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The World Social Forums: a process to build the union of those who fight against neoliberalism, towards “another possible world”. 

( automatic from FR for revision) 

Chico whitaker


The World Social Forums, the first of which was held in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, are now known around the world. However, the information people have about it is not complete or accurate. This text aims to provide some information to help fill these gaps.


Preliminaries

First of all, the World Social Forums should not be confused with the international movement known as alter-globalization. It took the place of anti-globalization - that diverse and multiple set of protest and resistance mobilizations that began to arise, all over the world, when the process of globalization of the capitalist system gained speed, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The word "anti" was, at that time, the one that best reflected its character as an opposition movement. But then, the World Social Forums having affirmed from 2001 that an "other world" is possible, the word "alter" replaced it, since it was a question of seeking an alternative to the planetary expansion of the world. “neo-liberal” wave. 

Mobilizations have multiplied under this new name. To express their disagreement with the policies of key institutions of the dominant system, such as the International Monetary Fund - IMF, the World Bank - WB and the World Trade Organization - WTO, an increasing number of demonstrators filled the streets of the places where they met. their leaders. Likewise there were protests against meetings of heads of state of dominant countries, such as the G8 or the G9. 

These mobilizations are therefore of a different nature from the meetings held within the framework of the WSF. The mobilizations of alter-globalization are society which moves, which acts against the dominant system, or which seeks to elect governments to end the wars of occupation or fratricidal, growing inequalities, the destruction of the planet. The WSF are an instrument created, within this movement, at the service of these struggles. 

They are therefore not to be confused with the actual political action of society. They do not want to replace the movements and organizations that lead it, nor to lead them in their struggles. They also don't want to become the "movement of movements", nor their somet (). They simply want to help social movements do what they are doing, such as supporting them. They are not, on the other hand, an event, located in time, or a series of events. They are in fact a process at the service of building the union and the growing articulation of those who are struggling to change the world. 

The WSF as an instrument 

The mobilizations for peace and against the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, are a good example of this type of instrument of the WSF, to support the action of society, and of its real usefulness. A certain number of participants of the European Social Forum, in November 2002 in Florence, Italy, proposed this mobilization. They did it again in January 2003 during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The WSF therefore did not “convene” such an event. He simply created the opportunity for the proposal to be made and discussed by the participants of these meetings. The organizations that accepted it took responsibility for disseminating it in their networks. 15 million people then filled the streets all over the world,without this participation being organized "from above" - ​​just as it was the case at the time of the big demonstrations of Seattle, before the WSF, and whose methodology of mobilization in networks certainly influenced it.

This distinction - between the society on the move and the WSF at its service - is not fully accepted by all, among those who participate in Forums and even among those who organize them in the world. It is often proposed that the WSF take the “lead” of the social movement - as if it were its summit. This wish comes particularly from those who, anxious by the urgency of the changes to be made for more justice or to protect the planet from its destruction, would like to put its power of attraction at the service of the expansion of social mobilization. This difference of understanding on the nature of the WSF is at the origin of many discussions which take place on the methodology to be adopted in the organization of its meetings.

This is in fact a discussion that takes place within the WSFs from their very beginning. The debate - is it a space or a movement? - is always present among the organizers of the Forums. It gained in intensity from 2003, when this question itself became clearer, but it is still ongoing, even though the WSF is already considered, by most of its organizers, more as a space - or an "open space", as they say. He returned with force the occasion of the WSF of 2009, when the financial crisis showed the enormous failures of the system itself, but the parties and social movements - or alter-globalization, more generically - failed to have the efficiency necessary to take the opportunity in their action to change the world.Many then thought that it would be up to the WSF to fill in their shortcomings, by becoming itself a political actor, with the role of giving directions to all the existing movements. 

With my Brazilian colleagues who participated in the organization of the first WSF, as well as with many people from all over the world, I am among those who think that it is absolutely necessary to maintain the WSF as an open space. Being convinced of this, I even wrote in 2005 a book to defend this option (). We believe that we cannot demand from the WSF what, because of its very nature, it cannot give. And that, if we change its nature, we risk in fact destroying it, as an instrument available to alter-globalization precisely to gain efficiency ...  

So, having made these preliminary clarifications, I would like to say why and how this instrument, which did not exist before, was "invented" (), having become, ten years after its creation, one of the most important means of which we have today in the struggle against the domination of capital. 


First steps

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to which I have already referred, symbolized the failure of the long socialist experience of the Soviet Union of the last century. The capitalist system took the opportunity to extend, under the neoliberal mantle, across the world, by rapidly "globalizing" the logics of money, competition, individualism and exploitation. It was in fact a new stage in the history of mankind that was beginning. This process of capitalist globalization that the world saw the birth of 500 years ago took, at the end of the 20th century, an intensity and a force never seen before.

The followers of this supposedly triumphant system then presented the market as the only economic mechanism capable of ensuring the satisfaction of human needs, also attributing to it the capacity to resolve by itself all the dysfunctions of the economy. Margaret Thatcher, English Prime Minister at the start of this stronger expansion of neoliberalism, asserted that there was no alternative, summing up this idea with the word TINA, from English: "there is no alternative ". 

Those who for almost two centuries opposed this system remained perplexed for a few years. Soon, however, the perverse effects of the domination of capital, both for human beings and for the planet, began to become clear. Various demonstrations and actions of resistance then multiplied, to which I also referred, giving rise to the movement which, shortly after, came to be known as anti-globalization. 

The phrase “another world is possible”, adopted to summarize the perspectives of the World Social Forum, born within this movement in 2001, clearly reflected a need felt and shared almost everywhere in the world: that of affirming that change would come. Having rekindled the lights of hope and utopia, this initiative quickly gained momentum.


An unexpected origin 

The history of this process offers us a first surprise: the idea of ​​launching such a global initiative of opposition to the capitalist system did not arise from the head of radically anti-capitalist political activists. 

Indeed, it was a business leader - and therefore, the economic agent par excellence of the fought system - who first had the idea of ​​organizing this Forum. He had seen that the "single thought" () around the primacy of the market was imposed on the world, by the great means of mass communication, from the meetings of the World Economic Forum (FEM), which gathered for about thirty years, in the luxury ski resort of Davos, Switzerland, the leaders of large multinational companies and heads of governments of rich countries. 

This entrepreneur - Oded Grajew - knew that humanity continued to seek and find other ways to make the economy work, replacing the logics of capitalism with those of cooperation, and aiming for well-being. people and nature conservation. He thus considered that the anti-globalization movement could move from protest and resistance to capitalism - one of the results of which was the rise of repression - to concrete, already existing proposals for its overcoming. According to him, we could enter a new phase of this struggle. Against the system, yes, but what in its place?

He thus proposed the organization of a counterpoint to the Davos Forum, on the same dates as this to show clearly what he was against: a Forum centered on human needs and not on money. A World Forum therefore "social", bringing together those who did not accept the dominant socio-economic model and who were looking for alternatives, based on solidarity. 

In conversations held, on the occasion of the birth of this proposal, with the managers of the newspaper "Le Monde Diplomatique" in France (), the decision was taken to seek to hold this new Forum in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. , where one of these experiments was carried out: the “participatory budget” (). 

Obviously this entrepreneur was not so similar to his fellows. Brazilian, he had strong concerns for justice, living in a country marked by scandalous social inequality. At the end of the military regime established in Brazil in 1964, it had participated in its process of re-democratization, among other things by creating a movement of "business leaders for democracy". () He was also at the origin of the establishment of an organization dedicated to the dissemination, in business circles, of "corporate social responsibility". () He therefore had sufficient political credibility to that his proposal be immediately accepted, after his return to Brazil, by Brazilian organizations and social movements (),eight of which were immediately involved in the preparation of the first World Social Forum, which was held in January 2001, in Porto Alegre. () 

The Brazilian situation at that time also helps to explain this immediate acceptance. We lived in Brazil in a climate of social demobilization. A new party founded in 1981 - the Workers' Party (PT) - proposed the “reversal of priorities” so that Brazilian public policies meet the needs of national majorities. All those who had fought against the military regime - regardless of their social sector or their political allegiance - considered that this reversal was necessary and urgent. From 1986 to 1988, they therefore participated intensely in the elaboration of the new Constitution of 1988, post-military regime. In the enthusiasm of this mobilization, the PT presented in 1989 the candidacy of a worker, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, for the Presidency of the Republic.This attempt failed, as it did during the next two elections, in 1994 and 1998. The proposal to set up a “social forum” of this type in 2001 therefore offered a good opportunity for renewed mobilization and debate, both within the PT and other political forces, in order to advance this process of reversal. It is this particular context which allows us to better understand the reasons for the climate of joy and reunion between Brazilians which characterized the first World Social Forum.It is this particular context which allows us to better understand the reasons for the climate of joy and reunion between Brazilians which characterized the first World Social Forum.It is this particular context which allows us to better understand the reasons for the climate of joy and reunion between Brazilians which characterized the first World Social Forum.


