Workshops

The consensus process has become established in many groups and organizations in the social movements and beyond as a form of rule-free decision-making. This usually involves decisions made by manageable groups in the presence of their members. Since consensus building requires the active involvement of all participants or affected parties, the procedure can only be carried out in a "pure form" with up to about 20 participants, if only for reasons of time. For larger groups, special additional methods are needed and, sooner or later, a spokesperson-council system in which the grassroots groups are represented.  

Three-tiered decision-making levels are also conceivable and have been tested in practice:

- Base groups             

- Spokesperson Council_1. Level

- Spokesperson Council 2. Level consisting of representatives of different speaker councils of the 1st level. 

In this way, theoretically up to 8,000 people can be involved in a consensus process.

How this interlocked procedure looks like, what has to be considered and which exemplary experiences are available, will be the focus of the first workshop part.

However, a maximum limit of 8,000 people is not a model for larger communities such as nation states or federal states. Whether and how consensual decision-making is possible and desirable beyond this framework will be discussed in the final exchange of workshop participants.

In the second part of the workshop, the consensus procedure will be tried out in practice - if the number of participants allows it, also with a spokesperson-council model for larger groups. Participation in the first part of the workshop or other knowledge of the consensus model is required. The minimum number of participants is 15.

Let's assume that we live in a society whose members actually renounce all positions of power and violence. A society in which all people participate directly in decision-making processes or could participate, at least if they are directly or indirectly affected by these decisions.

A society characterized by discourses that take place at eye level, regardless of the differences of the participants. Regardless of their gender, their origin, their social background, their professional activity, their religion, their criminal history, their intellectual abilities, their education. And regardless of their expertise and their linguistic-argumentative ability, which of course enabled them to at least put their stamp on individual discourses.

Suppose we lived in such a society. How would we have arrived there? How would we have achieved it?

Certainly not "from above". But probably not "from below" either, starting from the pluralistic and at the same time uncoordinated commitment of individuals.

If such a project is to succeed, it requires the willingness, but also the ability of all members of a society to participate in a discourse free of domination, to help make and support communal decisions, and to engage and commit themselves to change and improvement.

This workshop introduces the method of Philosophical Conversation as an exercise in the basic skills and central attitudes of participatory, open-ended, and community-building dialogue at eye level as practiced with children, youth, and adults. It contributes to successful communication, to the maturity of the individual and to the culture of discourse in a society.

We want to discuss with you why we are not striving for an alternative economy but for a society that organizes re_production without domination.

In order to discuss these questions, we think that it is also necessary to look at the emergence of property, money and economy, about commodity relations and labor in patriarchal cultural history. This includes, for example, the symbiotic emergence of economy, state and military and the very violent processes in which people were subjected to these new, economic relations.

The situationist Jean Pierre Voyer stated that nothing exists as an economic system outside of bourgeois thought and the bourgeois world, and that this economic system has taken the path of self-destruction. The anarchist Luciano Lanza pointed out that "our inability to think away the economy [...] makes clear our inability to annul domination." And Marxist theorists of communization also call for annulling any accounting in the revolutionary process. For this presupposes the separation of patriarchal and capitalist domination, between production and consumption. At the end of the 19th century, anarcho-communism had already drawn corresponding conclusions. Kropotkin outlined basic features of an anarcho-communist society in 'The Conquest of Bread'. For him, this included, among other things, the end of all offsetting, the free distribution of things and 'services', the end of "herd slavery" and exploitation of colonized countries.

Developing such thoughts further, we formulate our own open utopia in Volume 5. Even more than for the other parts of our book project it is true that we see in it suggestions, not a finished, all-sufficient project that everyone only has to follow. In Volume 5, we unfold our ideas for an open utopia in seven main chapters of varying scope:

Domination-Free Economy?

Communism?

Organizing Re_Production without Domination

Building societies free of domination

On the relationship between individual and collective in domination-free societies

Social relations of nature

Emancipatory science, technology and application of technology

We will present some aspects of these and discuss them with you.

Liberation from money and property

... and why this is still not enough

The workshop is based on the content of our book project. Like the free store Bremen, in whose environment it has unfolded since 2010, it is an anarchist project. The basis of it is a relatively comprehensive critique of domination, for which anarch*a-communism, anarch*a-feminism, radical ecology and our practices around free stores and free economy are important building blocks.

