An Architektur

On theCommons: APublic Interviewwith MassimoDe Angelis andStavrosStavrides

An Architektur: The term “commons” occurs in avariety of historical contexts. First of all, theterm came up in relation to land enclosuresduring pre- or early capitalism in England;second, in relation to the Italian autonomiamovement of the 1960s; and third, today, in thecontext of file-sharing networks, but alsoincreasingly in the alter-globalization movement.Could you tell us more about your interest in thecommons?!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: My interest in thecommons is grounded in a desire for theconditions necessary to promote social justice,sustainability, and happy lives for all. As simpleas that. These are topics addressed by a largevariety of social movements across the worldthat neither states nor markets have been ableto tackle, and for good reasons. State policies insupport of capitalist growth are policies thatcreate just the opposite conditions of those weseek, since they promote the working ofcapitalist markets. The latter in turn reproducesocio-economic injustices and hierarchicaldivisions of power, environmental catastrophesand stressed-out and alienated lives. Especiallyagainst the background of the many crises thatwe are facing today – starting from the recentglobal economic crisis, and moving to the energyand food crises, and the associatedenvironmental crisis – thinking and practicingthe commons becomes particularly urgent.

A New Political Discourse: From Movementto Society

!!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: Commons are a meansof establishing a new political discourse thatbuilds on and helps to articulate the manyexisting, often minor struggles, and recognizestheir power to overcome capitalist society. One ofthe most important challenges we face today is,how do we move from movement to society? Howdo we dissolve the distinctions between insideand outside the movement and promote a socialmovement that addresses the real challengesthat people face in reproducing their own lives?How do we recognize the real divisions of powerwithin the “multitude” and produce newcommons that seek to overcome them atdifferent scales of social action? How can wereproduce our lives in new ways and at the sametime set a limit to capital accumulation? !!!!!!!!!!The discourse around the commons, for me,has the potential to do those things. Theproblem, however, is that capital, too, ispromoting the commons in its own way, ascoupled to the question of capitalist growth.Nowadays the mainstream paradigm that hasgoverned the planet for the last thirty years –neoliberalism – is at an impasse, which may well

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Image found on Wikicommons (searchword: IMF) "Monetary Fund Headquarters, Washington, DC."

be terminal. There are signs that a newgovernance of capitalism is taking shape, one inwhich the “commons” are important. Take forexample the discourse of the environmental“global commons,” or that of the oxymoron called“sustainable development,” which is anoxymoron precisely because “development”understood as capitalist growth is just theopposite of what is required by “sustainability.”Here we clearly see the “smartest section ofcapital” at work, which regards the commons asthe basis for new capitalist!growth. Yet youcannot have capitalist growth withoutenclosures. We are at risk of getting pushed tobecome players in the drama of the years tocome: capital will need the commons and capitalwill need enclosures, and the commoners atthese two ends of capital will be!reshuffled!innew planetary hierarchies and divisions.!

The Three Elements Of The Commons:Pooled Resources, Community, AndCommoning

!!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: Let me address thequestion of the definition of the commons. Thereis a vast literature that regards the commons asa resource that people do not need to pay for.

What we share is what we have in common. Thedifficulty with this resource-based definition ofthe commons is that it is too limited, it does notgo far enough. We need to open it up and bring insocial relations in the definition of the commons.

!!!!!!!!!!Commons are not simply resources weshare – conceptualizing the commons involvesthree things at the same time. First, all commonsinvolve some sort of common pool of resources,understood as non-commodified means offulfilling peoples needs. Second, the commonsare necessarily created and sustained bycommunities – this of course is a veryproblematic term and topic, but nonetheless wehave to think about it. Communities are sets ofcommoners who share these resources and whodefine for themselves the rules according towhich they are accessed and used. Communities,however, do not necessarily have to be bound toa locality, they could also operate throughtranslocal spaces. They also need not beunderstood as “homogeneous” in their culturaland material features. In addition to these twoelements – the pool of resources and the set ofcommunities – the third and most importantelement in terms of conceptualizing thecommons is the verb “to common” – the social

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process that creates and reproduces thecommons. This verb was recently brought up bythe historian Peter Linebaugh, who wrote afantastic book on the thirteenth-century MagnaCarta, in which he points to the process ofcommoning, explaining how the Englishcommoners took the matter of their lives intotheir own hands. They were able to maintain anddevelop certain customs in common – collectingwood in the forest, or setting up villages on theking’s land – which, in turn, forced the king torecognize these as rights. The important thinghere is to stress that these rights were not“granted” by the sovereign, but that already-existing common customs were ratheracknowledged as de facto rights.

The seal of Magna Carta.

Enclosures, Primitive Accumulation, andthe Shortcomings of Orthodox Marxism

!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: We would like to pick up onyour remark on the commons as a new politicaldiscourse and practice. How would you relatethis new political discourse to already existingsocial or political theory, namely Marxism? To usit seems as if at least your interpretation of the

commons is based a lot on Marxist thinking.Where would you see the correspondences,where lie the differences?!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: The discourse on thecommons relates to Marxist thinking in differentways. In the first place, there is the question ofinterpreting Marx’s theory of primitiveaccumulation. In one of the final chapters ofvolume one of Capital, Marx discusses theprocess of expropriation and dispossession ofcommoners, which he refers to as “primitiveaccumulation,” understood as the process thatcreates the precondition of capitalistdevelopment by separating people from theirmeans of production. In sixteenth- toeighteenth-century England, this processbecame known as “enclosure” – the enclosure ofcommon land by the landed nobility in order touse the land for wool production. The commonsin these times, however, formed an essentialbasis for the livelihood of communities. Theywere fundamental elements for people’sreproduction, and this was the case not only inBritain, but all around the world. People hadaccess to the forest to collect wood, which wascrucial for cooking, for heating, for a variety ofthings. They also had access to commongrassland to graze their own livestock. Theprocess of enclosure meant fencing off thoseareas to prevent people from having access tothese common resources. This contributed tomass poverty among the commoners, to massmigration and mass criminalization, especially ofthe migrants. These processes are pretty muchthe same today all over the world. Back then, thisprocess created on the one hand the modernproletariat, with a high dependence on the wagefor its reproduction, and the accumulation ofcapital necessary to fuel the industrial revolutionon the other. !!!!!!!!!!Marx has shown how, historically, primitiveaccumulation was a precondition of capitalistdevelopment. One of the key problems of thesubsequent Marxist interpretations of primitiveaccumulation, however, is the meaning of“precondition.” The dominant understandingwithin the Marxist literature – apart from a fewexceptions like Rosa Luxemburg – has alwaysinvolved considering primitive accumulation as aprecondition fixed in time: dispossessionhappens before capitalist accumulation takesplace. After that, capitalist accumulation canproceed, exploiting people perhaps, but with noneed to enclose commons since theseenclosures have already been established. Fromthe 1980s onwards, the profound limitations ofthis interpretation became obvious.Neoliberalism was rampaging around the worldas an instrument of global capital. Structuraladjustment policies, imposed by the IMF

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Image found on Wikicommons (searchword: commoners) "Wigpool Common.This was open land, grazed through commoner'srights."

