Results from Barcelona 2010 on the topic

Commons and Peer Economy

The following are the results of the GAP at the Degrowth Conference 2010 in Barcelona that are particularly relevant for this working group.

The presents the complete results of those Barcelona working groups with some relations to the current one.

Working Groups from 2010 GAP in Barcelona with some connections:

Property rights

Non-regulation of resources is not a solution. Private property needs to be restricted. This implies further discussion on options and alternatives to private property and its regulation.

In this regard, there is a need to

• Distinguish between manufactured and natural resources.

• Identify indicators to determine the maximum level of property

Degrowth is about halting the commodification of nature. The term private property comprises various aspects. In terms of degrowth, some of these ambits could still remain in the context of private property and these should be defined.

Degrowing in a just way demands democratic management of natural resources (including our own bodies) so the resources should not be commodified.

• Global commons: It is necessary to design jurisdiction according to each global common

• Local commons: It is essential to recognize and integrate communal property rights under national law.

Degrowth in water consumption

• “Reapropiation of commons”: returning to public ownership and management of superficial, groundwater and desalted water at municipal level (if possible) avoiding to consider it as a commodity

• Domestic tariff systems with basic threshold for free lifeline and quota up to a ceiling threshold, established in physical blocks terms and per day per person. Heavy industrial tariff to physical parameters and thresholds

• Labelling Virtual water content (full life cycle) on all products: water points credit card

• Degrowth in water consumption is tightly related to land use planning: non-industrial agroecological approach to agrarian land and food soverignity; stop new irrigation plans and water transfer and big supply infrastructures; stop urban sprawl

• Downscaling to local sources management which enable people's empowerment: public fountains of free drink water as a symbol against fetishism of bottled water; democratic control on economy; living the river and its ecosystems; building a new water culture starting from water as life

• In conclusion, accelerate degrowth and downshift your lifestyle

Cities and degrowth

Key research proposals

• How does the decentralisation of political power in the city relate to bottom-up processes and the degrowth agenda? (address concerns of concentration of power and democracy)

• How does the ‘right to the city’ (Henri Lefebvre) connect to the degrowth agenda? (the right of all urban dwellers to take part in the production of the city, transforming social, political and economic relations in urban spaces)

Key political proposals

• Reshape and reform current cities instead of building (eco)cities and (eco)neighbourhoods from scratch.

• Relocalise urban life with multifunctionality (public space as a commons) in mind

Other research proposals

• Why isn’t there planning by people vs. planning for people? How do you get people to plan for themselves? Barriers, preconditions and counterforces to encourage planning by people (users) and not only for people (consumers)

• How do we degrade the car as an urban transportation mode through taxes?

• How / what is the relationship between ecological urban development and gentrification?

• How to build local social and ecological resilience in cities / bioregions

Other political proposals

• Raise awareness on the need for the shift to degrowth cities

• Develop and implement an ecological degrowth neighbourhood plan using a bottom up process (collectively decide what areas to remove, to recycle to preserve…)

• Scale and distance as planning parameters

• Make initiatives in the city that are already working on paradigm change visible to understand potential of cities as social-political space

Political strategies

Three comprehensive and complementary options:

• Exit strategy: leaving the system, building alternatives

• Voice strategy: political movement and activist, a particular engagement

• Loyalty strategy: change within the political system, assimilation within the political party system, perhaps too early and perhaps against the ideas of degrowth

Further points:

• Need to learn from other local initiatives, some cases were discussed, and the need to be based more in the grassroots and history of movements, have relevance recognize diversity of socio-cultural and political history contexts

• Need to learn to local initiatives to reply in other local contexts or to extract models that can be expanded at the global level. Degrowth is not an entirely new idea, to take root in the 1970´s, is important to learn about mistakes, need to highlight alternatives of the past and look at how they have worked.

• The discussion have emphasis in understand social, technological, political and economics contexts that made differences between now and 70´s. The movements change from our current situation and position at local and global level should not be only one, but would have to be constructed from an understanding of the different cultures and political history context in determining the emphasis on particular political strategies.