Methodological choices

The Brazilian organizations that took over the organization of the Forum then added, to the initial proposal, other considerations: 

- we were living at the end of a century full of frustrations, by the failure of so many efforts to overcome the capitalist system, the effects of which were felt by the multiplication of wars of occupation and fratricidal, growing inequalities and the risk of destruction of the planet;

- at the same time, we became aware of the limitation of parties as the main instrument available for the organization of political action, and of the exhaustion of the notion of vanguard having the role of leading the masses ; 

- civil society emerged as a new political actor, with all its diversity;

- new forms of non-pyramidal organization of action were tested - networks - which required horizontality in the relations between its participants;

- we realized the need, in order to effectively change the world, and even more so to save the planet, for the involvement of all of society - each and every one as subjects of their destinies.

 It was therefore necessary to try to respect all these considerations in defining the methodology for organizing this new Forum. It should therefore, in fact, pursue two utopias at the same time: that of an "other world" and that of a cultural revolution in political action - this second utopia leading to the need to seek a way to organize it. the proposal, debate and experimentation of new instruments, means and modes of action. 

 The choices made in this direction were influenced by several previous initiatives and events. I have already cited one of the most recent: the demonstrations in Seattle, in the United States in 1999, to challenge the World Trade Organization - WTO. They had been one of the first large-scale anti-globalization actions, and its participants had been mobilized into a network. A little earlier, in the 90s, the world had known the rebellion of the natives of Chiapas, Mexico - the Zapatistas - who made a whole critique of hierarchies and the functioning of parties. Earlier, there was the global youth rebellion, which spread to many countries around the world in 1968, opposing different types of authoritarianism. And much more before, Ghandi had proposed a principle of action according to which thethe goal to be reached is already the path to reach it. 

The Forum was not then conceived as a field reserved for the militants of always political parties; and even less as a space where those who discussed or followed together such or such other specific directive would meet, such as the various “internationals” that the world had known. It was envisioned as a space for civil society - this new political actor independent of the parties - open to all those who, in their organizations, were looking for new ways to try to solve the problems that the peoples of the world were facing. 

In the organization of activities within this space nothing should come from above, as in manipulated and domesticated societies, nor be imposed, in an authoritarian manner. The activities at the Forum would all be created from below and from within, by those very invited to come, in complete freedom and without hierarchies between them. 

On the other hand, it was necessary to establish as a principle in the organization and conduct of Forums that of cooperation, instead of competition. This is the main motor of the capitalist dynamic but, among those who fight it, it makes them destroy each other to the point of killing each other. Division is only about dominants - you have to divide to dominate. This division, recurrent among the left, only serves to weaken those who fight against the system, being therefore at the root of the frustrations of the end of the century. It was therefore necessary to put the Forum at the service of building the union of its participants and organizations. 

This union would then allow the deployment of the enormous force which is that of the company, by the fact that its members are workers - able to stop the machines which produce and therefore the profits of their owners; consumers - capable of blocking the fundamental mechanism of capitalism, that of transforming money into commodities which will only become money again if they are consumed; voters, who elect political leaders and are also able to remove them if they no longer deserve their trust. 


The surprise of the welcome received

This is how the organizers decided not to define the WSF theme beforehand, by organizing large presentations to launch the debates. The Davos Economic Forum was organized this way, as were most forums. Of course, invitations had to be made to ensure the presence of well-known intellectuals and activists who could attract interested parties to hear them. However, it was more important to identify all the themes to be discussed in order to build a world of peace and justice, and to invite people to come and present their struggles and experiences in this perspective, while organizing themselves, freely, their activities within the Forum. This led to the decision to hold a limited number of major masterful conferences and to open theForum space for self-organized discussion workshops. 

There too a Brazilian peculiarity influenced this decision. Indeed, a popular education pedagogy born in the country () had been adopted by the great majority of social movements in Brazil, as well as by the Catholic Church in its basic ecclesial communities - the CEBs (). According to one of the principles of this pedagogy teachers and students always learn from each other, from the various types of knowledge that each has. This methodology therefore stimulates the creation of horizontal relationships between the participants of any collective action.

The invitation to offer self-organized workshops received a very positive response: the number of workshops registered was ten times higher than that planned by the organizers. This interest in workshops was moreover largely confirmed in the following forums. Today, the self-programming of workshops and activities of all kinds by the participants themselves has become a methodological specificity of social forums in general.

Another important decision was taken in this same perspective of horizontality: the refusal to close the WSF with conclusive declarations or motions, claiming to express positions endorsed by all the participants in order to provide all directives "from above". In this, the WSF would be similar to that of Davos which also does not have a final declaration as a Forum. In fact, the possibility or the need to arrive at a declaration or common direction to all the participants would turn it into a space of dispute to have them approved, like the assemblies or congresses of movements or parties. This would only lead to manipulation considering the large number of participants and the short duration of the Forum.

These two combined choices - the self-organization of activities and the refusal to endorse a single final document - have become real pillars of the adopted methodology, which have given the WSF a ​​great power of attraction. Many people became interested in coming knowing that they would have a space to exchange freely and knowing that they would not be “used” to serve goals or strategies that might not necessarily be theirs.

All these options corresponded in fact to intuitions - could we even speak of bets - which turned out to be very rich and which were, moreover, deepened in subsequent Forums. The resulting methodological choices ensured the first World Social Forum was a great success. By attracting not only participants from other regions of Brazil but also from different countries of the world, their number greatly exceeded the expectations of the organizers: they expected some 2,500 people but 20,000 came. 


An autonomous space for civil society

The orientation of reserving the Forum for civil society organizations proved, on the other hand, very timely. In fact, their emergence, over the past few decades, as new political actors, autonomous from parties and governments, was a response to the shortcomings of representative democracy and to those of parties as the sole instrument of political action. But, unlike governments and parties, this civil society did not have its own space - much less at the global level - to consolidate the relationships between the organizations that make it up, and the World Social Forum created the opportunity to have such a space. 

But it also had to be protected from parties and governments, accustomed to using civil society to achieve its own goals. The organizers thus introduced a restrictive clause to the principle of opening the Forum: neither political party as such, nor government or intergovernmental institution could register self-organized activities. Despite this restriction, individual participants or from civil society organizations, affiliated to parties, could participate in the activities. However, since their participation was not based on their partisan affiliation, the parties could not use them for propaganda, in the Forum, or to introduce a competitive dynamic, characteristic of partisan relations.The same reasoning applied with regard to the participation of governments. () 

The creation of this space for civil society has enabled other discoveries. The fragmentation that characterizes it and that the strength of the whole diminishes is due to the extreme diversity of the organizations that make it up, in terms of their objectives, dimensions, social sectors involved, themes and rhythms of action. This observation then combined almost naturally with that of the multiplicity and the extreme diversity of the actions which are necessary to build a different world. It was therefore necessary to seek to build the union without wanting to homogenize the fabric of civil society, as the "market" forces seek to do with consumers, in order to reduce costs and sell as much as possible, in the logic of the capitalist system. The acceptance of the necessary multiplicity ofinitiatives and respect for diversity were therefore quickly perceived as one of the fundamental principles of the WSF process. 

These principles, just like the horizontal network relations - this organizational innovation experienced in the world for several decades already - have been recognized as being the alternative way to build the union of civil society, without needing the traditional pyramidal hierarchical structures of political, labor and government organizations.


Space and non-movement forum

It is from all these choices that the World Social Forum ended up gaining, in practice, an open space character (), made available to all those who believe that another world is possible and who decide to overcome barriers, prejudices, divisions, to help each other, cooperate, and build their union. 

Indeed, this space allows them to meet, to recognize each other, to exchange experiences, to identify convergences, to be articulated in networks in the horizontality and the mutual respect, to fight together to promote the values. of a new civilization, where human beings would be in harmony with each other and with their common mother, the Earth. 