(International Monetary Fund), were promotingenclosures of “commons” everywhere: fromcommunity land and water resources toentitlements, to welfare benefits and education;from urban spaces subject to new pro-marketurban design and developments to rurallivelihoods threatened by the “externalities” ofenvironmentally damaging industries, todevelopment projects providing energyinfrastructures to the export processing zones.These are the processes referred to by the groupMidnight Notes Collective as “new enclosures.”!!!!!!!!!!The identification of “new enclosures” incontemporary capitalist dynamics urged us toreconsider traditional Marxist discourse on thispoint. What the Marxist literature failed tounderstand is that primitive accumulation is acontinuous process of capitalist developmentthat is also necessary for the preservation ofadvanced forms of capitalism for two reasons.Firstly, because capital seeks boundlessexpansion, and therefore always needs newspheres and dimensions of life to turn intocommodities. Secondly, because social conflictis at the heart of capitalist processes – thismeans that people do reconstitute commonsanew, and they do it all the time. These commonshelp to re-weave the social fabric threatened by

previous phases of deep commodification and atthe same time provide potential new ground forthe next phase of enclosures. !!!!!!!!!!Thus, the orthodox Marxist approach – inwhich enclosure and primitive accumulation aresomething that only happens during theformation of a capitalist system in order to set upthe initial basis for subsequent capitalistdevelopment – is misleading. It happens all thetime; today as well people’s common resourcesare enclosed for capitalist utilization. Forexample, rivers are enclosed and taken fromlocal commoners who rely on these resources, inorder to build dams for fueling developmentprojects for industrialization. In India there is thecase of the Narmada Valley; in Central Americathere is the attempt to build a series of damscalled the Puebla-Panama Plan. Theprivatization of public goods in the US and inEurope has to be seen in this way, too. To me,however, it is important to emphasize not onlythat enclosures happen all the time, but alsothat there is constant commoning. People againand again try to create and access the resourcesin a way that is different from the modalities ofthe market, which is the standard way for capitalto access resources. Take for example the peer-to-peer production happening in cyberspace, or

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the activities in social centers, or simply theinstitutions people in struggle give themselves tosustain their struggle. One of the mainshortcomings of orthodox Marxist literature isde-valuing or not seeing the struggles of thecommoners. They used to be labeled asbackwards, as something that belongs to an eralong overcome. But to me, the greatest challengewe have in front of us is to articulate thestruggles for commons in the wide range ofplanetary contexts, at different layers of theplanetary wage hierarchy, as a way to overcomethe hierarchy itself.

The Tragedy of the Commons!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: The notion of the commonsas a pre-modern system that does not fit in amodern industrialized society is not only used byMarxists, but on the neoliberal side, too. It iscentral to neoliberal thinking that self-interest isdominant vis-à-vis common interests and thattherefore the free market system is the bestpossible way to organize society. How can wemake a claim for the commons against this verypopular argument? !!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: One of the early majorpro-market critiques of the commons was thefamous article “The Tragedy of the Commons” byGerrit Hardin, from 1968. Hardin argued thatcommon resources will inevitably lead to asustainability tragedy because the individualsaccessing them would always try to maximizetheir personal revenue and thereby destroy them.For example, a group of herders would try to gettheir own sheep to eat as much as possible. Ifevery one did that then of course the resourcewould be depleted. The policy implications ofthis approach are clear: the best way to sustainthe resource is either through privatization ordirect state management. Historical andeconomic research, however, has shown thatexisting commons of that type rarelyencountered these problems, because thecommoners devise rules for accessing resources.Most of the time, developing methods ofensuring the sustainability of common resourceshas been an important part of the process ofcommoning. !!!!!!!!!!There is yet a third way beyond markets orstates, and this is community self-managementand self-government. This is another reason whyit is important to keep in mind that commons,the social dimension of the shared, areconstituted by the three elements mentionedbefore: pooled resources, community, andcommoning. Hardin could develop a “tragedy ofthe commons” argument because in hisassumption there existed neither community norcommoning as a social praxis, there were only

resources subject to open access. !!!!!!!!!!Furthermore, it is important to note that theproblem of the commons cannot be simplydescribed as a question of self-interest versuscommon interests. Often, the key problem is howindividual interests can be articulated in such away as to constitute common interests. This isthe question of commoning and of communityformation, a big issue that leads to many openquestions. Within Marxism, there is generally astandard way to consider the question ofcommon interests: these are given by the“objective” conditions in which the “workingclass” finds itself vis-à-vis capital as the class ofthe exploited. A big limitation of this standardinterpretation is that “objectivity” is always aninter-subjective agreement. The working classitself is fragmented into a hierarchy of powers,often in conflicts of interest with one another,conflicts materially reproduced by the workingsof the market. This means that commoninterests cannot be postulated, they can only beconstructed.

Comic strip of Marx's Capital explaining "What is Society?"

Conceptualizing The Subject Of Change!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: This idea of the commoninterest that has to be constructed in the firstplace – what consequences does it have forconceptualizing possible subjects of change?Would this have to be everybody, a renewed formof an avant-garde or a regrouped working class?!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: It is of course notpossible to name the subject of change. Theusefulness of the usual generalizations –“working class,” “proletariat,” “multitude,” etc. –may vary depending on the situation, butgenerally has little analytical power apart fromindicating crucial questions of “frontline.” This isprecisely because common interests cannot be

