A contribution from Dmytri Kleiner: “There’s old joke that you can prove that the earth is flat with a simple experiment you can do anywhere: Jump! Since scientists claim that Earth is rotating at a very high rate of speed, by simply jumping up as high as you can, you can prove it’s not true!… Continue reading
Date archives "May 2013"
Towards a Commons based development model
A contribution from Tommaso Fattori: (This is a version without notes) “Before coming to issues of social justice and distribution of socially produced economic wealth (wealth measured in the traditional manner, in terms of GDP growth), there is an underlying and systemic problem, currently only partially hidden by the crisis, which affects the whole global… Continue reading
Institutions and Trust in Commons
A contribution by Martin Beckenkamp, which appeared in the anthology, The Wealth of the Commons: (version without notes) “From a game-theoretic point of view, commons represent both a chance and a problem. Game-theory is a mathematical tool that allows us to analyze decision-making in situations with social interdependencies such as sports, where a team has… Continue reading
Please support the Reality Sandwich crowdfunding campaign
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Why Distinguish Common Goods from Public Goods?
A contribution by James B. Quilligan, which appeared in the anthology, The Wealth of the Commons: (this is a version without notes) “The devastating recession of 2008–09 and its volatile aftermath have focused everyone’s attention on the global economy. There is growing agreement that better policies, laws and institutions are needed, but will the next… Continue reading
Jennifer Sertl interviewed by Layne Hartsell
Jennifer Sertl is a good friend that I am occasionally meeting in the conference circuit. She has been exploring the new styles and necessities of leadership in a connected age:
Networking for the Emancipation of Labour
A report of the Networked Labour conference, by (co-)organizer Orsan Senalp: “Supported by transform! europe, Transnational Institute, Networked Politics and IGOPNet, an international seminar on Networked Labour was held in Amsterdam from 7 to 9 May. Around 25 activists, practitioners, researchers and theorists from various networks , organisations and backgrounds came together to contribute to… Continue reading
Accounting for Common Wealth
A proposal by Tom Walker: “I would like to share with you the short essay below that I wrote in memory of Jonathan Rowe on the occasion of the publication of his book, Our Common Wealth. As Jonathan wrote in his chapter on “Accounting for Common Wealth”, “The point is that when the market expends,… Continue reading
Ensuring equal quality access to resources
A contribution by Tommaso Fattori: (version without notes) “Commons Internet is a medium which can be used to promote free and equal quality access to knowledge and information in an open and democratic way. Institutions and citizens can work together to increase the whole body of knowledge and creativity freely available and usable, through forms… Continue reading
Technology and the Commons
A contribution from Josh Tenenberg, which appeared in the anthology, The Wealth of the Commons:
A plea for Rootless Cosmopolitanism
Peter Waterman urges us to reconnect with the labour internationalism of the 19th century, and to consider our cyber-communities as part of our roots. (version without notes) By Peter Waterman: “Rootless Cosmopolitans – whether with this name or related ones – had a bad press during the 20th century. Not only from Stalin, who was… Continue reading
Commons case studies: the Guassa-Menz community conservation area in Ethiopia
Recommended by Dr. Andreas Weber: The Guassa-Menz community conservation area (Ethiopia)is a 400 year+ old grazing commons which helps protecting the world’s most endangered carnivore (Ethiopian Wolf, Canis simensis) in the Ethiopian Highlands. They write: “The Guassa area is managed by the Menz community as a common property resource area that can be used for… Continue reading
The Code is the Seed of the Software
The following conversation is from an interview with Adriana Sánchez by Silke Helfrich, which appeared in the anthology, The Wealth of the Commons. (this is a version without notes) “Helfrich: Adriana, could you briefly introduce yourself? Sánchez: My name is Adriana Sánchez. I am from southern Costa Rica, a very beautiful territory, which has been… Continue reading
The spiritual gift as the basis for the counter-economy
Interesting article within the context of christian theology. Here is the first part which usefully distinguishes three modalities of exchange, how they are interconnected, and how the capital-nation-state can only be overcome if tackled together: Geoffrey Holsclaw: “But now the money changers no longer need to be driven from the Temple of God because they… Continue reading
An urbanism for the commons
P2P (peer-to-peer) Urbanism joins ideas from the open-source software movement together with new thinking by urbanists, into a discipline oriented towards satisfying human needs. P2P-Urbanism is concerned with cooperative and creative efforts to define space for people’s use. This essay explains P2P-Urbanism as the outcome of several historical processes, describes the cooperative participation schemes that… Continue reading
Resilience Thinking
This is a contribution from Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Town movement, on the concept and practice of resilience. It appeared in the anthology, The Wealth of the Commons. (this is a version without notes) Resilience: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially… Continue reading