Date archives "December 2012"

A key feature of peer production: How a Stigmergy of Actions Replaces Representation of Persons

“A new system of governance or collaboration that does not follow a competitive hierarchical model will need to employ stigmergy in most of its action based systems. It is neither reasonable nor desirable for individual thought and action to be subjugated to group consensus in matters which do not affect the group, and it is… Continue reading

Howard T. Odum on Energy Equality

Odum was able to demonstrate concretely that while the United States received more than twice as much embodied energy from trade as it exported, Ecuador was exporting five times the embodied energy that it received. Trade between the two was thus enormously disadvantageous to Ecuador in real wealth terms, while providing a massive ecological benefit… Continue reading

Managing Health and Healthcare as a Commons

Excerpted from George Por: (the original version with links here) “A group of Commons scholars inspired by Elinor Ostrom’s work, at Indiana University, conducted a fascinating research in a Working Group on Managing the Health Commons. It provides a key conceptual building block for the transition to a Commons-based society, although that’s probably not how… Continue reading

Rick Falkvinge: Filesharing is not Copying/Downloading but Making/Manufacturing

It’s not “getting” or “downloading” a copy. It’s making or manufacturing one. Excerpted from Rick Falkvinge: “Using precise language is paramount for our own future liberties. When people are saying “I downloaded a copy of Avengers“, that use of language erodes their liberties just a little bit further. It is wrong, as in technically and… Continue reading

What’s Wrong with the Current Monetary System?

“How is the present monetary system affecting the economy and thereby society and nature, and why is it failing? I will outline the interconnected malfunctions of the globally prevailing monetary system in ten points.” This first part of a recommended essay by Mark Joob, is one of the best summaries outlining what’s wrong with the… Continue reading

The copyright monopoly stands in direct opposition to property rights

Excerpted/republished from Rick Falkvinge: “The idea that the copyright monopoly would be a property right doesn’t just lack factual basis, but it is 180 degrees and one hundred per cent wrong, factually wrong. The copyright monopoly stands in direct opposition to property rights. The copyright monopoly is a governmentally-sanctioned private monopoly. No liberal, socialist, green,… Continue reading

Interview with Michael Hardt on the Common

Excerpted from an interview conducted by Taavi Sundell & Tero Toivanen of Michael Hardt, the co-author with Italian philosopher Antonio Negri of Declaration (2012), as well as the widely debated Empire trilogy (Empire, Multitude and Commonwealth 2000–2009). For Commons.fi in October 2012. Interview Could you first say a few words about the intellectual and political… Continue reading

Can we liberate the market through commons governance?

“In the Barcelona-based Escola dels Commons we study the commons and right now we are discussing about the market, how current markets work and how they could work, if redefined under commons logic. Monday 17th December we hold a public debate about this in the offices of the Xarxa d’Economia Solidaria (XES) a Barcelona.” By… Continue reading