Absolutely clear thinking from Walden Bello. Excerpts: “For one thing, Keynesianism is mainly a tool for reviving national economies, and globalization has severely complicated this problem. In the 1930s and 1940s, reviving industrial capacity in relatively integrated capitalist economies revolved around the domestic market. Nowadays, with so many industries and services transferred or outsourced to… Continue reading
Date archives "August 2009"
From Social Media To Social Business Design
(most of the material below is collated from the Putting People First blog) Some people are working to completely redesign business processes, using social media. Why is that important? In my essay last month on “Russia and the next long wave“, I started developing a scheme, applicable worldwide, contrasting the failed constituents of Kondratieff 6,… Continue reading
Open hardware for health: what’s needed?
David Van Sickle, who launched the open spirometer project for respitory diseases, reflects on what is needed for successfull open hardware projects in the healthcare field: David Van Sickle: “While working on this project, I’ve been keeping track of some ways in which we might better stimulate successful open source hardware projects in global health…. Continue reading
Distributed energy in Thailand and the Pacific Northwest
This is an excerpt from a profile on Thai energy activist Chuenchom Sangarasri, which appeared in the Bangkok Post. Apart from mentioning the success of renewable energy efforts in Thailand, the article also has an interesting passage about the catastrophic failure of nuclear energy programs in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. Vasana Chinvarakorn:… Continue reading
Dana Blankenhorn on Stephen Chu’s open source energy future
Dana Blankenhorn writes: open source is not enough, open standards are needed as well. Dana Blankenhorn (excerpt): “Energy Secretary Stephen Chu (right) has seen our energy future and says it’s open source. Specifically, he wants open source tools that might act as plug-ins to building design programs and act as guides to improving a project’s… Continue reading
Trusts, the Commons and Capitalism
The book is not new, but still a must-read classic. Great review below. Book: Peter Barnes. Capitalism 3.0: Enriching Ourselves By Enhancing Our Commons, Berrett-Koehler, 2006. Gus diZerega: “His basic argument is deceptively simple. Our private well being is rooted in a foundation of common values, our common-wealth. This takes on three dimensions: nature, community,… Continue reading
Natural vs. Artificial Profit
A contribution by Paul Fernhout, part of a rather perennial debate on the p2p research list about the place of markets in society. Paul Fernhout: “As things are now, I don’t have a problem with profit-seeking in our current system so much as rent-seeking. Profit-seeking may be an issue sometimes, even many times, but it… Continue reading
Mutual aid in Lopez Island, Washington State
This story appeared as part of a profile of Thai energy activist, Chuenchom Sangarasri, who spent some time in the island with her husband Chris Greacon, where they lived in a ‘net zero energy’ house on the island. Vasana Chinvarakorn reports: “Due to family reasons, last year the mother of two moved to the United… Continue reading
Proposal For A Universal Declaration On The Common Well-Being Of Humanity
Set of 4 principles proposed by Francois Houtart, to enhance the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (also a contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by ZCommunications in July 2009) Text Intro “Confronted as we are by a financial crisis which is affecting the world economy and which combines with a food, energy and climate… Continue reading
The biggest pirates are the biggest spenders
In the more extensive original version of the article from which we are excerpting, science fiction author Cory Doctorow explains why it is a good idea for authors to share free e-books with their potential fans. He als makes the point that filesharing is mostly about discovering new cultural creations that one is not ready… Continue reading
A critique of NGO’s role in Empire
An excerpt from a cogent questioning of NGO’s role by Joan Roelofs. Excerpt: “Why would these philanthropic efforts offend anyone? Why do they hate our kind hearts? In the first place, these public-private philanthropies have worked together to fund and direct overthrow movements. We had a “Subversive Activities Control Board” here, but export was encouraged…. Continue reading
Paul Fernhout: for a right meshwork between organic and industrial agriculture
Despite the fact that evidence demonstrating organic agriculture’s productive potential has been steadily accumulating, there are still many voices holding out to industrial agriculture’s absolute superiority. For example, in these commentaries about Postapocalyptic Gardens on the IEET website (also here) Bruno Rinesi writes that: Home gardening as a significant food source for consumption and barter… Continue reading
The Crisis in Agriculture & Food: Conflict, Resistance, & Renewal
Bob Sheak reports on Monthly Review’s latest issue on the Crisis in Agriculture at the Local Food Systems website. Bob Sheak: “The focus of the issue is captured in its title: “The Crisis in Agriculture & Food: Conflict, Resistance, & Renewal.” The first articles document the terrible damage and disastrous trends associated with the corporate-dominated… Continue reading
How the Mozilla Foundation leads its voluntary contributors ‘from behind’
This description appeared in a Business Week article by Douglas MacMillan : “Even as Mozilla’s internal staff has grown to 250, from 15 in 2005, an army of volunteers still contributes about 40% of the company’s work, which ranges from tweaks to the programming code to designing the Firefox logo. How Mozilla channels those efforts… Continue reading
Were the medieval Maghrebi traders P2P pioneers?
A re-post from the Golpe de Estado blog: Within the digital revolution P2P processes have aroused as something radically new, a new form of production, a new paradigm that could outset more traditional productive models. Is this the case? Well, once upon a time, in the eleventh-century, some Mediterranean traders conformed a peer organization. Members… Continue reading
Dama: Mali’s Gift Economy
Yes magazine has an interesting article on Mali’s gift economy: “In one study in Bamako, each person gave an average of 1.5 gifts per day. Another study found that gifts account for 18% of total expenditures among Malian villagers, comprising the largest single category. Presents are passed along everywhere: a small household decoration, change to… Continue reading