The organization of Forums of this type has been very rich, particularly for those who are in charge of it. By entering into this new political practice they themselves realize the necessary changes in their way of working. This is how the idea came to them to say that they were facilitators of a process and not organizers of an event. This change in the way of seeing oneself is not always obvious, however. Many sometimes continue to say that they are the organizers or the coordinators, or even that they themselves are such and such a Social Forum, as if “their” Forum was an organization or an entity of their own, and not a collective service. creation of open spaces. But it is a bad start which, when it does not lead to the disappearance of these Forums, manages to self-correct.

The adoption of the rule of consensus to decide, instead of the vote by which it is the will of the majority that wins, was one of the elements of this real re-education. This rule teaches you to hear. If we do not have to convince others to win their votes, we must seek the truth told by the other and not his errors, which would have to be shown to those who would vote. We can then join the truth of the other to our truth, to build a third truth acceptable to all. This is, in fact, a process very close to what teaches us the secular wisdom of peoples originating from all continents, before the invasion of their countries by the logic of the accumulation of silver.

The spaces thus created in the WSF process did not therefore give birth to a new movement, in competition with those that existed. They finally asserted themselves as an instrument - an option I have already referred to - to help all these movements reinforce each other. They also stood out as incubator spaces for new movements and other possible initiatives, linked together in a network, in the diversity of struggles necessary, at all levels, to change the world. 


The necessary expansion

The success of the first Forum automatically forced its organizers to embark on a second, and then a third. The number of participants had increased from year to year: 50,000 in 2002, 100,000 in 2003. In 2004 a fourth forum, with 120,000 participants, was already organized outside Brazil, in India (), a country with a very different history and culture from Brazil. Again in Brazil in 2005, 150,000 people came. 

Other formats have also been tested, such as the 2006 Forum, decentralized in three capitals and on three continents, in Latin America, Africa and Asia (). It also had the format of the Global Day of Action in January 2008, which took place all over the world, with a great diversity of activities and small and large initiatives. In 2007, the first WSF to be held in Africa attracted slightly fewer participants, around 70,000, in Nairobi, Kenya (), but the 2009 WSF in Belém do Pará, Brazil, again attracted 150,000 participants.

Also, forums-spaces at other levels - regional, national and even local - and thematic forums began to be organized all over the world, from 2003. And before the next WSF again in Africa, in Dakar in 2011, 2010 will see more than 40 forums or meetings of this type taking place in all continents. 

Each WSF is methodologically different from the previous one. Its organizers seek to learn from the lessons of others already achieved, while adapting them to the reality of their countries or regions, so that they can better achieve, each time, their objectives of allowing, in the meetings, the mutual recognition which overcomes artificial barriers and prejudices, as well as exchanges: to learn with the knowledge of others and "unlearn" old hierarchical and competitive practices; to debate new ideas and proposals towards a new post-capitalist society; to identify convergences between what everyone is doing; to build new alliances, with respect for diversity and the need for a multiplicity of actions; to launch new actions,without creating new pyramids that always provoke struggles for power concentrated at their peaks.  

But to realize the Foruns it is not the services of professional dating promotion that are used. They are the responsibility of the civil society organizations of each country or local having decided to face this challenge, without any previous experience of this type. There is therefore always room for improvisations, which are felt by many as poor organization. These shortcomings, which require creativity and adaptability from Forum participants, based on mutual trust and solidarity, in fact become almost one of their marks - or their "culture". This dynamic ends up solving the problems that arise, since everyone sees themselves as co-responsible for this collective construction. And its success creates an atmosphere of joy,very different from that usual in political meetings, loaded with tensions due to mistrust and mutual controls. In fact, this creativity and this corresponsibility are also necessary conditions for opening up unknown paths towards a new world, and is therefore part of the new political culture under construction.


The Charter of Principles and the International Council of the WSF

La création de ces multiples espaces à travers le monde et à différents niveaux ne pouvait évidement pas dépendre de ceux et celles qui ont réalisé le premier FSM au Brésil. Les huit organisations brésiliennes qui en étaient responsables avaient déjà invité les organisations sociales d’autres pays à organiser des forums de même type, là où ils pourraient être utiles. En accord avec le principe de l'auto-organisation adopté au FSM, ces autres forums sociaux seraient de la responsabilité des organisations locales ayant pris cette initiative. Là aussi, il y avait une différence par rapport aux rencontres de Davos ou les rencontres de suivi du FÉM. Celles-ci sont programmées et organisées par une grande entreprise disposant de beaucoup de ressources – chaque participant doit payer des milliers de dollars, tandis que lors des FSM, les couts d’inscription des participants sont presque toujours symboliques.

