Making Plans and Planning Making: Commons based manufacturing for governing the social metabolism

DOMINIQUE ARSENAULT, PHD CANDIDATE�UNIVERSITÉ DE TECHNOLOGIE DE COMPIÈGNE

INDEP MINI-CONFERENCE, JULY 9 2025

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manufacture of physical goods based on

immaterial or material inputs governed as a commons

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commons based manufacturing

industrial commons

INDUSTRIAL COMMONS

(1) shared material and/or immaterial means of production (2) managed by self-governed communities (3) that decide their usage concerning the production of manufactured goods through a set of rules and obligations

COMMONS

a resource system characterised by low-excludability, prone to overexploitation when improperly governed, but collectively governed and managed by appropriators who collectively limit their withdrawals (Ostrom 1990)

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Why commons and planning?

 Design of institutions for collective self-limitation

• Direct governance by members (Ostrom's 3rd design principle)
• Nested institutions – concentric circles of governance (Ostrom's 8th design principle
• Bottom up democracy - pluriversality

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Industrial commons concerns material elements of production

• Natural Resource Commons vs. Digital Commons vs. Industrial Commons
• Resource is primarily produced by labour, rather than nature
• Material dimension means participation is not guaranteed – IC are not defacto commons, but can be organized as such

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 "Workers cannot take possession of the capitalist state apparatus and put it to work at their service.They have to ‘break it’ and replace it by a radically different, democratic and non-statist form of political power. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to the productive apparatus, which is not ‘neutral’, but carries in its structure the imprint of its development at the service of capital accumulation and the unlimited expansion of the market." (Löwy 2007, p. 296)

 "If the separation of ‘conception and ‘execution’ continues, a bureaucratic class would rule general social production instead of capitalist class, so the alienated condition of the working class would basically remain the same." (Saito 2022, p. 158).

Ecological crisis and the capitalist mode production

Real subsumption: capitalism develops the forces of production in line with its own social relations.

1. Increasing throughput
• Increased mechanization of production to dominate labour
• Decrease of labours share in production means growth is required to maintain employment
2. Stocks over flows
• Mobility of energy is used to exploit labour
• Making renewables mobile is also ecologically destructive – eg. Batteries, hydrogen, biofuels
3. Alienation
• Division of labour means we are alienated from ecological implications of production
• Social and psychological investment in commodity consumption
• Production technologies disempower workers

Thus....

Commons as a mode of production?

Mode of production: "particular social arrangement of the material elements of production" (Saito 2022, p. 155).

Social relations of commons rather than capital

• Collective rather than private property
• Collaboration rather than competition
• Labour as governance rather than input
• Social necessity rather than profit (use values rather than exchange values)

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But it also implies alternative material configurations of production

A more sustainable mode of production?

• Material efficiency
• Economy of sufficiency
• Localisations and dis-alienation
• Empowering technological forms
• But...

CBM projects struggle to integrate considerations of sustainability, particularly at the level of the social metabolism

Barriers to participation

Participation requires:

• Access to particular tools
• Technical knowledge
• Time

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For projects, integrating users input involves "coordination costs"

Lessons for Planning

Polycentric and multiscale governance structures

• Workplace and commons as foundational unit of governance
• Global structures for articulating and integrating collective limits
• Negotiating between the irreducible importance of each scale

Structures of planning and design of productive infrastructure

• Reduction of trade-off between costs and participation
• Some trade-off will be required: perpetual (re)negotiation

• Emergence: Innovative practices or organizations arise within the existing system, addressing specific needs or challenges.
• Replication: These initiatives are replicated in different contexts, demonstrating their viability and adaptability.
• Networking: The replicated initiatives form networks, sharing knowledge and resources, thereby strengthening the movement.
• Institutionalization: The principles and practices of the movement are adopted by mainstream institutions, leading to broader acceptance and integration.
• Dominance: The new system becomes dominant, replacing the old structures and establishing a new societal paradigm."

Sutterlutti and Meretz, 2023

P2P Wiki

Capture of innovations��Capture of community��Capture of financial value��Co-optation of productive model

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09/07/2025

Commons as a sphere of accumulation for capital

The conditions for accumulation and reproduction of productive capacity under capitalism are precisely those which a commons-based movement seeks to abolish, therefore...

...the commons is unlikely to be able to produce the conditions for its own reproduction.

Conclusions

1. Mode of production as equally essential scale of democratic governance and transformation
2. Necessity of polycentric and multiscale governance to integrate social metabolism
3. Democratization of investment necessary to support the reproduction and growth of the commons