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postulated but can only be constituted throughprocesses of commoning, and this commoning, ifof any value, must overcome current materialdivisions within the “working class,”“proletariat,” or “multitude.” From theperspective of the commons, the wage worker isnot the emancipatory subject because capitalistrelations also pass through the unwaged labor, isoften feminized, invisible, and so on. It is notpossible to rely on any “vanguard,” for tworeasons. Firstly, because capitalist measures arepervasive within the stratified global field ofproduction, which implies that it hits everybody.Secondly, because the most “advanced” sectionsof the global “working class” – whether in termsof the level of their wage or in terms of the typeof their labor (it does not matter if these arecalled immaterial workers or symbolic analysts)– can materially reproduce themselves only onthe basis of their interdependence with the “lessadvanced” sections of the global working class.It has always been this way in the history ofcapitalism and I have strong reasons to suspectit will always be like this as long as capitalism isa dominant system. !!!!!!!!!!To put it in another way: the computer andthe fiber optic cables necessary for cyber-commoning and peer-to-peer productiontogether with my colleagues in India arepredicated on huge water usage for the massproduction of computers, on cheap wages paid insome export-processing zones, on the cheaplabor of my Indian high-tech colleagues that Ican purchase for my own reproduction, obtainedthrough the devaluation of labor through ongoingenclosures. The subjects along this chain can allbe “working class” in terms of their relation tocapital, but their objective position and form ofmutual dependency is structured in such a waythat their interests are often mutually exclusive.

The Commons As Community Versus TheCommons As Public Space

!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: Stavros, what is yourapproach towards the commons? Would youagree with Massimo’s threefold definition andthe demands for action he derives from that? !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: First, I would like tobring to the discussion a comparison betweenthe concept of the commons based on the idea ofa community and the concept of the public. Thecommunity refers to an entity, mainly to ahomogeneous group of people, whereas the ideaof the public puts an emphasis on the relationbetween different communities. The public realmcan be considered as the actual or virtual spacewhere strangers and different people or groupswith diverging forms of life can meet. !!!!!!!!!!The notion of the public urges our thinking

about the commons to become more complex.The possibility of encounter in the realm of thepublic has an effect on how we conceptualizecommoning and sharing. We have toacknowledge the difficulties of sharing as well asthe contests and negotiations that arenecessarily connected with the prospect ofsharing. This is why I favor the idea of providingground to build a public realm and giveopportunities for discussing and negotiatingwhat is good for all, rather than the idea ofstrengthening communities in their struggle todefine their own commons. Relating commons togroups of “similar” people bears the danger ofeventually creating closed communities. Peoplemay thus define themselves as commoners byexcluding others from their milieu, from theirown privileged commons. Conceptualizingcommons on the basis of the public, however,does not focus on similarities or commonalitiesbut on the very differences between people thatcan possibly meet on a purposefully institutedcommon ground. !!!!!!!!!!We have to establish a ground of negotiationrather than a ground of affirmation of what isshared. We don’t simply have to raise the moralissues about what it means to share, but todiscover procedures through which we can findout what and how to share. Who is this we? Whodefines this sharing and decides how to share?What about those who don’t want to share withus or with whom we do not want to share? Howcan these relations with those “others” beregulated? For me, this aspect of negotiation andcontest is crucial, and the ambiguous project ofemancipation has to do with regulatingrelationships between differences rather thanaffirming commonalities based on similarities.

Emancipatory Struggles: The RelationBetween Means And Ends

!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: How does this move awayfrom commons based on similarities, towardsthe notion of difference, influence your thinkingabout contemporary social movements or urbanstruggles? !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: For me, the task ofemancipatory struggles or movements is not onlywhat has to be done, but also how it will be doneand who will do it. Or, in a more abstract way:how to relate the means to the ends. We havesuffered a lot from the idea that the real changesonly appear after the final fight, for which wehave to prepare ourselves by building some kindof army-like structure that would be able toeffectively accomplish a change in the powerrelations. Focused on these “duties” we tend topostpone any test of our values until after thisfinal fight, as only then we will supposedly have

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Zapatista "rebel" territory. Photo: Hajor, 2005

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the time to create this new world as a society ofequals. But unfortunately, as we know and as wehave seen far too often, this idea has turned outto be a nightmare. Societies and communitiesbuilt through procedures directed by hierarchicalorganizations, unfortunately, exactly mirroredthese organizations. The structure of the militantavant-garde tends to be reproduced as astructure of social relations in the newcommunity. !!!!!!!!!!Thus, an essential question withinemancipatory projects is: can we as a group, as acommunity or as a collectivity reflect our ideasand values in the form that we choose to carryout our struggle? We have to be very suspiciousabout the idea of the avant-garde, of thoseelected (or self-selected) few, who know whathas to be done and whom the others shouldfollow. To me, this is of crucial importance. Wecan no longer follow the old concept of theavant-garde if we really want to achievesomething different from today’s society.!!!!!!!!!!Here are very important links to thediscussion about the commons, especially interms of problematizing the collectivity of thestruggle. Do we intend to make a society ofsharing by sharing, or do we intend to create thissociety after a certain period in which we do notshare? Of course, there are specific powerrelations between us, but does this mean thatsome have to lead and others have to obey theinstructors? Commons could be a way tounderstand not only what is at stake but alsohow to get there. I believe that we need to createforms of collective struggle that match collectiveemancipatory aims, forms that can also show uswhat is worthy of dreaming about anemancipated future.

Commoning Inside the Capitalist Structure!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: Massimo, you put muchemphasis on the fact that commoning happensall the time, also under capitalist conditions. Canyou give a current example? Where would you seethis place of resistance? For Marx it was clearlythe factory, based on the analysis of theexploitation of labor, which gave him a cleardirection for a struggle. !!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: The factory for Marxwas a twofold space: it was the space ofcapitalist exploitation and discipline – this couldof course also be the office, the school, or theuniversity – but it was also the space in whichsocial cooperation of labor occurred without theimmediate mediation of money. Within thefactory we have a non-commoditized space,which would fit our definition of the commons asthe space of the “shared” at a very general level.!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: Why non-commoditized?

