Why Local Groups Struggle to Scale

New @greenpillnet pod out today! 🌐 Hosted by Primavera De Filippi & Felix Beer, this episode of the Network Nations mini-series explores how commons, mutualism, and entanglement form the backbone of resilient, self-organizing communities.

Joined by Sara Horowitz (founder of the Mutualist Society & Freelancers Union) and Michel Bauwens (founder of the P2P Foundation), they discuss how collective ownership, cooperative economies, and peer-to-peer networks can transform civil society into interconnected network nations.

Together, they unpack the difference between commoning and mutualism, the importance of trust and solidarity, and how local cooperation can scale into a global fabric of shared governance.

🎧 Learn more → networknations.network

🌐 greenpill.network Mutualistsociety.net https://p2pfoundation.net/ https://4thgenerationcivilization.substack.com/

🐦 @owocki @Sara_Horowitz @mbauwens | @greenpillnet |

🌐 Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome to the Network Nations mini-series with Primavera De Filippi & Felix Beer 01:30 – Introducing guests: Sarah Horowitz (Mutualist Society) & Michel Bauwens (P2P Foundation) 03:30 – What are the commons and how communities organize through shared resources 05:30 – Michel on the evolution from free software to Web3 and local commons 07:40 – How open collaboration shifted toward community self-reliance 09:30 – From cooperation to solidarity: why communities need mutual care 10:40 – When institutions fail, communities must organize for themselves 12:00 – Sarah's work with freelancers and the rise of mutualist organizing 13:40 – The three principles of mutualism: solidarity, economic mechanism, and longevity 15:00 – How commoning and mutualism interconnect historically 17:00 – The role of capital and appropriate funding for mutualist systems 18:40 – Scaling solidarity: from patchworks of local groups to federated networks 20:20 – Michel on cosmopolies and non-territorial governance throughout history 22:00 – The blockchain paradox: ideology as glue for coordination 23:30 – Why transcendent values or shared myths matter for collaboration 25:00 – Defining entanglement the bonds between communities and shared kinship 27:40 – Michel's "archipelago of regenerative villages" model 30:00 – How regenerative projects can attract capital and resilience 31:30 – Bioregional and cosmolocal models of solidarity 33:00 – Sarah on federations, unions, and historical models of coordination 35:00 – Rethinking "exit": from isolation to interdependence 37:20 – Why interdependence is strength, not weakness 38:30 – The lost baton of institutional knowledge in Web3 governance 39:50 – Delegation, iteration, and the relearning of organizational design 42:00 – Network Nations as additive systems, not exit systems 43:20 – Building power through the commons and mutualism 45:30 – From individual sovereignty to collective agency 47:10 – Building mutualist tech infrastructure for self-financing communities 49:20 – The disconnect between coders and communities — and how to bridge it 51:10 – Learning from what works: local experiments that can scale 53:00 – The role of "deep dives" in connecting commons, co-ops, and Web3 builders 55:00 – Why sensemaking and learning infrastructures are key for coordination 56:30 – Sarah on the "pods" model — ecosystems for mutual learning 57:40 – Network Nations as a convergence point for adjacent movements 59:10 – Building open, kind, and politically diverse collaboration cultures 01:01:20 – Avoiding the tragedy of the commons through entanglement and shared trust 01:05:00 – The SMART Co-op model for freelancers as a transnational example 01:07:00 – Low-hanging fruit: building local capital pools for community resilience 01:08:40 – Closing thoughts and invitations to join the movement