* Article: At the Turning Point of the Current Techno-Economic Paradigm: Commons-Based Peer Production, Desktop Manufacturing and the Role of Civil Society in the Perezian Framework. By Vasilis Kostakis. Triple C, Vol 11, No 1 (2013). From the abstract “Following the theory of techno-economic paradigm shifts (TEPS), this paper calls attention to the phenomenon of… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2013"
Report: Working with our Cultural Values
* Report: Common Cause. The Case for Working with our Cultural Values. by Tom Crompton. By WWF-UK et al., September 2010 Excerpts! An understanding of values must be incorporated into civil society campaigns As discussed, on the one hand, simply conveying information about bigger-than-self problems is likely to leave many people unmoved – or perhaps… Continue reading
Movement of the Day: ReCommon
Re:Common goals will work to produce structural change both in finance and natural common management: “Re:Common goals will work to produce structural change both in finance and natural common management, in solidarity with those directly affected by an harmful and unjust development model, both in the global South and in Italy and Europe. In order… Continue reading
From Techno-Macumba to P2P, for the Pecha Kucha crowd in Rio
This is not a topic I normally talk about, i.e., what was the spiritual and psychological evolution that led to my engagement with and for P2P? In seven minutes, invited by the Pecha Kucha organizers in Rio de Janeiro, I am here trying to follow automatically amd fast-changing slide images, speaking quite fast to keep… Continue reading
Cities need networks, not heroes; weak ties, not strong ties
Excerpted from Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley: (from the book, The Metropolitan Revolution, Brookings Institution Press) “When economic sociologist Sean Safford first began comparing midcentury board lineups of local Boy Scout chapters and garden clubs in the cities of Youngstown and Allentown, the idea that such data could have any bearing on the future of… Continue reading
Video: Ugo Mattei on the Constitutive Power of the Commons
On transnational social constitutionalism, Constitution making and constitutive power of the commons. By Ugo Mattei, in Turin, Italy. Watch the video here:
The emergence of social coops for social care: Italy and beyond
The rise of social enterprise as a new, hybrid form of social care has been met with growing interest. In the co-operative sector, the emergence of social co-ops has been the most significant change to occur in the movement in thirty years. These are co-operatives whose purpose is the provision of Social Care, not only… Continue reading
Stefano and Vera Zamagni on the Civil Society Model for the Market Economy
Stefano Zamagni and Vera Zamagni talk to the ExtraEnvironmentalist about the civil society model of a market economy.
Self-Organization in Greece at the Vio-Me Occupied Factory
“The workers at the Vio.Me. Factory in Thessaloniki, Greece have quickly grown into a symbol of self-management internationally. After going on strike and occupying their factory, on February 12, 2013 they re-opened the factory and started production under worker’s control. For many, the factory represents a new potential way forward for unemployed workers in Greece… Continue reading
Why the ‘commons’ has become such an important concept
Excerpted from Dougald Hine: “Of everything I hear during these two days, the answer that most impresses me comes from Stavros Stavrides: ‘commons’ has become useful, he argues, because of a change in attitude to the state, a disillusionment with the ‘public’ and a need for another term to takes its place. The public sphere,… Continue reading
Video: David Graeber and Charles Eisenstein on the Nature of Money
Via: “In this video, David Graeber, Occupy Wall Street activist and author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, and Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics, tackle the loaded question: What is money? Eisenstein and Graeber aptly compare money to magic, and explore the notion that money works because we all believe in it. This video… Continue reading
Four Futures Scenarios for Power in the Network Era (1): The Context
“This article asks questions about the futures of power in the network era. Two critical emerging issues are at work with uncertain outcomes. The first is the emergence of the collaborative economy, while the second is the emergence of surveillance capabilities from both civic, state and commercial sources. While both of these emerging issues are… Continue reading
A maker/hacker community’s critique of Open Source Ecology
I plan on trying to contact as many past contributors as possible from Open Source Ecology to get more information about the realities inside this project, and I will be posting more as time goes on. If you have information about this project, or any other project like this, feel free to get in touch… Continue reading
Video: David Holmgren on Holistic Approaches to Food Production during Energy Descent
Via: ‘What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out? Food Security in an Energy-Scarce World. Presentation as part of a conference held on June 23rd to 25th, 2005 in Dublin, Ireland, which sought to answer a crucial question: How can the world’s population be fed without the extensive use of fossil fuels in the… Continue reading
Zizek’s critique of Chomsky
Some points related to Chomsky’s position on the role of ‘ideology’: (background to the controversy and source of the material here) Slavoj Žižek: “His idea is today that cynicism of those in power is so open that we don’t need any critique of ideology, you reach symptomatically between the lines, everything is cynically openly admitted…. Continue reading
Gar Alperovitz on the Transition Strategies for the Next Economy
Interesting podcast: “In Extraenvironmentalist #63 we talk about the growing network of institutions and businesses that are forming the new economic revolution in the United States with historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz. Gar describes the ideas in his new book, What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution. Then we… Continue reading