!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: Because when I workin a capitalist enterprise, I may get a wage inexchange for my labor power, but in the momentof production I do not participate in anymonetary transactions. If I need a tool, I ask youto pass me one. If I need a piece of information, Ido not have to pay a copyright. In the factory –that we are using here as a metaphor for theplace of capitalist production – we may producecommodities, but not by means of commodities,since goods stopped being commodities in thevery moment they became inputs in theproduction process. I refer here to the classicalMarxian distinction between labor power andlabor. In the factory, labor power is sold as acommodity, and after the production process,products are sold. In the very moment ofproduction, however, it is only labor that counts,and labor as a social process is a form of“commoning.” Of course, this happens withinparticular social relations of exploitation, somaybe we should not use the same word,commoning, so as not to confuse it with thecommoning made by people “taking things intotheir own hands.” So, we perhaps should call it“distorted commoning,” where the measure ofdistortion is directly proportional to the degree ofthe subordination of commoning to socialmeasures coming from outside the commoning,the one given by management, by therequirement of the market, etc. In spite of itsdistortions, I think, it is important to considerwhat goes on inside the factory as also a form ofcommoning. This is an important distinction thatrefers to the question of how capital uses thecommons. I am making this point because thekey issue is not really how we conceive ofcommoning within the spheres of commons, buthow we reclaim the commons of our productionthat are distorted through the imposition ofcapital’s measure of things. !!!!!!!!!!This capitalist measure of things is alsoimposed across places of commoning. Themarket is a system that articulates socialproduction at a tremendous scale, and we haveto find ways to replace this mode of articulation.Today, most of what is produced in the common –whether in a distorted capitalist commons oralternative commons – has to be turned intomoney so that commoners can access otherresources. This implies that commons can bepitted against one another in processes ofmarket competition. Thus we might state as aguiding principle that whatever is produced inthe common must stay in the common in order toexpand, empower, and sustain the commonsindependently from capitalist circuits. !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: This topic of the non-commodified space within capitalist productionis linked to the idea of immaterial labor,

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theorized, among others, by Negri and Hardt.Although I am not very much convinced by thewhole theory of “empire” and “the multitude,”the idea that within the capitalist system theconditions of labor tend to produce commons,even though capitalism, as a system acts againstcommons and for enclosures, is very attractive tome. Negri and Hardt argue that with theemergence of immaterial labor – which is basedon communicating and exchanging knowledge,not on commodified assets in the general sense,but rather on a practice of sharing – we have astrange new situation: the change in thecapitalist production from material to immateriallabor provides the opportunity to think aboutcommons that are produced in the system butcan be extracted and potentially turned againstthe system. We can take the notion of immateriallabor as an example of a possible future beyondcapitalism, where the conditions of laborproduce opportunities for understanding what itmeans to work in common but also to producecommons. !!!!!!!!!!Of course there are always attempts tocontrol and enclose this sharing of knowledge,for example the enclosure acts aimed atcontrolling the internet, this huge machine ofsharing knowledge and information. I do notwant to overly praise the internet, but thisspread of information to a certain degree alwayscontains the seed of a different commoningagainst capitalism. There is always both, theenclosures, but also the opening of newpossibilities of resistance. This idea is closelyconnected to those expressed in the anti-capitalist movement claiming that there isalways the possibility of finding within thesystem the very means through which you canchallenge it. Resistance is not about an absoluteexternality or the utopia of a good society. It isabout becoming aware of opportunities occurringwithin the capitalist system and trying to turnthem against it.!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: We must, however,also make the point that seizing the internalopportunities that capitalism creates can alsobecome the object of co-optation. Take as anexample the capitalist use of the commons inrelation to seasonal workers. Here commons canbe used to undermine wages or, depending onthe specific circumstances, they can alsoconstitute the basis for stronger resistance andgreater working-class power. The first case couldbe seen, for example, in South African enclavesduring the Apartheid regime, where lower-levelwages could be paid because seasonal workerswere returning to their homes and part of thereproduction was done within these enclaves,outside the circuits of capital. The second caseis when migrant seasonal workers can sustain a

strike precisely because, due to their access tocommon resources, their livelihoods are notcompletely dependent on the wage, somethingwhich happened, for example, in Northern Italy afew decades ago. Thus, the relation betweencapitalism and the commons is always aquestion of power relations in a specific historiccontext.

The Role And Reactions Of The State!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: How would you evaluate theimportance of the commons today? Would yousay that the current financial and economiccrisis and the concomitant delegitimation of theneoliberal model brought forward, at least to acertain extent, the discussion and practice of thecommons? And what are the respective reactionsof the authorities and of capitalism? !!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: In every moment ofcrisis we see an emergence of commons toaddress questions of livelihood in one way or theother. During the crisis of the 1980s in Britainthere was the emergence of squatting,alternative markets, or so called Local ExchangeTrading Systems, things that also came up in thecrisis in Argentina in 2001. !!!!!!!!!!Regarding the form in which capitalismreacts and reproduces itself in relation to theemergence of commoning, three main processescan be observed. First, the criminalization ofalternatives in every process of enclosure, bothhistorically and today. Second, a temptation ofthe subjects fragmented by the market to returnto the market. And third, a specific mode ofgovernance that ensures the subordination ofindividuals, groups and their values, needs andaspirations under the market process. !!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: But then, how can we relatethe commons and commoning to state power?Are the commons a means to overcome or fightthe state or do you think they need the state toguarantee a societal structure? Would, at least intheory, the state finally be dissolved throughcommoning? Made useless, would it thusdisappear? Stavros, could you elaborate on this?!!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: Sometimes we tend toignore the fact that what happens in the strugglefor commons is always related to specificsituations in specific states, with theirrespective antagonisms. One always has to putoneself in relation to other groups in the society.And of course social antagonisms take manyforms including those produced by or channeledthrough different social institutions. The state isnot simply an engine that is out there andregulates various aspects of production orvarious aspects of the distribution of power. Thestate, I believe, is part of every social relation. Itis not only a regulating mechanism but also

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Image found on Wikicommons (searchword: money) "English 'Money-tree' near Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire, Papa November(cc)"

produces a structure of institutions that moldsocial life. To be able to resist these dominantforms of social life we have to eventually struggleagainst these forces which make the state a verydominant reality in our societies. !!!!!!!!!!In today’s world, we often interpret theprocess of globalization as the withering away ofstates, so that states are no longer important.But actually the state is the guarantor of thenecessary conditions for the reproduction of thesystem. It is a guarantor of violence, for example,which is not a small thing. Violence, not only co-optation, is a very important means ofreproducing capitalism, because by no means dowe live in societies of once-and-for-alllegitimated capitalist values. Instead, thesevalues must be continuously imposed, often byforce. The state is also a guarantor of propertyand land rights, which are no small things either,because property rights establish forms ofcontrol on various aspects of our life. Claims ofproperty rights concern specific places thatbelong to certain people or establishments,which might also be international corporations.The state, therefore, is not beyond globalization;it is in fact the most specific arrangement ofpowers against which we can struggle.

