Commons

Yearbook

    Cooperativism and Self-management in Italy
  • The discussion and the movement underway around the issue of the commons – common goods is the term used in Italy – benefits from knowing something of its prehistory. This is particularly true for our country. Indeed, if in Italy, too, the organisational model of the left was based on the primacy of...
    The Commons and Global Sustainable Information Society (GSIS)
  • The age of global challenges The information age is the age of the societies into which industrialised societies are transforming, as seen in the spread of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), just as the industrial age is the age of the societies into which agricultural...
    Mutualism Between Tradition and Modernity [1]
  • One of the most important trade-union and political leaders of the Italian labour movement, Vittorio Foa (1910-2008), explained the reason for his study on the birth of the labour movement, both Italian and European, at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century by ‘the need for a calm and objective...
    The Common: An Essay on the 21st-Century Revolution
  • Our point of departure is that the common is a principle of political activity constituted by the specific activity of deliberation, judgement, decision, and the implementation of decisions. However, this and the fuller definition we present at the beginning of our book1 does not claim to be...
    Towards a Society of the Commons[1]
  • The re-emergence of the commons For much of the history of industrial and post-industrial capitalism, political conflict has been between state and market, the issue being whether to use state mechanisms for the regulation of the excesses of market players and for redistribution or, conversely, to...
    Twofold Transformation: Strategic Challenges for the Left
  • The origins of transformation: The Great French Revolution and the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights All of us, whether we are we are politically on the left or the right, act in the light cast by the Great French Revolution of 1789. All concepts we employ the world over, including those of...
    A political vision for the Commons*
  • The concept of common good has been increasingly present in class struggles. Could this reference to the concept of ‘the Commons’ lay the groundwork for a political project that surpasses ownership? One could think so given the many discussion seminars currently taking place on the subject. The...

Focus

    Unconditional Basic Income. To Each According to Her or His Basic Needs
  • Basic income is not just one financial measure among many but a social, economic and civic financial amount which has a far-reaching multiplier effect in many areas of life. Basic income is a profound civilizational change on par with the introduction of universal suffrage or universal health care. Read an analysis of its key aspects.
    Commons and Conflict
  • From the World Bank, transnational companies to the European Union – today, everyone is speaking about commons and commoning, and everyone wants to build the commons. We have to be very clear about what the commons are. Or at least what they are structurally.
    The Right to the City. Urban Commons and Sustainable Cities
  • Due to the local character of most Commons initiatives it’s obvious that cities are preferred places. From social housing to urban gardening to digital citizenship to public cultural spaces to educational initiatives to healthcare-centres to direct farmers-consumers-cooperatives to workers’...

Blog

    Financialisation of Water and All of Nature: The Inacceptable Piracy of Life
  • Over the last three decades, money and finance, as well as power and war, have extended their grip on life. This expansion was facilitated in part by technology — new biotechnologies and artificial intelligence — but also by highly financialised market economies and their underlying principles of conquest and exploitation.
    Speaking of Basic Income: Four Notions of Labour in Marx
  • My main topic concerns the theoretical questions involved here which are emanating of Friedrich Engels famous essay The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, in which he basically demonstrates how labour became the principal condition of human existence. In a simplistic...
    The First "res publica" of Humanity?
  • The UN General Assembly has convened a Special Session on the Covid-19 pandemic at the level of Heads of State and Government on 3 and 4 December next. It took more than a year of discussions to overcome the opposition of certain states, notably the United States of former President Donald Trump.
    Reclaim the Urban Space!
  • The Research Institute PROMITHEAS organized with the suppport of transform! europe an event with alternative, non-commercial activities for the local community, the family and its citizens of Nicosia who, through their presence reclaimed - albeit temporarily - the old GSP stadium as a "Common" space for all.
    Resume of the Water Project 2018
  • transform! europe supports the Water Project, organised by the Fundació l'Alternativa, to contribute through debate and reflection to the democratic impulse of decision-making in the management of water by the municipalities, promoting sustainable territorial planning, making use of green energies and proposing new forms of management of commons.
    The Concept of ‘The Common’
  • For some years, transform! europe is promoting a research project, networking and exchange of experiences on common goods and proposing a discussion on the political level. A working group meeting was held at the summer uni of EL and transform! in Vienna. Read the result of the discussion, which, hopefully, can open a wider debate and participation
    ‘Reinventing Law for the Commons’
  • Nicos Poulantzas Institute in cooperation with transform! europe organized an open lecture of David Bollier, researcher, activist and writer of a series of books concerning Commons. Find here the short report of the event on 14 February.
    Copyright versus Community
  • As a continuation of NPI’s research work on ‘commons’, an open event was organized in Athens on 11 April in cooperation with transform! europe. The speech was given by Dr. Richard Stallman under the title ‘Copyright vs. Community’.
    Production and Commons Workshop
  • Activists and social researchers from across Europe discussed concrete ways to overcome the capitalist organization of production through commoning and factory workers’ self-management.
    Socialization and Commons in Europe: How to Build an Alternative?
  • What does the notion of commons mean? Can it bring about the unity of struggles as diverse – in appearance – as those for free water, for the safeguarding of public services, against tuition fees, for workers’ self-management initiatives, against huge construction projects, for the migrants’ right to stay in their country of residence or against privatization of public squares?
    Promoting the social commons
  • Sustaining the planet, preparing the future, building another world … this daunting task for current generations is also a promising manifestation of care for the future of humankind and of nature.

Publication

    Democratic Control for Access to Land
  • The Catalan member organization of transform! europe, Fundació l'Alternativa has released a guide for Municipalities on democratic control for access to land.
    Right to Water
  • Defending water as life's most important resource is becoming an increasingly important topic across Europe and the world. The pressures of private interests threaten the availability of drinking water and thus problematize the concept of water as a public good. The struggle for water is becoming more real in Serbia as well.
    Socialisation and Commons in Europe
  • We present our first transform! eBook, which deals with the promising topic of the Commons. It is a reiteration of the essential discussions held during a European seminar in Paris in November 2014. You can download the eBook in EPUB (for eBook readers) and PDF format (for printing and everything else) on the right.

Calendar

    The Other Agenda
  • On the Occasion of the Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the countries belonging to the G20.
    The Other Agenda. Knowledge and Life
  • Two webinars organised by transform! italia on the theme of building an Other World Agenda, in the face of the indisputable failure of the market capitalist system based on the private appropriation of knowledge (and of life), e.g. patents on seeds, on medicines, on artificial intelligence, privatization of all common goods essential for life.
    Basic Income: "Freedom to Choose!"
  • The BIEN (Basic Income European Network) organises this series of events, aiming at achieving a coordinated global effort with a presence in many countries all over the world.
    Copyright Against Community
  • Nicos Poulantzas Institute and transform! europe are co-hosting the event on 11 April with Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), as keynote speaker.

Webinars