Compeerism solves resources necessary for high living standards and innovation—mining co-opts solve colonial resource extraction

Hannes, Professor of Geography at the University of West Georgia. “Contending With the Limits of Our Natural World.” From Capital to Commons: Exploring the Promise of a World Beyond Capitalism. University of Bristol. Pp 117-121. /LJS

Even with the use of new material highly curtailed, as just described, some recapture and reuse associated with the latter stages of the circular economy will, nonetheless, still be needed. The processes involved here ultimately go beyond the immediate purview of the DG-ML model, yet the overall mission of creating an economy where ‘whatever is heavy is local’ still remains relevant (Kostakis et al, 2015, p 128). Indeed, the reliance on distant raw materials, which invariably are also dominated by large-scale, extractive capitalist actors, clearly flies in the face of the compeerist ideal. Hence, in seeking to stay true to the preference for local, democratic economies, it becomes imperative to focus on the ‘urban waste mine’ as a raw material commons from which to source our non-renewable resource needs (Krook and Baas, 2013). Most experts concede that almost full waste recapture and reuse is technically possible with the right infrastructure, logistical organization, and product design (hence pointing again to the promise of a global design commons) (Piques and Rizos, 2017). To achieve such a feat, manufacturers, households, retailers, and recyclers would need to be tied into a cohesive system of incentives and enforceable mandates, that is, a macro-level governance system overseeing the urban waste commons that is in line with Ostrom’s principles. Currently, however, such macro-level assemblages/ apparatuses are largely lacking in most of the world, where recycling is characterized by haphazard coordination, limited buy-in from key actors, and the dominance of exchange-value rationales responding to the fluctuating market price of recyclables. Thus, even if the amount of recycled raw materials used in manufacturing has significantly increased, it is still far from supplying most of the non-renewable resources being used. In some cases, furthermore, as with the many rare-earth minerals on which our expanding range of electronic devices depend, there is no recycling done at all, leading to an almost complete dependence on just a few, distant sources. In the short term, compeerists are left with no choice but to navigate this imperfect environment, using boundary commoning between commons based actors to engage in the recovery and reuse of critical materials where possible (Gutberlet, 2019). Still, such localized or regional efforts remain isolated and largely insignificant as they find themselves swimming against the current of broader market and big-capital dynamics. More specifically, linear, cradle-to-grave product pathways remain not only cheaper than circular ones, but they also ensure the continued need for the profitable production of more raw materials and products. This is why the promise by the plastics industry to finally make plastics recycling effective on a large scale is highly doubtful, since a truly functioning recycling system for plastic would spell the end to their industry. As in other sectors, the results-oriented compeerist committed to the longue durée is therefore compelled to supplement on-the-ground initiatives with more macro-level efforts aimed at the state. In the pursuit of a truly circular economy, governments, for instance, could be pressured to issue mandates requiring designs that follow certain modularity and recyclability requirements. The state, at various scales, would also be the natural entity to spearhead efforts at reaching 100 per cent capture, reuse, and recycling of all waste via a multi-stakeholder system, driven by decrees and supporting funds for the required infrastructure. An important component to these efforts would most likely be the imposition of ‘extended producer responsibility’ (EPR), where manufacturers are made responsible for organizing the recycling of the products they produce, as is being increasingly explored and implemented in Europe (Marques and da Cruz, 2018). Recycling requirements, furthermore, would need to be extended to all materials involved, including vital rare-earth minerals. Critically, the implementation of such top-down reforms would not need to be done by state-run entities; instead, much of it would likely fall to compeerist-aligned actors, as cooperatives and non-profits are already significantly involved in, and adapted to the recycling/reuse economy. Indeed, with a serious government commitment to circularity, compeerists would naturally pursue commons-centred control over the management, processing, and reuse of the recaptured raw materials of the various urban waste mines. Managing to get the state engaged on such a level undoubtedly hinges on the ability to foster and tap into the environmental awareness and commitments within the populace more broadly. On this front, at least, there are some encouraging signs. For instance, in a massive UN poll of over one million people across 50 countries, two thirds of respondents considered climate change a global emergency (Flynn and Yamasumi, 2021). There is also evidence people are becoming more intentional in their own actions. For instance, in the US, which is by no means at the forefront on such matters, over 50 million households participate in kerbside recycling without monetary benefit or punitive threat, which represents about a 70 per cent participation rate where such services are available (Mouw, 2020). One development that could boost this growing environmental consciousness even more, while simultaneously empowering users/ consumers to vote with their pocketbooks, would be the establishment of much greater transparency and communication