Building a Network of Resistance!!!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: I am thus verysuspicious or reserved about the idea that wecan build our own small enclaves of otherness,our small liberated strongholds that couldprotect us from the power of the state. I don’tmean that it is not important to buildcommunities of resistance, but rather thanframing them as isolated enclaves, we shouldattempt to see them as a potential network ofresistance, collectively representing only a partof the struggle. If you tend to believe that a singlecommunity with its commons and its enclosedparameter could be a stronghold of liberatedotherness, then you are bound to be defeated.You cannot avoid the destruction that comesfrom the power of the state and its mechanisms.Therefore, we need to produce collaborationsbetween different communities as well asunderstand ourselves as belonging to not justone of these communities. We should ratherunderstand ourselves as members of differentcommunities in the process of emerging.!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: But how can it beorganized? What could this finally look like? !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: The short answer is afederation of communities. The long answer is

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that it has to do with the conditions of thestruggle. I think that we are not for thereplacement of the capitalist state by anotherkind of state. We come from long traditions, bothcommunist and anarchist, of striving for thedestruction of the state. I think we should findways in today’s struggles to reduce the presenceof the state, to oblige the state to withdraw, toforce the state to be less violent in its responses.To seek liberation from the jurisdiction of thestate in all its forms, that are connected witheconomical, political, and social powers. But, forsure, the state will be there until something – notsimply a collection of struggles, but something ofa qualitatively different form – happens thatproduces a new social situation. Until then wecannot ignore the existence of the state becauseit is always forming its reactions in terms of whatwe choose to do.

Ongoing Negotiations: The Navarinou Parkin Exarcheia, Athens

!!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: Yes, I agree that iscrucial. The state is present in all these differentprocesses, but it is also true that we have to findways to disarticulate these powers. One exampleis the occupied park in Exarcheia, a parking lotthat was turned into a park through an ongoingprocess of commoning. The presence of the stateis very obvious, just fifty meters around thecorner there is an entire bus full of riot police androws of guards. One of the problems in relation tothe park is the way in which the actions of thepolice could be legitimized by making use ofcomplaints about the park by its neighbors. Andthere are of course reasons to complain. Some ofthe park’s organizers told me that apparentlyevery night some youth hang out there, drinkingand trashing the place, making noise and so on.The organizers approached them, asking themnot to do that. And they replied “Oh, are you thepolice?” They were also invited to participate inthe assembly during the week, but they showedno interest. According to some people I haveinterviewed, they were showing an individualisticattitude, one which we have internalized by livingin this capitalist society; the idea that this is myspace where I can do whatever I want – without,if you like, a process of commoning that wouldengage with all the issues of the community. Butyou have to somehow deal with this problem, youcannot simply exclude those youngsters, not onlyas a matter of principle, but also because itwould be completely deleterious to do so. If youjust exclude them from the park, you have failedto make the park an inclusive space. If you do notexclude them and they continue with theirpractices, it would further alienate the localcommunity and provide an opening for the police

and a legitimization of their actions. So in asituation like this you can see some practicalanswers to those crucial questions we havediscussed – there are no golden rules.!!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: I would interpret thesituation slightly differently. Those people yourefer to were not saying that they have a right asindividual consumers to trash the park. Theywere saying that the park is a place for theircommunity, a place for alternative living or forbuilding alternative political realms. Theycertainly refer to some kind of commoning, butonly to a very specific community of commoners.And this is the crucial point: they did notconsider the neighbors, or at least the neighbors’habitude, as part of their community. Certainpeople conceive of this area as a kind ofliberated stronghold in which they don’t have tothink about those others outside. Because, in theend, who are those others outside? They arethose who “go to work everyday and do not resistthe system.” !!!!!!!!!!To me, these are cases through which weare tested, through which our own ideas aboutwhat it means to share or what it means to live inpublic are tested. We can discuss the park as acase of an emergent alternative public space.And this public space can be constituted onlywhen it remains contestable in terms of its use.Public spaces which do not simply impose thevalues of a sovereign power are those spacesproduced and inhabited through negotiatingexchanges between different groups of people.As long as contesting the specific character anduses of alternative public spaces does notdestroy the collective freedom to negotiatebetween equals, contesting should be welcome.You have to be able to produce places wheredifferent kinds of lives can coexist in terms ofmutual respect. Therefore any such spacecannot simply belong to a certain communitythat defines the rules; there has to be anongoing, open process of rulemaking.!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: There are two issueshere. First of all, I think this case shows thatwhenever we try to produce commons, what wealso need is the production of the respectivecommunity and its forms of commoning. TheNavarinou Park is a new commons and thecommunity cannot simply consist of theorganizers. The organizers I have talked to actpretty much as a sort of commons entrepreneurs,a group of people who are trying to facilitate themeeting of different communities in the park, topromote encounters possibly leading to moresustained forms of commoning. Thus, when weare talking about emergent commons like theseones, we are talking about spaces of negotiationacross diverse communities, the bottom line ofwhat Stavros referred to as “public space.” Yet,

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we also cannot talk about the park as being a“public space” in the usual sense, as a free-for-all space, one for which the individual does nothave to take responsibility, like a park managedby the local authority. !!!!!!!!!!The second point is that anotherfundamental aspect of commoning can beexemplified by the park – the role ofreproduction. We have learned from feministsthroughout the last few decades that for everyvisible work of production there is an invisiblework of reproduction. The people who want tokeep the park will have to work hard for itsreproduction. This does not only mean cleaningthe space continuously, but also reproducing thelegitimacy to claim this space vis-à-vis thecommunity, vis-à-vis the police and so on.Thinking about the work of reproduction isactually one of the most fundamental aspects ofcommoning. How will the diverse communitiesaround this park come together to share the workof reproduction? That is a crucial test for anycommons.

Beyond Representative Democracy: TheCollective Self-Government Of TheZapatistas

!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: But how can we imaginethis constant process of negotiation other thanon a rather small local level? !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: To me this is notprimarily a question of scale, it is more afundamental question of how to approach theseissues. But if you want to talk about a larger-scale initiative, I would like to refer to theZapatista movement. For the Zapatistas, theprocess of negotiation takes two forms: inter-community negotiation, which involves peopleparticipating in assemblies, and negotiationswith the state, which involves the election ofrepresentatives. The second form was abruptlyabandoned as the state chose to ignore anyagreement reached. But the inter-communitynegotiation process has evolved into a trulyalternative form of collective self-government.Zapatistas have established autonomous regionsinside the area of the Mexican state in order toprovide people with the opportunity to actuallyparticipate in self-governing those regions. Tonot simply participate in a kind of representativedemocracy but to actually get involvedthemselves. Autonomous communitiesestablished a rotation system that might lookpretty strange to us, with a regular change everyfifteen or thirty days. So, if you become somekind of local authority of a small municipality,then, just when you start to know what theproblems are and how to tangle with them, youhave to leave the position to another person. Is