But how can we ensure that the other forums of the WSF process have the same success as the first, carried out in 2001? The eight Brazilian organizations already had before them this challenge for the realization of the second Forum to be held in Porto Alegre. They then developed, immediately after the first and from its lessons, a Charter of Principles. It would serve as a “manual” for their new challenge. It could then also guide those who have decided to embark on the adventure of creating new open spaces of the same type. 

One of the fundamental principles of this Charter was the affirmation that it is not a place of struggle for power, which is at the root of the division. A second, equally important, was that of respect for diversity: all types of diversity - cultural or social up to the level and pace of individual commitment. 

The success of the second and third WSF carried out in 2002 and 2003 in Porto Alegre according to this Charter was tangible proof of the validity of its principles. The wisdom of its content was then confirmed by the success of the other Forums organized afterwards. 

Its acceptance, especially outside Brazil, was not, however, automatic or easy, as it broke new ground in many aspects of current political practice. Gradually, however, the Charter has been adopted by a growing number of organizations that have become part of the process of social forums.

Brazilian organizations have also invited more than fifty organizations from different countries, after the first Forum, to form an International Council (IC) to support them in the rest of their process. They then presented the Charter of Principles to this Council, which approved it. This Charter has thus become a basic reference for any forum wishing to join the WSF. And the Council, today made up of around 130 international organizations, seeks to ensure the continuity of what has already become - in fact and not only as a wish - a continuous process of increasing and multiple articulations of individuals and civil society organizations from around the world, supported or not in “forum” events, towards the emergence of a planetary civil society. 


A new political culture, a new common good of humanity

The Brazilian organizers gradually realized that they were in fact participating in a "political invention" (). The directions they adopted are not all fully implemented when organizing social forums around the world. 

Any new political culture is built up little by little, requiring both new structures and personal changes, within everyone who participates in the process, in a perspective of self-formation. But this construction continues.


In summary, these orientations were as follows:

- horizontality in the relations between participants;

- the refusal of a single final document; 

- self-organization of activities according to the pace and form chosen by each; 

- respect for diversity; 

- opening up of space; 

- promoting the proliferation of initiatives of all kinds; 

- the possibility of discussing political issues in an atmosphere of celebration rather than in the permanent and sometimes cruel dispute, even between allies; 

- mutual trust;

- the constant search for absolute transparency; 

- discipline by conviction and not by obedience to commands; 

- the willingness to be at the service of collective hopes instead of constantly fighting for different types of personal or group power; 

- accepting the inadequacies of others and their own limits; 

- network organization where all are responsible while exercising different functions rather than hierarchical pyramidal structures which are not always democratic; 

- the awareness of the insufficiency of the parties to advance in the political struggle; 

- going beyond political action which is limited to demonstrations in the streets.

This is indeed a set of behaviors and perceptions uncommon in the world of political action, until the emergence of World Social Forums. This new political culture, perceived as the only path that can effectively lead to the "other possible world", is undoubtedly contributing to the consolidation of an ethics which can ensure the continuity of the human species and the planet. , in justice and in peace.

The dimension which has taken on the WSF process and the perspectives that it has opened up, however, and still pose new challenges. We could already recognize that the WSF does not and cannot belong to anyone, to any group, to any current or political party, and to any type of civil society organization in particular. We could perhaps even already assert that the WSF process - as a series of "public places" opened from time to time all over the world and as the articulations that follow - has become a new Common Good of Humanity, just like other Common Goods such as water, land, knowledge, crops, genetic heritage or health. () 

The Manifesto for the Recovery of Common Goods, which was one of the proposals presented at the WSF 2009, in Belém, Brazil, called for the struggle to “deprivatize” and “de-commodify” them, in opposition to the trend imposed by capitalist logic. We still have to discover the best way to manage these Common Goods, in order to ensure their protection at the service of all and their continuity over time, without them becoming exhausted. This same challenge is currently facing the International Council (IC) of the WSF, each time it has to reflect and decide on the follow-up to be given to the Forum process. Let us hope that the imagination and the intuitions which have been able, until now, to feed it, can allow us to continue to find the right paths to follow.

03/07/2010