Volumes 1 and 2 of the book project, which will be printed in January 2020, are an attempt at a practice-based analysis and radical critique of the LORDly and destructive (i.e. destructive) structures under which we live today. We are all affected by this up to our innermost.

The other volumes will follow as soon as we have enough money to print them.

In volumes 3 and 4 we deal with utopias and often resistant attempts of liberation from money and property from antiquity until today.

In volume 5, we ask about possible ways to overcome what exists and formulate our own open utopia.

The book project has been developed in a long self-organized and unpaid process - from a first workshop at the networking meeting of the free stores in 2010 to the printing. The printed volumes of the book will not be sold, but distributed on a donation basis.

Alternative economic models and visions are often presented as lofty utopias by visionaries, or, occationally, as a set of abstract mathematical equations by economists, or sometimes as a set of contextualised, not generally applicable, case studies by more down to earth activists. Detailed and concrete, but yet generalisable, accounts and descriptions are very rare and usually avoided for different reasons.

In contrast, this presentation is about accounting in a libertarian socialist economy. We will argue that any economy, including a libertarian socialist one, will need to gather, sort and present detailed economic information to facilitate fair and democratic decisions. We will present some of the concrete accounting challenges that inevitably will arise when implementing a new economic system, such as a Participatory Economy, and suggest possible answers.

How can participants in a group communicate authentically with each other without falling into disputes or disregarding emotional sensitivities? How do we achieve constructive dialogue without supervision or a leading person, which can certainly be action-oriented and consensus-building? On the basis of these questions we will deal with the method according to Morgan Scott Peck (1936 - 2005), a US-American psychiatrist, psychotherapist and writer, and get to know the principles of community building. The theoretical considerations of David Bohm (1917 - 1992), a US-American physicist and philosopher, who also dealt with the quality of group conversations, will also be included. In particular, we will consider to what extent these ideas and approaches can be used as a resource for anarchic group building processes as well as communities.

Bernd Drücke: "The organizers of the conference write in the introduction of their concept: 'Neither shall an overview be given of the partly great practical life projects, as they are reflected in housing projects, alternative consumption circles, communes or the organization of a counter-public (to name only a few), nor shall an analysis of these projects take place. Nor is the question of the transition or transformation of current social conditions into a better, more just and humane future to be left aside.'

Well, I would not be an anarchist if I were deterred by such sentences. From my point of view it is the task of intellectuals critical of domination to leave the ivory tower. It is not only a matter of developing theory, but also a practice that strives for exactly that, the 'transition of the current social conditions into a better, more just and more humane future'.

A theory without practice? No thanks. So, this workshop is specifically about anarchism yesterday and today, lived utopias, Project A, anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist theory and practice. My workshop is about self-organized housing projects and communes. An anarchist counter-public sphere will also be outlined, concretely using the example of Graswurzelrevolution, the monthly newspaper for a non-violent, non-rule society, which has functioned as a grassroots-democratically organized mouthpiece for social movements since 1972."

More info: www.youtube.com/watch

Dr. phil. Bernd Drücke is a sociologist, freelance journalist and author. He lives in an alternative housing project in Münster and was the coordinating editor of the monthly newspaper Graswurzelrevolution for over 22 years from 1998. Since January 2021 he has been working in the management team of afas (Archive for Alternative Writing) in Duisburg. His new book "Anarchismus Hoch 4" is expected to be published by Unrast Verlag in October 2021.

Dr. phil. Bernd Drücke ist Soziologe, freier Journalist und Autor. Er lebt in einem alternativen Wohnprojekt in Münster und war ab 1998 über 22 Jahre lang Koordinationsredakteur der Monatszeitung Graswurzelrevolution. Seit Januar 2021 arbeitet er im Leiterteam des afas (Archiv für alternatives Schrifttum) in Duisburg. Voraussichtlich im Oktober 2021 erscheint sein neues Buch „Anarchismus Hoch 4“ im Unrast Verlag.

The consensus process has become established in many groups and organizations in the social movements and beyond as a form of rule-free decision-making. This usually involves decisions made by manageable groups in the presence of their members. Since consensus building requires the active involvement of all participants or affected parties, the procedure can only be carried out in a "pure form" with up to about 20 participants, if only for reasons of time. For larger groups, special additional methods are needed and, sooner or later, a spokesperson-council system in which the grassroots groups are represented.  