this logical? Does this system bring about resultsthat are similar to other forms of governing, ordoes it simply produce chaos? The Zapatistasinsist that it is more important that all the peoplecome into these positions and get trained in aform of administration that expresses the idea of“governing by obeying the community” (mandarobedeciendo). The rotation system effectivelyprevents any form of accumulation of individualpower. This system might not be the mosteffective in terms of administration but it iseffective in terms of building and sustaining thisidea of a community of negotiation and mutualrespect. !!!!!!!!!!Yes, establishing rules and imposing themis more effective, but it is more important tocollectively participate in the process of creatingand checking the rules, if you intend to create adifferent society. We have to go beyond the ideaof a democracy of “here is my view, there is yours– who wins?” We need to find ways of givingroom to negotiate the differences. Perhaps I tendto overemphasize the means, the actual process,and not the effective part of it, its results. Thereare of course a lot of problems in the Zapatistaadministration system but all thesemunicipalities are more like instances of a newworld trying to emerge and not prototypes ofwhat the world should become. !!!!!!!!!!We can also take as an example the Oaxacarebellion, which worked very well. Those peoplehave actually produced a city-commune, whichto me is even more important than the gloriouscommune of Paris. We had a very interestingpresentation by someone from Oaxaca here inAthens, explaining how during those days theyrealized that “they could do without them” –them meaning the state, the power, theauthorities. They could run the city collectivelythrough communal means. They had schools,and they had captured the radio and TV stationfrom the beginning. They ran the city facing allthe complexities that characterize a society.Oaxaca is a rather small city of around 600,000inhabitants and of course it is not Paris. But wehad the chance to see these kind of experiments,new forms of self-management that can producenew forms of social life – and as we know, theOaxaca rebellion was brutally suppressed. But,generally speaking, until we see these new formsof society emerging we don’t know what theycould be like. And I believe we have to acceptthat!

About Principles: Connecting Discourse toPractice

!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: Stavros, you mentioned thatthe administration and rotation system of theZapatistas should not be taken as a prototype of

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The Navarinou Park in Exarcheia,Athens

what should come. Does this mean that youreject any kind of idea of or reflection aboutmodels for a future society? !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: I think it is not aquestion of a model. We cannot say that somekind of model exists, nor should we strive for it.But, yes, we need some kind of guidingprinciples. For me, however, it is important toemphasize that the commons cannot be treatedonly as an abstract idea, they are inextricablyintertwined with existing power relations. Theproblem is, how can we develop principlesthrough which we can judge which communitiesactually fight for commons? Or, the other wayround, can struggles for commons also beagainst emancipatory struggles? How do weevaluate this? I think in certain historicalperiods, not simply contingencies, you can haveprinciples by which you can judge. For example,middle-class neighborhoods that tend topreserve their enclave character will producecommunities fighting for commons but againstthe idea of emancipation. Their notion ofcommons is based on a community of similarpeople, a community of exclusion and privilege.!!!!!!!!!!Principles are however not only discursivegestures, they have to be seen in relation to theperson or the collective subject who refers to

these principles in certain discourses andactions. Therefore, reference to principles couldbe understood as a form of performative gesture.If I am saying that I am for or against thoseprinciples what does this mean for my practice?Principles are not only important in judgingdiscursive contests but can also affect the way akind of discourse is connected to practice. Forexample, if the prime minister of Greece says in apre-election speech that he wants to eradicateall privileges we of course know he means onlycertain privileges for certain people. So, what isimportant is not only the stating of principles,but also the conditions under which thisstatement acquires its meaning. That is why I amtalking about principles presuming that webelong to the same side. I am of course alsoassuming that we enter this discussion bearingsome marks of certain struggles, otherwise itwould be a merely academic discussion.

If We Were Left Alone, What Would We Do? !!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: Let’s imagine that we wereleft alone, what would we do? Do we still needthe state as an overall structure or opponent?Would we form a state ourselves, buildcommunities based on commons or turn to

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egoistic ways of life? Maybe this exercise canbring us a little further . . . !!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: I dare to say that “ifwe are left alone” we may end up doing prettymuch the same things as we are now: keep therace going until we re-program ourselves tosustain different types of relations. In otherwords, you can assume that “we are left alone”and still work in auto-pilot because nobodyknows what else to do. There is a lot of learningthat needs to be done. There are a lot ofprejudices we have built by becoming – at leastto a large extent – homo economicus, with ourcost-benefit calculus in terms of money. There isa lot of junk that needs to be shed, other thingsthat need to be valorized, and others still that weneed to just realize. !!!!!!!!!!Yet auto-pilots cannot last forever. In orderto grow, the capitalist system must enclose, butenclosures imply strategic agency on the part ofcapital. Lacking this under the assumption that“we are left alone,” the system would come to astandstill and millions of people would askthemselves: What now? How do we reproduceour livelihoods? The question that needs to beurgently problematized in our present contextwould come out naturally in the (pretty muchabsurd) proposition you are making. There is noeasy answer that people could give. Among otherthings, it would depend a lot on power relationswithin existing hierarchies, because even if “weare left alone” people would still be divided intohierarchies of power. But one thing that is certainto me is that urban people, especially in theNorth, would have to begin to grow more food,reduce their pace of life, some begin to moveback to the countryside, and look into eachother's eyes more often. This is because “beingleft alone” would imply the end of the type ofinterdependence that is constituted with currentstates’ policies. What new forms ofinterdependence would emerge? Who knows. Butthe real question is: what new forms ofinterdependence can emerge given the fact thatwe will never be left alone? !!!!!!!!!!Concerning the other part of your question,yes, we could envisage a “state,” but notnecessarily in the tragic forms we have known.The rational kernel of “the state” is the realm ofcontext – the setting for the daily operations ofcommoners. From the perspective of nestedsystems of commons at larger and larger scales,the state can be conceptualized as the bottom-up means through which the commonersestablish, monitor, and enforce their basiccollective and inter-commons rules. But ofcourse the meaning of establishing, monitoring,and – especially – enforcing may well bedifferent from what is meant today by it. !!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: Let’s suppose that we

