Where do we go from here?
Graham
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At a meeting the other day of the directors of Platform 6, a conversation began about the role that Platform 6 could adopt in the context of the multiple crises that we all find ourselves in. Right now we're in the midst of a major global health crisis. This is very rapidly becoming a global economic crisis (I saw a headline today talking about 1.5 billion people being put out of work in the short term - which I understand is nearing half of the world's workforce). And of course we are also up to our hips in the climate crisis. Crisis is the new normal.
So how can we respond most effectively in this context? @Austen Cordasco – one of my fellow directors, talked about the collapse of our civilisation, and, in the context of the Roman Empire and its collapse, identified the P6 community as the Barbarians.
Clearly there's a major job of work to build a new economy that puts planet and people first rather than last, but what should be our strategy in working towards that aim? Where and how can we focus our energies for maximum impact?
We're really excited by the potential of the new Barefoot Co-op Developer cohort that will emerge over the course of this year, and I'm interested in trying to ensure that P6 does everything it can to help make that more successful and more effective.
So, rather than continue the conversation within the four or five of us that were on the call, we agreed that it would be far more sensible and useful to open the discussion up to our members and fellow travellers. Hence this post.
So, what do you think?
Graham Thu 7 May 2020 9:28AM
Totally agree on behaviours: the key was always about the practice (the doing) of cooperation being how we learn.
Graham Thu 7 May 2020 10:01AM
On umbrellas - and https://www.docservizi.it/en/ is one of my favourites in this arena - I also agree. What' we've seen with the rapid - almost overnight - appearance of local Mutual Aid groups is that they don't need structures, or rules or bank accounts and all that paraphernalia, at least in the short term. Of course these things become hugely useful and valuable as things develop, but what comes first is the urge to meet a need and to cooperate to make that happen. In Platform 6 we've gone some way down this road by becoming an Open Collective host, which enables cooperative projects to get started and begin practicing cooperation without needing a bank account.
Some of the stuff I've done around the idea of "Co-operation as a Service" also stemmed from this umbrella approach: when initiatives start up they very commonly don't think too much about governance or rules and technical stuff like that - they want to get on and meet the defined need, whether that is feeding vulnerable neighbours or building software or making widgets. By offering places and services where these initiatives can flourish without having to be diverted by all the technical stuff of being an organisation, and by creating those places and services such that cooperation is the default from day one then we can encourage and accelerate the processes of practising cooperation.
Shaun Fensom Thu 7 May 2020 10:29AM
@Leo Sammallahti I worry that focusing on member participation in big cooperatives simply leads to member disillusionment. Take the example of the Cooperative Group. Member voting is in hundreds of thousands, but motions are passed with Stalinesque margins, and the relationship to everyday experience of your local Co-op shop is tenuous to say the least.
The Co-op has now “got” this to some extent with its member pioneer programme. Except that “getting” this means they are issuing top-down instructions telling member pioneers to be more bottom up and attempting to organise the community response with the Co-operate app and site https://co-operate.coop.co.uk/ . Tempted to say they should rename it “Co-opterate”
Surely more fruitful is for ‘big cooperation’ to be an enabling framework for small cooperation. I don’t think this is the same as the old ‘think global, act local’ slogan. I think it’s a shift that is driven by digital.
Shaun Fensom Thu 7 May 2020 10:36AM
@Graham That’s really interesting. So, are we really talking about flexing Coase’s ‘boundary of the firm’ in two distinct ways: Cooperation as a Service, or One Big Co-op (like https://www.docservizi.it). Both reduce the effort and friction. Both downplay the importance of the corporate boundary .
Or are they really the same thing?
Graham Thu 7 May 2020 10:39AM
I think they are the same thing.
Shaun Fensom Thu 7 May 2020 10:41AM
I don't :)
Graham Thu 7 May 2020 11:03AM
OK. Perhaps we can describe them as two facets of the same strategy.
Cliff Mills Thu 7 May 2020 12:49PM
You sound like a pair of lawyers
Graham Thu 7 May 2020 1:08PM
That's not good.
Leo Sammallahti · Wed 6 May 2020 2:54PM
Regarding 2), it's probably also important to revitalise the existing big cooperatives. In Finland the biggest bank and the retailer are cooperatives with around 2 million members both. They have contested member representative elections with 16% and 21% voter participation in the biggest branch. If Nationwide Building Society would have 16% voter participation rate in a contested board election, it would mean a democratic exercise with around 2,5 million brits voting. That would demonstrate the cooperative/mutual difference to a lot of ordinary people.