty of them … Each one of them is run autonomously by a local consumer group
that wishes to have access to local products as well as products made (by
producers associated with the CIC) in other parts of Catalonia. “This system
cuts out middlemen, reducing costs. The CIC currently lists more than a
thousand products. “The Supply Centre provides the markets throughout the
region with about 4,500 pounds of goods each month, most of which come from the
cooperative’s farmers and producers.”
“Of all the
initiatives, by far the most successful is the one focused on food.”
Again note
the scale of operations.
The technology R and D committee
There is a
technology committee responsible for the development of tools and machines
adapted to the needs of member producers. They often find that devices on sale
are not appropriate for the needs of small scale or commons-oriented projects.
They develop machines mostly for agriculture and small firms. These devices,
“…exemplify the principles of open design, appropriate technology and the
integral revolution – geared to the needs of small cooperative projects.” This
committee also organizes training workshops to share knowledge. The agency
occupies a 4,000 square metre site, and no longer needs financial assistance
from the CIC.
Example projects
Dafermos
sketches several of the settlements and projects whereby people are coming
together to set up arrangements to enable communities to apply their productive
capacities to providing a wide range of things for each other.
For instance
the Calafou village of twenty-two people has a housing cooperative managing
twenty-seven small houses. Tenants pay €175 per month for each house. The aim
is to become “… a collectivist model for living and organizing the productive
activities of a small self-managed community.” It has “ … a multitude of
productive activities and community infrastructures, including a carpentry, a
mechanical workshop, a botanical garden, a community kitchen, a biolab, a
hacklab, a soap production lab, a professional music studio, a guest-house for
visitors, a social centre …, as well as a plethora of other productive
projects.” There is a general assembly each Sunday, operating on the consensus
principle.
Members of
the AureaSocial cooperative can choose to live in an affiliated block of
apartments in Barcelona or at a farming commune with teepees, yurts and horses,
where residents organize themselves into “families”.
Macus is a
group occupying a 600 square metre space hosting a close-knit group of modern
as well as traditional craft producers of wooden furniture, clothes and herbal
medicine, photography, sculpture and digital music, as well as fixing bicycles
and repairing home electronics.
Government
Their form of
government is a direct deliberative, participatory democracy involving
decentralization, self-management, voluntary committees, “town assemblies” …
and no bureaucracy and no top-down ruling or domination. Note that “direct”
means more than “participatory”; all individual members meet to make (or
ratify) the decisions. “Each cooperative project, working commission,
eco-network or local group makes its own decisions.” Committees and fortnightly
general assemblies work out mutually agreed solutions, decisions are not handed
down by executives, CEOs or political parties.
In all
meetings the goal is consensus decision making; there is no voting. “ In case
of a predicament, the proposal is reformulated until the consensus is reached,
thus eliminating the minorities and the majorities. All previous agreements are
revocable.” “…the quality of the agreements is a great success, and there
hasn’t been any major decision-making conflict in all these years.”
All issues are
handled at the lowest level possible, as distinct from being taken by higher or
central agencies. This is the basic Anarchist principle of “subsidiarity.”
There are
about a dozen main committees, including Reception to handle inquiries from
groups wishing to join, an Economic Management Committee, a Legal Committee, an
IT Committee, and one managing Common Spaces. The Productive Projects Committee
facilitates ‘self-employment’ and the exchange of knowledge and skills and
helps job seekers to match their skills to jobs, using an online directory of
self-managed and cooperative projects in Catalonia. That is, they have set up
their own employment agency, independent of the state, and its focus is on
helping people to find opportunities to get into socially useful productive
activity.
“CIC
committee members receive a kind of salary from the cooperative, known as
‘basic income’, which has the purpose of freeing them from having to work
somewhere else, thus allowing them to commit themselves full-time to their work
at the CIC.”
Creating public services
No aspect is
more remarkable than the concern to set up public services. The intention is “…
to displace the centrally-managed state apparatus of public services with a
truly cooperative model for organizing the provision of social goods such as
health, food, education, energy, housing and transport.” The legal services,
the technology contribution and the currency are also in this category. Again
these are projects that are not designed by or for the members of specific
cooperatives; they are services for the benefit of people in general.
One of these
service operations, organized by the “Productive Projects Committee” is the
employment facilitation agency mentioned above. It helps people to become
“self-employed, and to share knowledge and skills enabling people to increase
their earning capacity.” It makes it possible for “ … job seekers to match
their skills to jobs posted by productive projects associated with the CIC …”
There is “…. an online directory of self-managed and cooperative projects in
Catalonia…” in which people can function using the ECO currency. Thus this
committee assists people who are unemployed, without many skills and likely to
be poor, to find some socially useful activity they can take up in order to
earn an income. “…anyone has some abilities that they can offer to people and
with that acquire what they need.”