have been left alone, which I don’t think will everbe the case. But anyway. Does that mean that weare in a situation where we can simply establishour own principles, our own forms of commons,that we are in a situation where we are equal? Ofcourse not! !!!!!!!!!!A good example is the case of the occupiedfactories in Argentina. There, the workers wereleft alone in a sense, without the management,the accountants, and engineers, and withoutprofessional knowledge of how to deal withvarious aspects of the production. They had todevelop skills they did not have before. Onewoman, for example, said that her main problemin learning the necessary software programs tobecome an accountant for the occupied factory,was that she first had to learn how to read andwrite. So, imagine the distance that she had tobridge! And eventually, without wanting it, shebecame one of the newly educated workers thatcould lead the production and develop strategiesfor the factory. Although she would not imposethem on the others, who continued to work in theassembly line and did not develop skills in theway she did, she became a kind of privilegedperson. Thus, no matter how egalitarian theassembly was, you finally develop the sameproblems you had before. You have a separationof people, which is a result of materialcircumstances. Therefore, you have to developthe means to fight this situation. In addition toproducing the commons, you have to give thepower to the people to have their own share inthe production process of these commons – notonly in terms of the economic circumstances butin terms of the socialization of knowledge, too.You have to ensure that everybody is able tospeak and think, to become informed, and toparticipate. All of these problems have erupted inan occupied factory in Argentina, not in a futuresociety. !!!!!!!!!!Anthropological research has proved thatthere have been and still exist societies ofcommoning and sharing and that these societies– whether they were food gatherers or hunters –do not only conceive of property in terms ofcommunity-owned goods, but that they have alsodeveloped a specific form of eliminating theaccumulation of power. They have activelyproduced forms of regulating power relationsthrough which they prevent someone frombecoming a leader. They had to acknowledge thefact that people do not possess equal strength orabilities, and at the same time they had todevelop the very means by which they wouldcollectively prevent those differences frombecoming separating barriers between people,barriers that would eventually createasymmetries of power. Here you see the idea ofcommons not only as a question of property

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relations but also as a question of powerdistribution.!!!!!!!!!!So, coming back to your question, when weare left alone we have to deal with the fact thatwe are not equal in every aspect. In order toestablish this equality, we have to make gestures– not only rules – but gestures which are notbased on a zero-sum calculus. Sometimessomebody must offer more, not because anyoneobliges him or her but because he or she choosesto do so. For example, I respect that you cannotspeak like me, therefore I step back and I ask youto speak in this big assembly. I do this knowingthat I possess this kind of privileged ability totalk because of my training or talents. This is notexactly a common, this is where the commonends and the gift begins – to share you have tobe able to give gifts. To develop a society ofequality does not mean leveling but sustainingthe ability of everybody to participate in acommunity, and that is not something thathappens without effort. Equality is a process nota state. Some may have to “yield” in order toallow others – those more severelyunderprivileged – to be able to express their ownneeds and dreams.!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: I think that the giftand the commons may not be two modalitiesoutside one another. “Gift” may be a property ofthe commons, especially if we regard these notas fixed entities but as processes of commoning.Defining the “what,” “how,” and “who” of thecommons also may include acts of gifts andgenerosity. In turn, these may well be given withno expectation of return. However, as we know,the gift, the act of generosity, is often part of anexchange, too, where you expect something inreturn.

Arenas for Constituting the Commons andTheir Limitations

!!!!!!!!!!!Massimo De Angelis: The occupied factorywe just talked about exemplifies an arena inwhich we have the opportunity to producecommons, not only through making gift gesturesbut also by turning the creative iteration of thesegestures into new institutions. And these arenasfor commoning potentially exist everywhere. Yetevery arena finds itself with particularboundaries – both internal and external ones. Inthe case of the occupied factory, the internalboundaries are given by the occupyingcommunity of workers, who have to considertheir relation to the outside, the unemployed, thesurrounding communities, and so on. Thechoices made here will also affect the type ofrelations to and articulation with other arenas ofcommoning. !!!!!!!!!!Another boundary that comes up in all

potential arenas of commoning, setting a limit tothe endeavors of the commoners, is positedoutside them, and is given by the pervasivecharacter of capitalist measure and values. Forexample, the decision of workers to keep theproduction going implies to a certain extentaccepting the measuring processes given by acapitalist market which puts certain constraintson workers such as the need for stayingcompetitive, at least to some degree. All of asudden they had to start to self-organize theirown exploitation, and this is one of the majorproblems we face in these kind of initiatives, anissue that can only be tackled when a far highernumber of commoning arenas arise andingenuity is applied in their articulation. !!!!!!!!!!But before we reach that limit posed by theoutside, there is still a lot of scope forconstitution, development, and articulation ofsubjectivities within arenas of commoning. Thispoints to the question of where our ownresponsibility and opportunity lie. If the limitposed from the outside on an arena ofcommoning is the “no” that capital posits to thecommons “yes,” to what extent can ourconstituent movement be a positive force thatsays no to capital’s no? !!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: But then, when will aqualitative difference in society be achievedsuch that we are able to resist thosemechanisms of criminalization, temptation, andgovernance Massimo spoke about before? Whatwould happen if half of the factories were self-governed?!!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: I don’t know when aqualitative difference will be achieved. 50% is avery wild guess! Obviously that would make agreat difference. But I think a very smallpercentage makes a difference as well. Not interms of producing enclaves of othernesssurrounded by a capitalist market, but as casesof collective experimentation through which youcan also convince people that another world ispossible. And those people in the Argentineanfactories have actually managed to produce suchkind of experiments, not because they haveideologically agreed on the form of society theyfight for, but because they were authenticallyproducing their own forms of everydayresistance, out of the need to protect their jobsafter a major crisis. Many times they had torediscover the ground on which to build theircollectively sustained autonomy. The power ofthis experiment, however, lies on its possibility tospread – if it keeps on enclosing itself in thewell-defined perimeter of an “alternativeenclave,” it is bound to fail.!!!!!!!!!!I believe that if we see and experience suchexperiments, we can still hope for another worldand have glimpses of this world today. It is

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important to test fragments of this future in ourstruggles, which is also part of how to judgethem – and I think these collective experiencesare quite different from the alternativemovements of the 1970s. Do we still strive fordeveloping different life environments that canbe described as our own “Christianias”? To me,the difference lies in the porosity, in the fact thatthe areas of experiment spill over into society. Ifthey are only imagined as liberated strongholdsthey are bound to lose. Again, there is somethingsimilar we could learn from the Zapatistamovement that attempted to create a kind ofhybrid society in the sense that it is both pre-industrial and post-industrial, both pre-capitalist and post-capitalist at the same time.To me, this, if you want, unclear situation, whichof course is only unclear due to our frozen andlimited perception of society, is very important.

