InCommons retreat at La MUE

From 19 to 22 April 2024, a group of UK-based activists, members of the Institute for Commoning met at the MUE in Cluny to design their Master of Commons Administration (MCA). The group was made up of around ten experienced activists engaged in academic careers in various disciplines. This meeting was the third organized since 2021 to design and test the idea of the MCA.

The MCA presents itself as an “intellectually rigorous alternative to the famous Masters in Business Administration”. It is based on the principle that the world does not need more business leaders, but more thinkers, doers and co-operators who are prepared to question capitalism and think differently. It proposes a way of thinking and ideas that are different from those proposed by a conventional business school. Massimo De Angelis has done a presentation under the title Commons and revolution at one of the first session.

The aim of the meeting at the MUE was to answer the following questions:

• What is our education model?
• What is the change do we want to see?
• What is our contribution to that change in 5, 10, 20 or 50 years?
• Who are the ideal participants we want to involved (could be of several types)?
• What is our purpose?

An interim summary of the work was presented in the form of posters such as these:

Invited to take part in this meeting, I was able to note the convergence of views with Remix. Collaboration with InCommons and an MCA of this kind could be an opportunity to strengthen our own approaches to producing and sharing knowledge about the commons. This could enrich the School of the Commons (website under construction), but it could also take advantage of and add to the panoply of tools that allow us, as commoners, to acquire the means to appropriate the commons and commoning.