Kind: Notes

“Often it is asserted that human nature shows we are intrinsically competitive by those on the right, or intrinsically cooperative by those on the left. Ostrom’s approach was to reject such broad generalisations and her anti-essentialism made her suspicious of unchanging foundations of human behaviour.” — Derek Wall, #Ostrom‘s Rules for Radicals

Important point. To hope that everyone would be naturally predisposed to cooperation is naive.

#ReadingGroup

Labour’s report on Alternative Models of Ownership.  Not yet read it, but it’s exciting that a major political party is giving such thought to cooperative and municipal models of ownership.

To support the expansion of cooperatives in the UK it is necessary to improve their access to finance, and examples from Italy and Spain point in the direction necessary to achieve this. Cooperatives can further be supported by national legislation and a re-worked government procurement policy.

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf

How can we support the transition to a solar/renewable energy infrastructure?

My energy provider (in the UK) is currently one which guarantees buy back of renewables for all energy used.  I don’t have enough money to invest in renewable companies.  What else should I do?  Petition? Protest?  Get involved with local community? What else?

#solar #energy

Had an idea for a cooperatively-run indieweb hosting platform.  We would help set up and / or host WordPress-based indieweb sites.  Preconfigured to interact with both the silos and the fediverse.  For mainly Gen 3/Gen 4 of indieweb, to coincide (/precipitate) the (surely) upcoming exodus from sites like Facebook.

without close attention to how to construct new structures, aspiration is unlikely to be translated into effective workable systems.

I do like how Ostrom’s views could be used as a different tack to organising in socialism. Locally focused but also recognises need for institutional superstructures. However, these made through rules and constitutions of diverse groups, not ideology and party apparatus.

Dunno if it’s reformist or revolutionary tho yet. Probs reformist.
#Ostrom #readinggroup

In politics we pick a side; in contrast, for Ostrom the main emphasis was to participate in creating rules and, in effect, constitutions. — Derek Wall

If I’m understanding Ostrom’s views so far, I’d say the emphasis there is on ‘participate in’, such that rule making is at a local level. Rules and constitutions will vary from region to region (and over time too presumably.)

#Ostrom #readinggroup

Questions raised as to why there is a prevailing whiteness in the workers co-ops movement. One suggestion was that those from black and minority ethnic groups are hesitant to enter a suspiciously white space. A bit of a Catch 22 that needs concerted effort to be overcome. Important to do so though especially given the structural potential for coops to empower.
Interesting point made as to the demonization made of the white working class as being the racists in society, when in fact there is much subtle and potentially more damaging racism perpetrated by the white middle class.