A report on interesting forms of municipal and worker’s resistance in the U.S., using the legal doctrine of Eminent Domain: By Roger Bybee: ” Workers in places like Taunton, Mass. are continuing their struggles at the grass-roots level against the destruction of America’s productive base and its dwindling supply of good jobs. In Taunton, members… Continue reading
Date archives "January 2011"
A critique of collapsism as an ideology
Eric Harris-Braun wrote this in May 2009, but these are still very valid and stimulating observations: “A friend of mine recently asked me to read Carolyn Baker’s article When facing reality is not ‘negative thinking. This article has finally helped me nail down some thought’s I’ve been having about the way I’ve been often asked… Continue reading
Peter Linebaugh on the Social and Etymological History of the Relation between the Concepts of ‘Communism’ and the ‘Commons’
* Paper: PETER LINEBAUGH — MEANDERING ON THE SEMANTICAL-HISTORICAL PATHS OF COMMUNISM AND COMMONS. The Commoner. Winter 2010. Peter Linebaugh, the great historian of the commons, has written an interesting historical essay on the inter-relationship of these two contested terms. From the conclusion: “In the 1840s, then, ‘communism’ was the new name to express the… Continue reading
Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software
* PhD thesis – “Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software”. J. Martin Pedersen. Thesis submitted January 2010, Department of Philosophy, Lancaster University. Examined by Massimo De Angelis. The thesis is a philosophical and political inquiry into the material nature of immateriality and was published as the first of a two volume Special Issue… Continue reading
From the Long Tail to the Long Take: How Tweets and Texts (Can) Nurture In-Depth Analysis
Journalist Clive Thompson makes an interesting observation and argument in the January issue of Wired: The key argument is: “We’re often told that the Internet has destroyed people’s patience for long, well-thought-out arguments. After all, the ascendant discussions of our day are text messages, tweets, and status updates. The popularity of this endless fire hose… Continue reading
Alex Steffen on the reversal of physical globalization
Republished from August 2008: Alex Steffen of WorldChanging asks an important question that we have discussed here as well (i.e. Could Globalization Be Reversed?), but his piece is important because it reviews all the other arguments that may point to a reversal scenario, and not just the current hike in transportation costs. I’d like to… Continue reading
Net Neutrality as a ‘Diplomatic’ Communication Right
Jonathan Zittrain reframes Network Neutrality through a comparison with diplomatic rights accorded to states: “Just as states expect to conduct their official business on foreign soil without interference, so citizens should be able to lead digitally mediated—and increasingly distributed—lives without fear that their links to their online selves can be arbitrarily abridged or surveilled by… Continue reading
Tribler – Decentralized Bit Torrent Client with a Social Dimension
Michel just pointed me to an article in Torrent Freak which describes Tribler, a new bit torrent client that introduces some interesting new features to further decentralize the sharing of files. The Torrent Freak article Truly Decentralized BitTorrent Downloading Has Finally Arrived describes what sets Tribler apart from other bit torrent clients. The two most… Continue reading
A P2P approach to personal money management
Peak Moment TV interviews Vicky Robin, author of the book, Your Money or Your Life: Watch the well worth seeing video here:
Contemporary enclosures in Peter Linebaugh’s new historical essay on the commons
Enclosure, like capital, is a term that is physically precise, even technical (hedge, fence, wall), and expressive of concepts of unfreedom (incarceration, imprisonment, immurement). In our time it has been an important interpretative idea for understanding neoliberalism, the historical suppression of women as in Silvia Federici, the carceral archipelago as in Michel Foucault’s great confinement,… Continue reading
Websites Black-out as Drastic Internet Censorship is Introduced in Hungary
Websites Black-out as Drastic Internet Censorship is Introduced in Hungary Will the upcoming Hungarian Presidency of the EU attack the Net? Budapest, January 2nd 2001 — A new media law in Hungary creates a powerful censorship authority without oversight and excessive powers under control of the governing party, which endangers the freedom of speech, the… Continue reading
On Commons Architecture
We missed this when it came out, via Stefan Meretz: (go to the original article for the links) An Architektur is an English-language magazine. the summer issue entitled »On the Commons« Stefan Meretz: “Main part of the summer issue entitled »On the Commons« is an interview with Massimo de Angelis and Stavros Stavrides: »Beyond Markets… Continue reading
Ten Theses About Global Commons Movement
Written by Stefan Meretz of keimform.de on the occasion of the Berlin Commons Conference, November 1-2, 2010, the following theses are still valuable for further reflection. Stefan Meretz: “1. The global commons movement exists as an assemblage of movements spread around the globe beginning to become aware of its global and interrelated character. As a… Continue reading
David Rovics sings the Commons
Via Keimform (where you also find the lyrics):
Details about the P2P Foundation’s Book of the Year for 2010: Civilizing the Economy
* Book: Civilizing the Economy. A new economics of provision. Marvin T. Brown. Cambridge University Press, 2010 (review here) To be clear, our 2010 list contains two books of the year, the other being Kevin Carson’s remarkable book on the Homebrew Revolution, i.e. on th he relocalization of production around open and distributed infrastructures for… Continue reading
New P2P Research List
As previously announced, the P2P Research email discussion list is migrating because of problems with our old host. The new site can be found here. If you are currently a member of the list and wish to continue receiving messages, please click on the link and subscribe to the new list which Franco Iacomella was… Continue reading