The
activities of the above mentioned supply centre constitute another public
service. It enables small producers to sell their produce and many to buy what
they need, without having to earn normal money.
This public
service providing realm is only developing slowly, which Dafermos thinks is
because Spain’s service sector is relatively satisfactory.
Problems, questions, doubts?
It is
important to look for problems and faults in alternative initiatives because we
urgently need to clarify what the best options are. Although I have little
information apart from the Dafermos report, I am not aware of any serious
problems or criticisms that might detract from its potential. However,
following are some of the concerns I have come across.
Does the
underlying “theory of transition” lack depth? Does the rationale derive from a
comprehensive global analysis of the many alarming and terminal problems
consumer-capitalism is generating, (including environmental destruction, Third
World poverty, resource wars…) and is the CIC seen as the solution to them all
(… I firmly believe it is the beginning of the solution.) The Simpler Way
analysis of our situation includes detailed argument on the global scene; does
the CIC vision extend far enough beyond setting up coops?
This involves
the question of long term strategy for getting rid of capitalism. This question
is studiously ignored by the Transition Towns movement …at least my attempts to
get them to deal with it have failed. Their strategy is just do something,
anything alternative in your town and eventually it will all add up to the
existence of a beautiful, sustainable and just world. The red left rightly
scathes at this; they want to know how precisely are your community gardens and
clothing swaps going to lead to us taking state power and eliminating the
capitalist class? Simpler Way analysis has an answer to this question; whether
it’s satisfactory is another issue. It could be that CIC people also have an
answer but if so it’s important that they should make it clear to us.
This leads to
the need for a manual. One would hope that we can all soon benefit from a
document designed to assist us to set up similar projects, especially
suggesting mistakes to avoid.
Some people
believe the CIC was established using funds acquired via questionable financial
activities. I am not able to pronounce on this but I think it is irrelevant.
What I want to focus on is the fact that the CIC now seems to be an extremely
effective movement and model, one that I think could be followed with little or
no funds, and that I can see no reason why it cannot thrive in the wreckage
neoliberalism has wrought.
There is
however an associated issue that I think requires careful thought, i.e., the
role and nature of alternative currencies. The CIC uses a basic LETS system and
this seems to me to be the ideal. However much effort is going into
establishing another system, “FairCoin”, intended to enable new alternative
economies. I am uneasy about this; it seems complex, costly to set up, a
“substitution” currency (requiring normal money to purchase), and not easily
capable of enabling the amount of economic activity that would occur in a whole
economy. It seems to be geared to longer distance trade and in the coming world
of intense scarcity and localism we won’t need much of that. It seems similar
to Bitcoin in being a commodity open to speculative investment and price rises.
But a sacred principle on the left is that money, labour and land should not be
commodities. Above all it seems to me to be unnecessary; a kind of LETS will
do.
I am also
uneasy about any focus on currency; I would rather see most attention being
given to getting people to understand the goals and to join the co-ops.
It is not
clear to me the extent to which the success of the CIC has been due to an
initial access to capital. (It is said to be self-funding now.) What we want
are strategies that require little or no money to set up, and I believe these
are available.
Spreading the revolution
Considerable
effort is being put into “spreading the model.” “The members give talks about
eco-networks, the cooperative, and social currency in various parts of the
country. As a result there are seeds of integrated cooperatives in Basque
Country, Madrid and other regions of Spain and France.” In 2017 the Athens
Integral Cooperative began.
It would be
difficult to exaggerate the significance of the CIC achievement. The scale of
its activities and the good that is being done are now huge. But what is most
remarkable is its subversive focus and power, and potential. To repeat, the CIC
is “…an activism for the construction of alternatives to capitalism.” In my
view it is one of the leading initiatives in a movement that constitutes by far
the greatest threat that capitalism has ever confronted. Along with the
Zapatistas, the Kurdish PKK, the Senegalese Eco-villages, and many others it is
demonstrating that there is a marvellous alternative way, that it can be built
by ordinary people, quickly, and without overt conflict or violence (at least
not yet.). It is shredding the taken for granted TINA legitimacy and
inevitability of allowing capital, market forces and profit to determine what
happens to us. Above all it is showing that ordinary people can and must come
together to collectively take control of their own economic and political
situation, without having to depend on capital or the state.
Consider the
implications for Third World development. The conventional view takes it for
granted that “Development” can only mean investment of capital to crank up more
business activity, more production for sale into the global economy in order to
earn money to enable purchasing from it, and to create jobs. It is taken for
granted that profit and the market must drive the process, meaning that it
enriches the already rich and the rest must wait for trickle down…while their
national resources are shipped out to rich world supermarkets. Thus about four
billion are very poor and will remain so for a long time … yet the CIC is
showing how quickly and easily they could implement a totally different model
of development, a different path to different goals, without approval or
assistance from existing state governments. Obviously even a little state
assistance would make a huge difference to what could be done. In Senegal
thousands of villages are moving in the Eco-village direction, assisted by the
government. (St Onge, 2015.)