Athens’ December Uprising!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: How would you describeAthens’ uprising last December in this relation?At least in Germany much focus was put on theoutbreak of violence. What do you think aboutwhat has happened? Have things changed sincethen?!!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: One of the things that Ihave observed is that at first both the leftistsand the anarchists didn’t know what to do. Theywere not prepared for this kind of uprising whichdid not happen at the very bottom of the society.There were young kids from every type of schoolinvolved. Of course there were immigrants takingpart but this was not an immigrant revolt. Ofcourse there were many people suffering fromdeprivation and injustice who took part but thiswas not a “banlieue type” uprising either. Thiswas a peculiar, somehow unprecedented, kind ofuprising. No center, just a collective networkingwithout a specific point from which activitiesradiated. Ideas simply criss-crossed all overGreece and you had initiatives you couldn’timagine a few months ago, a lot of activities withno name or with improvised collectivesignatures. For example, in Syros, an island witha long tradition of working-class struggles, thelocal pupils surrounded the central police stationand demanded that the police officers comeoutside, take off their hats and apologize forwhat happened. And they did it. They came out infull formation. This is something that is normallyunimaginable. !!!!!!!!!!This polycentric eruption of collectiveaction, offering glimpses of a social movement,which uses means that correspond toemancipating “ends,” is, at least to my mind,what is new and what inspired so many peopleall over the world. I tend to be a bit optimistic

about that. Let me not overestimate what is new,there were also some very unpleasantly familiarthings happening. You could see a few“Bonapartist” groups behaving as if they wereconducting the whole situation. But this was alie, they simply believed that. !!!!!!!!!!What is also important is that the spirit ofcollective, multifarious actions did not onlyprevail during the December days. Following theDecember uprising, something qualitatively newhappened in various initiatives. Take theinitiative of the Navarinou Park in Exarcheia. Thiswould not have been possible without theexperience of December. Of course, severalanarchist and leftist projects around Exarcheiaalready existed and already produced alternativeculture and politics, but never before did we havethis kind of initiative involving such a variety ofpeople in such different ways. And, I think, afterDecember various urban movements gained anew momentum, understanding that we weren’tsimply demanding something but that we had aright to it. Rejecting being governed and takingour lives into our own hands, no matter howambiguous that may be, is a definingcharacteristic of a large array of “afterDecember” urban movement actions.

The City of Thresholds: Conceptualizing theRelation Between Space and the Commons

!!!!!!!!!!!An Architektur: We have discussed a largevariety of different events, initiatives, andprojects. Can we attempt to further relate ourfindings to their spatial and urban impacts,maybe by more generally trying to envision a cityentirely based on the commons?!!!!!!!!!!Stavros Stavrides: To think about a citybased on commons we have to question andconceptualize the connection of space and thecommons. It would be interesting to think of theproduction of space as an area of commons andthen discuss how this production has to bedifferentiated from today’s capitalist productionof space. First of all, it is important to conceivespace and the city as not primarily quantities –which is the dominant perception – thequantified space of profit-making, where spacealways has a value and can easily be divided andsold. So, starting to think about space as relatedto the commons means to conceptualize it as aform of relations rather than as an entity, as acondition of comparisons instead of anestablished arrangement of positions. We haveto conceive space not as a sum of definedplaces, which we should control or liberate butrather as a potential network of passages linkingone open place to another. Space, thus, becomesimportant as a constitutive dimension of socialaction. Space indeed “happens” as different

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social actions literally produce different spatialqualities. With the prospect of claiming space asa form of commons, we have to oppose the ideathat each community exists as a spatiallydefined entity, in favor of the idea of a network ofcommunicating and negotiating social spacesthat are not defined in terms of a fixed identity.Those spaces thus retain a “passage” character. !!!!!!!!!!Once more, we have to reject theexclusionary gesture which understands spaceas belonging to a certain community. To think ofspace in the form of the commons means not tofocus on its quantity, but to see it as a form ofsocial relationality providing the ground forsocial encounters. I tend to see this kind ofexperiencing-with and creation of space as theprospect of the “city of thresholds.” WalterBenjamin, seeking to redeem the liberatingpotential of the modern city, developed the ideaof the threshold as a revealing spatiotemporalexperience. For him, the flaneur is a connoisseurof thresholds: someone who knows how todiscover the city as the locus of unexpected newcomparisons and encounters. And thisawareness can start to unveil the prevailingurban phantasmagoria which has reducedmodernity to a misfired collective dream of aliberated future. To me, the idea of anemancipating spatiality could look like a city ofthresholds. A potentially liberating city can beconceived not as an agglomerate of liberatedspaces but as a network of passages, as anetwork of spaces belonging to nobody andeverybody at the same time, which are notdefined by a fixed-power geometry but are opento a constant process of (re)definition.!!!!!!!!!!There is a line of thinking that leads toLefebvre and his notion of the “right to the city”as the right that includes and combines allrights. This right is not a matter of access to cityspaces (although we should not underestimatespecific struggles for free access to parks, etc.),it is not simply a matter of being able to haveyour own house and the assets that are neededto support your own life, it is something whichincludes all those demands but also goes beyondthem by creating a higher level of the commons.For Lefebvre the right to the city is the right tocreate the city as a collective work of art. Thecity, thus, can be produced through encountersthat make room for new meanings, new values,new dreams, new collective experiences. Andthis is indeed a way to transcend pure utility, away to see commons beyond the utilitarianhorizon. !!!!!!!!!!!

Massimo De Angelis is Professor of Political Economyat the University of East London. His research focuseson value theory, globalization, social movements, andthe political reading of economic narrative. He isauthor, most recently, of The Beginning of History:Value Struggles and Global Capital (2007), and editor ofthe online journal The Commoner.!Stavros Stavrides is Assistant Professor ofArchitecture at the National Technical University ofAthens. He has published several books and articleson spatial theory, his most recent research focuses onemancipating spatial practices, characteristicallydeveloped in his essay “Heterotopias and theExperience of Porous Urban Space”, 2007. He is authorof Towards the City of Thresholds, forthcoming onProfessional Dreamers Publishers, Trento.!This interview is part of An Architektur, no. 23: “On theCommons.” It is based on a public interview andworkshop held in the context of the Athens Biennial2009 as part of “live,” curated by Dimitris Papaioannouand Zafos Xagoraris. Issue edited by Oliver Clemens,Sabine Horlitz, Anita Kaspar, and Andreas Müller.Proofreading by Sasha Disco. Seewww.anarchitektur.com.

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