Making Worlds: An Occupy Wall Street Forum on The Commons

The times
were Thursday Feb. 16th from 5 PM to 9 PM, Friday Feb. 17th from 5 PM to 9 PM,
and Saturday Feb. 18th from 10 AM to 9 PM. Information can be found online at
makingworlds.wikispaces.com.

Recent media articles have argued that the Occupy Wall Street message has
profoundly influenced the political conversation in the United States, to the point
that President Obama “took a page” from OWS in his State of the Union address. At
the same time, these articles suggest that the energy of the movement itself has died
down after the countrywide displacement of Occupy encampments beginning in
late November. The truth, however, is that supporters of the movement have not
been dormant over the winter. They have been meeting—indoors and outdoors,
in public spaces and community centers, homes, and cafes—to plan for a new
phase of the Occupy movement. While OWS was initially focused on protests and
demonstrations against corporate greed and income inequality, the movement is
now seeking to create solutions to these problems. Increasingly, OWS’s supporters
have begun to embrace a theory of social organization that is referred to as “The
Common” or “The Commons.” According to this theory, a “commons” is defined
as any widely available resource—from air, water, and community gardens to
open source software—whose mode of production should (or already is) being
determined by those who use it. Perhaps the most recognizable “common” that we
rely on in our daily lives is Wikipedia, one of the many current user-run repositories
of knowledge.

Based on the belief that the market is transforming the world’s “commons” into
profit centers, the Making Worlds forum will bring together Occupy supporters
as well as other organizations and community networks for three days of sharing
resources and ideas on how to build and sustain a more equitable world for today
and tomorrow. The forum will encourage a horizontal, discussion-based format,
and participants will include the feminist economist and activist Silvia Federici,
George Caffentzis, and James Quilligan.