It is not
surprising that the CIC has originated in the Catalan region. That’s where the
Spanish Anarchists In the 1930’s performed miracles, establishing an entire
economy on worker-cooperative lines. In the Barcelona region containing up to a
million people voluntary committees of citizens ran factories, transport
systems, hospitals, health clinics etc., strenuously rejecting any role for
paid bureaucrats or politicians. The CIC seems to be a text book example of
Anarchism … at least the variety I’m in favour of. Consider again the themes
noted above; citizens coming together to turn their backs on the market system,
the capitalist class and central government, and on any form of top-down rule,
and resolving to govern themselves, setting up arrangements for collective
benefit, using thoroughly direct and participatory processes that do not
involve bureaucrats or politicians of superior authorities, striving for
consensus decisions, subsidiarity and spontaneity, thereby “prefiguring” ways
they want to become the norm in the new society. This is precisely what The
Simper Way vision has been about for decades, and it is the only way the
required revolution can come about.
Consider the
built-in but easily overlooked wisdom. The inclusiveness and empowerment of all
and the prioritising of arrangements that attend to the needs of all generate
community morale, public spirit, enthusiasm and willingness to contribute. Thus
synergism is increased; for instance giving is appreciated and generates
further generosity. Motivation is positive: doing good things like joining a
working bee or giving away surpluses is enjoyable, not a burdensome duty.
Contrast this with present competitive, individualistic, winner-take-all
society which often forces us into situations that do not bring out the best in
us.
The power to
release resources and spiritual energy is also easily overlooked. My study of
an outer Sydney, Australia dormitory suburb (TSW: Remaking Settlements) found
that by reorganising space and use of time the suburb might be able to produce
a high proportion of its own food and other needs, while dramatically reducing
resource and environmental impacts. Consider the fact that if people in the
suburb gave only two hours a week to community working bees, rather to watching
trivia on a screen, the equivalent input of 150 full time council workers would
be going into community gardens etc. And they would be much more happy,
conscientious and productive workers than council employees, and community
familiarity and solidarity would be generated.
And then
there are the consequences for the personal development of citizens. Bookchin
pointed out the profound educational benefits the Ancient Greeks saw when every
individual had the responsibility of participating directly in the process of
government. This means that there is no government up there to do it for us and
we had better take responsibility for thinking carefully, discussing ideas,
considering the good of all, being well informed, …or w might make the wrong
decisions and have to live with the consequences. If we take a long historical
perspective it is evident that accepting being governed, ruled over, represents
an immature stage of political development; we will not have grown up until we
all take part in governing ourselves, in direct and participatory ways.
Also easily
overlooked is the significance of empowerment. Ivan Illich stressed the
passivity and lack of responsibility characteristic of consumer society. Your
role is to obey the rules set by others. If something goes wrong it’s up to
some official or professional to fix it. As I see it the crucial turning point
in the Transition Towns process is the shift from being a passive acceptor of
the system designed and run by unseen others, to seeing it as your system and
if it’s not working well it’s a problem you worry about and want to do
something about. Good citizens have the sense of owning their communities, of
knowing that they share control over what’s going on and willingly sharing
responsibility for making things work well. In other words they feel empowered.
“This is this my town. I’m proud of it. If there’s a problem that’s my/our
problem, let’s get at it.” This seems to be a strongly held orientation among
CIC participants.
All this
clarifies the distinction between Eco-socialist and Eco-Anarchist perspectives.
Both recognise the need to transcend capitalism but the former assumes the
transition must come through the taking of state power and then “leadership” by
the state. But fundamental to Simpler Way analysis is the fact that when the
realities of limits and scarcity are grasped it is clear that the alternative
society must be extremely localised, not centralised, that it cannot be
established or run by the state, and that it can only work satisfactorily if it
is run by communities via participatory means. Although there will always be a
role for some central agencies it will be a relatively minor one as most of the
decisions and administration will (have to) be handled down at the small
community level. Note again that the CIC emphatically rejects the state as a
means for achieving or running the new society.
The Simpler
Way vision of a workable and attractive alternative society (See TSW: The
Alternative) is sometimes criticised as unachievable because it is
unrealistically utopian. The existence of the CIC demolishes that criticism.
Its significance cannot be exaggerated; it and related movements are showing
that the path that has to be taken if we are to get to a sustainable and just
world can easily be taken.
Notes
Kennedy, M.,
(1995), Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an Exchange Medium That
Works for Everybody and Protects the Earth, Seva International.
