“Slavoj Žižek is regarded as one of the ideological pioneers of the Occupy movement, but he says its demands don’t go far enough. Žižek sees no future for capitalism and is calling for a radical break with the past in favor of a new social order.”
Date archives "January 2012"
P2P Essay of the Day: Is Demonetization a Good Idea?
“I do not think that “abolishing money” would be possible, money is the expression of a deep separation between people. Such a deeply sedimented structure you cannot abolish but only transcend, transform, disolve. * ” Excerpted from Andreas Exner: “Is it really such a good idea to start from abolishing money, since it seems to… Continue reading
P2P Video of the day: Introduction to the Japanese Freeter Unions
“Freedom and Survival — The Freeter Union” is the story of a Japanese Union created in 2004 in Tokyo through and for Freeters. Freeters are mostly young japanese people, who work precariously. In the earlier times it was often a conscious choice, creating an alternative life style apart from the mainstream career in the Japanese… Continue reading
Deep Trust, Shallow Trust, and Phyles
A recent exchange between Venessa Miemis inspired me to add a section to the chapter on phyles and other networked economic platforms, in my Desktop Regulatory State manuscript: The Value of the Phyle as Opposed to Other Models of Collaboration
P2P Essay of the Day: Towards a System of Resilent Finance and Banking based on Peer Credit
A summary of a proposal by Chris Cook: * Resilient Finance – from Banks to Banking: 21st Century Problems cannot be solved with 20th Century Solutions What is the Problem? The basis of credit is firstly the capacity of people to provide goods and services, and secondly the use value of productive assets such as… Continue reading
P2P Book of the Day: Set Culture Free
Source: Joel Poindexter Recently Salon featured an interview with author Robert Levine, entitled “Does culture really want to be free?” Levine has written a new book, Free Ride, on the subject of intellectual property (IP). His subtitle is How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back, the… Continue reading
Creating OSE Community in Germany
From OSE Europe: http://oseeurope.org/2012/01/creating-ose-community-in-germany/ Paradigms are shifting and new practical solutions are needed. This year we want to start an Open Source Ecology community in Germany and we are looking for a Dedicated Team to make this happen. The people involved in the project will be sharing openly and for free economically significant information. We want… Continue reading
P2P Essay of the Day: Urban Affairs in India, the Right to the City, and Planning as Commoning
* Special Issue: Review of Urban Affairs: The Commons. Economical and Political Weekly. December 2011. This special issue of the Indian magazine focuses on urban dynamics of enclosure and the commons in an Indian context. From the editorial introduction: “Framed by a concept note that sets out the significance of the notion of “commons” to… Continue reading
Richard Stallman Was Right All Along
Source: Thom Holwerda Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty… Continue reading
P2P Video of the Day: David Graeber on the First Five Thousand Years of Debt
The author of the P2P Foundation’s book of the Year, in a lengthy but fascinating two-part interview, conducted by Thomas Hartmann: For part two, go here.
Mozilla rings in new year with 2.0 license overhaul
Source: Paula Rooney – ZDNet The overseer of the popular Firefox open source browser rang in the new year with an overhaul of its longstanding license — the Mozilla Public License 2.0. “Version 2.0 is similar in spirit to the previous versions, but shorter, better, and more compatible with other Free Software and Open Source… Continue reading
P2P Essay of the Day: Peer Production as neoliberalism
The Beachhead Hypothesis, adhered to by the P2P Foundation, can be summarized as follows: “in the vast territory controlled by capitalism, P2P creates autonomous spaces free from exploitative wage labor that can be expanded to encroach further on enemy territory”. Here is a critique by “Mike” (blog author Mr. Teacup) who argues that Peer Production… Continue reading
P2P Video of the Day: Militarizing the police in preparation of #OccupyWallStreet 2012
Max Blumenthal of the Nation Institute explains the further militarization:
P2P Essay of the Day: Seeds and the Laws Against the Commons
* Thesis: Seeds and the Law. Sectoral regulation governed by one business model. By Shabnam Laure Anvar. The research by Ms. Anvar shows how French law is geared against seed-based cooperation amongst farmers. Summary “The seed supply chain is governed by a variety of business models. Seed regulation, however, is informed by just one single… Continue reading
Spain Implements Website-Blocking Sinde Law
Source: MIke Palmedo Spain’s newly elected Popular Party has implemented the controversial Law for Economic Sustainability (informally known as the “Sinde law” after outgoing Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde). Under the Sinde Law, rightholders can identify websites hosting infringing content to a government commission on intellectual property, which will determine if the site is infringing. Within… Continue reading
The P2P Foundation Books of the Year 2011: Our annual top ten list of P2P books
Here is our selection and reading recommendations of the best books we reviewed and presented in 2011 (but which may have been published in 2010). The same list but with links to extensive treatments for each book is here. 1. On Debt, hierarchy and P2P dynamics Debt: The First 5,000 Years David Graeber. Melville House… Continue reading