In my last C4SS column, I argued that the real significance of Occupy Together is not its effectiveness in pressuring the 1%’s state to enact reforms, but rather in showing the 99% our own strength. We’re an entire society in ourselves, the producers, and we don’t need the 1% — it’s they who would starve… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2011"
On businesses that sustain the commons
Republished from Mark Corbin: “Today I listened to a talk by Michel Bauwens of p2p foundation, from last years’ International Commons Conference, and I read an introduction to a book on high-yield organic farming called ‘How to Grow More Vegetables (than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine)’. And they shared… Continue reading
Why does #OccupyWallStreet succeed and endure where previous movements failed?
Micah Sifry reflects on a analysis by Andrew Boyd. Andrew Boyd: “* The tactic of occupation: The permanence of it. We’re not going to leave, we’re going to stick it out. The personal commitment and determination of people on the ground to see that through. That creates a human story and drama and a demonstration… Continue reading
The intellectual heritage and foundation to #OccupyWallStreet: the Madagascar connection
Excerpted from Dan Berrett: “Occupy Wall Street’s most defining characteristics—its decentralized nature and its intensive process of participatory, consensus-based decision-making—are rooted in other precincts of academe and activism: in the scholarship of anarchism and, specifically, in an ethnography of central Madagascar. It was on this island nation off the coast of Africa that David Graeber,… Continue reading
The five levels of the global commons
This is excerpted from a proposal by alice khatiba: “As everything else the organigram of the impending global commons will not be an invention of especially clever social engineers, but merely an emerging structure, something that is already here, has been around for ages, and just has to be found and picked up. Following Ockham’s… Continue reading
Juliet Schor: Plenitude
Juliet Schor. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth (Penguin, 2010). I bought Juliet Schor’s book, Plenitude, not long after I published my own book The Homebrew Industrial Revolution. I’m sure other people have had the experience of writing a book, and finding that someone else had been developing the same ideas entirely independently. In… Continue reading
New book by Dean Baker: Making Markets Progressive
* Book: The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive. Dean Baker. Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2011. Intro by Dean Baker: “Progressives need a fundamentally new approach to politics. They have been losing not just because conservatives have so much more money and power, but also because they have accepted the conservatives’ framing… Continue reading
An account of conflict (resolution) at the #OccupyWallStreet New York camp
Excerpted from Craig Kanalley: “This is what I have witnessed at Zuccotti the past few nights. On Thursday, the matter at hand was a proposal from Pulse — the group of drummers — for $8,000 for new musical instruments. They say they hoped to secure the funding after a $5,000 handmade drum was sabotaged and… Continue reading
Jeremy Rifkin on the real nature of our triple crisis: peak globalization, peak oil, and 3 degrees climate change
You must see this to realize the depth of the crisis facing our planet. In addition, for a ‘p2p’ audience, Rifkin makes a specific connection between new communication regimes and dominant energy resources. The task now, is to combine the internet revolution with the distributed energy revolution. This combination is the only way through the… Continue reading
Why is networked science stalled?
Excerpted from Michael Nielsen: “Networked science has the potential to speed up dramatically the rate of discovery across all of science. We may well see the day-to-day process of scientific research change more fundamentally over the next few decades than over the past three centuries. But there are major obstacles to realizing this goal. Though… Continue reading
Desktop Regulatory State
The Desktop Regulatory State: The Countervailing Power of Superempowered Individuals The subject of my previous book — The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto — was the way in which falling capital outlays required for both information and material production was eroding the rationale for large organizations, and shifting the balance of power toward… Continue reading
Tim Gee on Building Counterpower: are there lessons for #OccupyWallStreet?
To maintain their dominance, elites need people to accept their ideas, they need a flow of finance and they need instruments of coercion to enforce their will. Demonstrations can help turn opinion against a ruling elite. But it is by undermining the flow of finance and the physical ability to enact laws that a movement… Continue reading
Authority Creates Stupidity
James Scott’s book Domination and the Arts of Resistance is about how authority relations shape human communications. The book, like The Art of Not Being Governed, is based primarily on Scott’s research in pre-modern social settings. But the basic principles he illustrates from slaves and peasants, in agrarian and household settings, is equally applicable to… Continue reading
Robert Steele launches Electoral Reform campaign for #OccupyWallStreet
Watch the video explaining the campaign:
A potpourri of #OccupyWallStreet Videos (3)
1. Alan Grayson eloquently defends the reasons of the mobilizations: “For most of the show, Alan just sat quietly, which really surprised and disappointed me. Then suddenly, he let them have it. It was great. I just wish that the camera had shown the standing ovation.” 2. Chris Hedges: 3. Bernie Sanders:
The #OWS Occupations and their Spatialities
Excerpted from the New Left Project: Found in a report on Occupy London. “The first day was very hectic. With no leaders or imposed guidelines, we were free to (re)create the space as we saw fit. Initially people focused on making small structures, improvising with placards and cardboard to create makeshift tables. We were keen… Continue reading