Making New Worlds Possible: A report from the Occupy Wall Street forum on the commons

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from OnTheCommons.org:



Making New Worlds Possible
A report from the Occupy Wall Street forum on the commons

By Alexa Bradley


I am just back from Making Worlds, an Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Forum on the Commons consisting of workshops, presentations and discussions last Thursday through Sunday that explored the intersections of the Occupy movement and growing efforts around the world to reclaim and reinvent our commons.

If ever two emerging movements had synergy and much to offer each other, it is these two. Both the commons movement and Occupy spring from a shared sense of urgency about need for a different path toward the future, given the widespread human suffering and ecological destruction caused by the dominant economic system. The commons movement brings working models for shared resource governance. Occupy represents a a highly energetic mass movement that is determined to redefine the politics and possibilities of our times.

As the Occupy movement considers how to expand the influence and energy of last fall’s uprising into the next wave of work, it is looking at strategies for social transformation that combine a commitment to deep democracy, equitable economics, life-sustaining interdependence with the natural worldand a liberatory remaking of social relationships. It is not surprising then that the commons, as both a worldview and practical approach for sharing resources, would provide fertile ground for strategies and solutions..

Some 100 people participated in the Forum—both long time commons proponents and others new to the ideas, people from New York and around the world, all engaging in rich and thoughtful conversation. The group was hungry to look at how the commons might offer new ways of reclaiming or creating shared resources and deeper community links, allowing us to “embody the vision of the society we want to create,” as Sylvia Federici, an activist and teacher at Hofstra University, put it. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/making-new-worlds-possible

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