Book: Wiki Government. How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. Beth Noveck. Brookings Institution Press, 2009 Beth Noveck, professor of law and director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, famous for her successful Peer to Patent project, has published a new book about… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2009"
Indigenous community-based aspects of the Bolivian movement
Interesting details about the indigenous aspects of the social change movement in Bolivia, which gained power with the electoral victory of Evo Morales. In this excerpt, Fernando Huanacuni, one of the most important Aymara intellectual references in Bolivia, highlights the difference of approaches with the traditional Latin-American left. “Beyond the indigenous movement, do you not… Continue reading
20 Theses against green capitalism
Very interesting set of 20 political theses about green capitalism, that warrant a serious discussion. The text is from Tadzio Mueller and Alexis Passadakis. Alexis is a member of attac Germany’s coordinating council, Tadzio a part of the Turbulence editorial collective (www.turbulence.org.uk). They are both active in the emerging climate justice movement, and can be… Continue reading
Government By Goldman Sachs: the video
Via Thomas Greco: “Reporter Matt Taibbi recently wrote an article for Rolling Stone called The Great American Bubble Machine. In this five part video he elaborates upon the theme and describes how Goldman Sachs has virtually taken over the U.S. government.”
How long will this meltdown last? Until 2038?
“Those who expect a swift return to the business-as-usual of 2006 are fantasists. A slow and difficult recovery, dominated by de-leveraging and deflationary risks, is the most likely prospect.” (Martin Wolff) As most readers of this blog know, I have my own timeline for p2p-induced transformations. It goes roughly like this: given that 2008 was… Continue reading
The True Cost Economics Manifesto
The importance of this initiative by Adbusters, aimed at undermining the ideological stranglehold of destructive economic theory now dominating universities, cannot be overstated. Sign it here. For background on Adbusters’ strategy to radically reject neoclassical economics, see the article by Steve Keen. “We, the Undersigned, make this accusation: that you, the teachers of neoclassical economics… Continue reading
Bernard Lietaer on the role of complementary B2B currencies in this crisis
Japan ” tried the classical solutions, and after five years, they stopped believing the economic downturn was a cyclical thing, that it was like all the other ones. That’s when they started implementing these structural kind of solutions, which is why Japan is a full-scale laboratory of complementary currencies. However, Japan still haven’t gone to… Continue reading
Principles of ethical social enterprise
Proposed by Franco Papeschi & Tory Dunn: (details and background here) “1. Does the initiative help people use time to their best advantage? 2. Does it strengthen relationships between people? 3. Does it have a clear socially beneficial mission (or in the absence of clarity, a positive trajectory in a socially beneficial direction)? 4. Does… Continue reading
The use of social network analysis in labor conflicts
Via Turbulence #1: “Valery Alzaga talks to Rodrigo Nunes about the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) global organising approach “VA: Research is the first step, before the organising begins. First, you need to identify a ‘universe’. What is the size of the market? Who are the players involved (owners, building management, cleaning companies)? What share… Continue reading
Changing from the outside in …
Our research is showing that there are very few — maybe even no — conditions under which properly equipped users engaged in open innovation cannot outdo closed. In this long and very interesting interview with open innovation researcher and advocate Eric von Hippel, he makes the point that organization don’t really change from the inside,… Continue reading
The real snow crash: utopian charge and dystopian dangers in the Metaverse
Another Perfect World: A 30-minute trailer of what seems like a really well done documentary about the many aspects of the new generation of virtual worlds and how it reflects back on humanity: Details from the producer: “Another Perfect World is a documentary about digital utopias, about online worlds created as places for work, play,… Continue reading
P2P PIONEERS vs. PROTO-CAPITALISM: MAGHRIBIS & GENOESE TRADERS
A re-post from the blog Golpe de e-Estado: There is a tendency to believe peer production to be a better system. Fine with that, the point now is whether it is sustainable or not. As it was argued in the previous post there is at least ground for considering fundamental similarities between our understanding of… Continue reading
Money without banks: lessons from Ireland
Dave Birch reports on the Irish experience of a bank strike in the early nineties, after reading a earlier report by Michael Linton. Dave Birch: “Between 1966 and 1976 there were three major “all out” bank strikes in Ireland that shut the retail banks for (in total) a year. There is a super case study,… Continue reading
Sharing works best for corporate innovation
Thanks to Tomas Rawlings for pointing me to two interesting articles. 1. The first article, dating back to December 2007 but still of current interest, reports on a debate within venture capital circles, on the value of “Noncompete” agreements, enforced in Massachusetts but not in California, which restrict the mobility of employees, but also therefore… Continue reading
Economic Free Software Perspectives
This article by Carlo Daffara appeared in the August issue of the Open Source Business Resource, dedicated to free software-based “Tech Entrepreneurship”. It has a well-researched typology of the prevailing free software based business models. Abstract: “How do you make money with free software?” was a very common question just a few years ago. Today,… Continue reading
The devastating record of GMO foods
Vandana Shiva on the future of food: Part two: