THE EMERGENCE of a COMMONS-BASED ECONOMY, May 7th - 18th 2012, London

Tue Apr 24 16:52:33 BST 2012

http://www.schoolofcommoning.com/content/what-role-commons-economy

THE EMERGENCE of a COMMONS-BASED ECONOMY 

May 7th - 18th 2012, London
You are invited to this intensive social innovation project of 12 
interrelated seminars in 12 days involving leading NGOs and thinks 
tanks. This series will foster an educational and research collaboration 
for facilitating transition to a more equitable world. It will 
demonstrate how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground.

You can participate in one or more of these seminars. Here you can find 
the overview of the whole seminar series and see how they all link 
together. They will be led by James Quilligan is a globally renowned 
commons theorist/activist.

The organisations convening those event include: Finance Innovation Lab, 
Westminster Hub, St. James Piccadilly, Institute for Public Policy 
Research, New Economoics Foundation, Civil Society Forum, and School of 
Commoning.  The kick-off seminar will be hosted in the House of Commons. 
Starting from many different points of engaged intellectual and social 
concern, research and practice, the various seminars will explore the 
understanding of the Commons as perceived from each seminar’s 
perspective. Together, they represent an emergent curriculum of 
theoretically grounded and action-oriented studies in the key economic, 
political, and social issues of the Commons.

In these seminars we will examine together such questions as:

     Economically, what steps are needed to adjust the rules of the 
present interest-driven, debt-based economy to the sustainable targets 
of our natural, social and cultural commons?

     Politically, how can the philosophy of individual wealth 
(ownership, division of labor, reciprocity) be reconciled with the 
interests of collective wealth (trusteeship, the unity of producers and 
consumers, complementarity)?

     Socially, would it be possible for people's trusts to create 
sustainable limits to protect our commons for future generations, then 
rent the remaining resources to business for production and 
distribution, and provide these revenues to government for the funding 
of social dividends and the restoration of the depleted commons?

The vital and complex questions introduced in these seminars do not have 
easy answers. The investigation into how the “commons” may connect and 
synergise the economic, social, philosophical, spiritual, and political 
spheres, and facilitate the great transition to an equitable and 
sustainable world, is an ongoing challenge.

James Bernard Quilligan has been an analyst and administrator in the 
field of international development since 1975. He has served as policy 
advisor and writer for many international politicians and leaders, 
including Pierre Trudeau, François Mitterand, Edward Heath, Julius 
Nyerere, Olof Palme, Willy Brandt, Jimmy Carter and HRH Prince El Hassan 
of Jordan. He  has also been an economic consultant for agencies in more 
than 30 countries. Quilligan is a co-founder of Global Commons Trust, 
where he is working with colleagues to develop a Secretariat to provide 
research, support and publicity for a new international commission on 
the global commons. He has also launched a lobbying effort, Commons 
Action for the United Nations (CAUN), which has been successful in 
introducing the concepts of the commons into UN discussions and 
documents. Over the past several years, Quilligan has published a series 
of groundbreaking articles on the global commons in Kosmos Journal.

Getting invited and involved

If you want to receive updates and/or secure your place in one of the 
seminars (first come, first served), then please say so in your message 
to Anna Betz. See her email address below.
If you want to get involved and become part of this project of epic 
potential, whilst learning with a dynamic team of commons educators, 
then find out more about the volunteering and interning possibilities here.

Hosting and Coordination Team

Anna Betz, School of Commoning, anna(at)SchoolofCommoning(dot)com
Peter Challen, Christian Council for Monetary Justice, 
peterchallen(at)gmail(dot)com
George Pór, School of Commoning, george(at)SchoolofCommoning(dot)com

We give thanks to the funders of the 'Commons Economy Rising in 2012' 
crowdfunding campaign

Special thank you to Stephanie Shorter, Shareable Magazine and Helene 
Finidori for their generous support of the campaign.