regarding the details of a product’s environmental impact and credentials. Compeerists could here make the mandated documentation of blockchain-enabled product sourcing and other qualities a key demand on government, including visible certifications of a product’s ecological footprint and, as is being pioneered in France, its overall repairability (Gerhardt, 2020; Stone, 2021). Offering clear product evaluations to users/consumers in this way can again significantly assist the competitiveness of compeerist-oriented enterprises that would do well in such assessments. Market research, for instance, has shown not only a growing demand for environmentally friendly products, but also a willingness to pay more for them. One study by McKinsey found that 70 per cent of Europeans and Americans are willing to accept a five per cent price increase for environmentally sourced goods, and roughly 50 per cent are willing to pay 15 per cent more (Miremadi et al, 2018). Still, even with a significant, state-supported shift to localized, commonsoriented waste mines, where the circular resource loop comes full circle, it is nonetheless important to also acknowledge that full autonomy from distant non-renewable resources will take time. The technology of indefinitely recyclable plastic, for example, still has a long way to go before it can become the standard in all applications. Furthermore, in some cases the amount of already extracted material is insufficient for the needs of the economy of the future. For example, there is currently nowhere near enough lithium in circulation for the massive expansion of renewable energy storage required to transition out of carbon-based fuels (IEA, 2022). From a compeerist perspective, then, to the extent that mines, quarries, and wells are still needed, they should be subjected to commons-based governance regimes. Importantly, this does not mean state nationalization in the name of the people. Government-run mineral and carbon-based extraction is not uncommon, but it tends to be large-scaled, hierarchically organized, and market-oriented. If there is one key takeaway from Ostrom’s research, and borne out in the countless instances of social and environmental injustice throughout the world, it is that any approach to resource management that does not involve the people where these resources are found is a recipe for mismanagement and abuse. When it comes to non-renewable resources available for local/regional consumption, therefore, member cooperatives are the most obvious option. The Ohio based Energy Cooperative is a good example. While starting as a regional electricity member co-op, it made the move to secure local naturalgas reserves by purchasing the private company that owned their leases (NGO, 2022). In this way, The Energy Cooperative was able to expand its member services to home gas provision as well. As noted in the prior chapter, such cooperatives still necessitate significantly increased member-driven, commons-oriented input to steer them in a more compeerist direction, but the example is illustrative of how community control of critical local resources could be executed. In most cases, however, due to the uneven and concentrated nature of their geographical distribution, non-renewable resources are extracted to service distant demands (as is the case with many renewable resources as well). In such instances, where trade is a primary motivator, commons-based governance is especially critical, yet still extremely rare. Taking mining as an example, the compeerist ideal would be the application of less invasive but efficient technology within an operational regime characterized by significant worker and community buy in (Batterham, 2017; Alves et al, 2019). Such an arrangement is by no means an impossibility, yet given the large capital investments and specialized expertise needed to run competitive mining operations, these generally tend to be controlled by large, centralized corporations or states pursuing maximally extractive rationales. Only in the poorer and lower-tech Majority World can we find some isolated exceptions, such as in Bolivia, where significant mining concessions are offered to local, mostly small-scale operators organized as worker cooperatives (Salman et al, 2015). These examples are noteworthy in that they highlight the compeerist potential inherent in the relationship between government and the mining sector. For instance, it becomes possible to imagine how the US’s efforts to create a cooperative friendly environment for electricity during the New Deal could similarly be pursued regarding raw material extraction. The difference, however, is that the state, in the US and most other contexts, would be required to take an even more aggressive tack by actually decapitalizing (and then commonifying) the extractive mining industry that is already in place (in the case of rural electrification, capital-based actors were not yet present). We should nonetheless also add that apart from the state-cooperative alliance that characterizes the existing mining co-ops in the Majority World, these offer little else in terms of inspiration for compeerists; their community empowerment efforts, worker conditions, and environmental practices all leave much to be desired. More to the point, the long-term viability of these largely artisanal operations, and their ability to deliver real development, remains questionable at best. This is because there are much more rooted, postcolonial assemblages/apparatuses in place that stand in the way of allowing local peoples to truly benefit from the resources on the lands that they inhabit. We will return to this predicament later in the chapter; first, however, we must consider the compeerist potential and challenges within the renewable resources sector, and especially agriculture, where, incidentally, many of the same postcolonial dynamics are in play.