Three-tiered decision-making levels are also conceivable and have been tested in practice:

- Base groups             

- Spokesperson Council_1. Level

- Spokesperson Council 2. Level consisting of representatives of different speaker councils of the 1st level. 

In this way, theoretically up to 8,000 people can be involved in a consensus process.

How this interlocked procedure looks like, what has to be considered and which exemplary experiences are available, will be the focus of the first workshop part.

However, a maximum limit of 8,000 people is not a model for larger communities such as nation states or federal states. Whether and how consensual decision-making is possible and desirable beyond this framework will be discussed in the final exchange of workshop participants.

In the second part of the workshop, the consensus procedure will be tried out in practice - if the number of participants allows it, also with a spokesperson-council model for larger groups. Participation in the first part of the workshop or other knowledge of the consensus model is required.  The minimum number of participants is 15.

After 2 years of active environmental movement, what have states done to protect the climate? Why do we need a transformation of the economy and a restructuring of the form of state organization in order to be able to deal with the drastic consequences of the climate crisis? Based on these questions, we will look at the successes and failures of the climate movement, as well as the reasons for them, during the workshop. Furthermore, we will analyze the capacity of civil society to act, through different forms of action and initiatives, and explain which power structures we need to overcome in order to win this world.

The libertarian socialist model known as a participatory economy has been described in a number of books and articles over the past 30 years – and different aspects are featured in several other lectures and workshops in this conference. However, only recently did advocates propose concrete procedures for how to carry out investment planning and various forms of long-run development planning in ways which maximize popular participation while achieving efficient outcomes. I will summarize our recent findings in these regards which are spelled out in detail in parts IV and V of Democratic Economic Planning to be published by Routledge in the summer of 2021. After I highlight the key issues there will be plenty of time for Q&A and active discussion.

Can an economy really be efficiently, fairly and democratically planned by workers and consumers themselves without the need for competitive markets or a central planning board?

In this interactive workshop, you will take part in planning an economy, via an annual decentralised planning procedure, called participatory planning.

Please have with you a smart phone, tablet or laptop.

Anarchist groups that attempt to try out their rule-free ideals already in the here and now (prefiguration) do not want to turn to the state when problems arise. There are many reasons for this: They want to show that they can get along without the state; they don't trust the state to neutrally and fairly address the concerns of anarchists (or of oppressed minorities in general); the rule-of-law methods are unnecessarily domineering; etc. Anarchism's critique of the rule of law is very broad. However, the alternative ways of dealing with "criminal" (i.e., norm-violating) behavior that have been tested must also engage in critique. Two areas are central to this: first, deciding what the group accepts as a valid norm, and second, how compliance is made more likely and how norm violations are dealt with. The workshop will not focus primarily on individual cases (which can admittedly serve as examples), but on theoretical discussion of institutions that are particularly common in anarchist groups: the consensus process for lawmaking, and models of restorative justice and transformative justice used for law enforcement. Both rehearsal practice and reflective theory come from the anarchist scene.

On anarchist ideas of solidarity following Pyotr Kropotkin

The theory and practice of solidarity play a central role in anarchism. Important foundations have already been laid by Pyotr Kropotkin in Mutual Aid in the Animal and Human World (1903) and Ethics. Origin and Development of Morals (1923).

Kropotkin's understanding of solidarity is anti-state motivated. According to Kropotkin, no duty, no mutual benefit, but also not generalized love and sympathy can produce solidarity - and certainly not guarantee it. What then? It is justice. It is the political goal, based on the equality of all people in principle, which has inspired all revolutions.

Kropotkin thus already formulates the central demands on a modern concept of solidarity. However, the problems of all concepts and practices of solidarity, which remain unsolved to this day, already emerge here: on the one hand, Kropotkin sees solidarity as a universal principle anchored in natural history, which is realized more and more in the course of the history of morality. Such assumptions about nature, however, no longer do justice to current social scientific discourses revolving around modes of production and social constructions. They also bypass the question of the practical emergence and active guarantee of solidary relations.

On the other hand, Kropotkin sees solidary practices emerging in the strikes of the workers' movement. The solidarity that comes into play here is not universal, but particular: It belongs to some (workers, comrades, etc.) and not to others (capitalists, sectarians, etc.). This exclusive understanding of solidarity is unavoidable for political action. But it remains problematic because of its exclusionary character, because solidarity is supposed to aim at a society without exclusions. And it also remains unmediated with the other, universal (ethical) understanding of solidarity.