These are excerpts from Chapter Fifteen of Kevin Carson’s draft for a book on Organizational Theory. Kevin Carson: “Networked peer production dovetails both with Jane Jacobs’ model of the Japanese bicycle factory, and with Kirkpatrick Sale’s community repair, recycling, and remanufacturing shops, which we discussed in Chapter Fourteen. Along the same lines, Colin Ward suggests… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2008"
Is leapfrogging at all possible?
There have recently been a number of reports, such as that of the World Bank discussed by the Economist, that put in doubt that leapfrogging, i.e. a direct leap into post-industrial development using the latest technologies is possible. The key argument is that there is little empirical proof of it happening, and that developing countries… Continue reading
Socialgraph targeting as peer to peer marketing
P2P-marketing has a name: socialgraph targeting. This is how the new world looks to those who want to sell us things, in other words, it’s an old world attempt to use p2p dynamics to sell more. For a new world bottom up approach, rather see Vendor Relationship Management, which reverses the relationship between supply and… Continue reading
David Korten on the US financial crisis and buy-out
Via Yes Magazine. David Korten: “We might start with the lesson that there is an essential role for government. Market fundamentalists have long argued that markets freed from governmental interference self-correct. We can now see clearly that the more Wall Street freed itself from regulatory oversight, the more its most powerful players manipulated markets and… Continue reading
Vasilis Kostakis: the Commons as the condition for the Basic Income
In an interesting contribution for Re-Public, the premier political journal on the internet, Vasilis Kostakis makes a link that I had never so clearly seen before, so reading the article was a real “aha” moment. It is the Commons itself, as an institutional form, that is the best possible solution and way forward to achieve… Continue reading
The distinction between free speech and free beer is eroding
A review of the issues involved to physically produce open designs, by Kevin Carson. These are excerpts from Chapter Fifteen on his book on Organizational Theory. Go there for the sourcing of the citations. Kevin Carson: Peer production’s transferability to the world of physical production is also a matter of great interest. Open source hardware… Continue reading
After the US meltdown of 2008, China’s in 2015?
Dr. Minqi Li, a young exiled Chinese scholar, is about to publish a very important book: The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy. For details, see also the extensive interview series (with transcripts) here. I’m particularly excited because it confirms my own analysis, which states that the current world system is… Continue reading
The Open Left as Third Left
It is not the use of the internet that matters, it is the expression of traditional left-wing American principles on open systems that is the institutional innovation at work here. Only just discovered, an analysis of the American left in terms of institution building. Our first quote examines the old and the new left of… Continue reading
Douglas Rushkoff on the planned nature of the credit crisis
Excerpts from an important editorial from Douglas Rushkoff, which I recommend you read in full: “The mortgage and credit crisis wasn’t merely predictable; it was predicted. And not by a market bear or conspiracy theorist, but by the people and institutions responsible. The record number of foreclosures, credit defaults, and, now, institutional collapses is not… Continue reading
The constellation model of social change
In spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible. – Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Freize Quoted in the article and case study on the constellation method: Tonya… Continue reading
Raoul Victor: on the role of money in the transition to a peer society
This contribution reflects a discussion on the Oekonux mailing list. Raoul Victor: “It would be useful to agree on what we understand by money, as a general concept. During the discussion this has not always been very precise. If we use the most elementary definition of money, as the one given in Wikipedia (English), money… Continue reading