Transnational Societal Constitutionalism = a concept and a conference on how international civil society is creating its own constitutions and thereby resisting the constitutionalism of global finance. “How can global “constitutional problems”, such as human rights violations by corporations or the catastrophic risks of global capital markets, be dealt with? Societal spheres have to develop… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2013"
Why we need cooperative accumulation
A bit of context: * today we have immaterial commons accumulation in the sphere of common knowledge, code, and design, through the contributions of volunteers, paid labor, and commons-supportive-for-profit-companies * however, it is impossible to socially reproduce oneself (read: ‘survive’) by contributing to the commons outside of the sphere of capital accumulation (read: you have… Continue reading
Open IP Licensing Guaranteed by Non-Profits
Excerpted from Cesar Harada: “Having the IP licensed by a non-profit, guarantees the un-retractable openness of a technology. That means essentially being faithful to the community and the original founding ethical values. A good example of this is the relation between the Mozilla Foundation (non-profit) and their main community generated product Firefox (free open source… Continue reading
The FabLab World Tour Documentary
* Documentary: Making Living Sharing – a FabLab world tour documentary. By Jens Dyvik “This is the story of a quest for answers to how a designer can help people create their own products. How we can collaborate globally and produce locally, and how we can make a living while sharing knowledge and designs? For… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Community Sourced Capital
Project of the Day: Community Sourced Capital = CSC helps local businesses borrow money from people in their community. Description “Neither crowdfunding nor a financial institution in the traditional sense, Community Sourced Capital (CSC) aims to build community through finance by enabling community members to provide needed capital to local businesses. Through aggregating small… Continue reading
On the SIMPOL initiative (3): International Simultaneous Policy in the context of Global Governance
We presented the International Simultaneous Policy Organization as P2P Movement of the Day on October 8. Excerpted from an interview of John Bunzl by Maha Hilal: “Can you explain what you mean by conceptualizing problems nation-centrically? Yes, let me give you an example. Let’s take the problem of horrendously excessive bankers’ bonuses. Most people, when… Continue reading
Why is this contradiction between use and exchange value so fundamental to capitalism?
A quote from David Harvey, chosen by David Bollier from Red Pepper magazine: “All commodities have to be understood as having a use value and exchange value. If I have a steak the use value is that I can eat it and the exchange value is how much I had to pay for it. But… Continue reading
A transpartisan path beyond left and right?
Excerpted from Tom Atlee: (version without links, the original has many links to the movements mentioned in the text) “I often say “Things are getting better and better and worse and worse faster and faster simultaneously.” Well, it seems that even as polarization is increasing it is starting to dissolve into a more productive reality…. Continue reading
Trend of the Day: Commons Health Care
Commons Health Care = a commons healthcare system … would recognize, promote, and preserve health promoting activities and institutions such as farmers markets, community gardens, better food access, and increased farmland, clean air and clean water. Discussion Jay Walljasper: “For health care activist and researcher Jamie Harvie, good health depends on more than just a… Continue reading
Ripple payment protocol goes open source
Ripple is a trust-based system of money transfer (a payment protocol) that supports different currencies. It was developed up to a certain point by Ryan Fugger, but more recently a group of programmers connected with Bitcoin called Opencoin.Inc took over the further development and deployment of the Ripple payment protocol. Opencoin.Inc introduced a native Ripple… Continue reading
P2PValue Project
We are delighted to announce the kickoff of the P2PValue Project in which the P2P Foundation will be collaborating for the next three years. Here is the project outline: Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a new and increasingly significant model of social innovation based on collaborative production by citizens through the Internet. This project… Continue reading
How Greer’s catabolic collapse challenges Kevin Carson’s ephemerilisation thesis
John Michael Greer has responded to Kevin Carson’s argument in this blog: Excerpts! ” Carson’s claim is that the accelerating breakdown of the existing infrastructure of industrial society isn’t a problem, because that infrastructure either is being replaced, or is sure to be replaced (he is somewhat vague on this distinction), by newer, better and… Continue reading
The Guaranteed Minimum Income as an alternative to the Basic Income
Excerpted from Francine Mestrum: “However much one may want to introduce a universal system of social protection with individual rights, if a BI implies that a substantial part of society would have to live with an amount beneath the poverty line, it is not convincing. In view of the fact that higher classes do not… Continue reading
Project of the Day – Open Sauces
Project of the Day – Open Sauces = “Open Sauces is a collection of projects, writings and events related to sharing of food, food culture and food systems”. Description “Open Sauces is a collection of projects, writings and events related to sharing of food, food culture and food systems. Although their format might change,… Continue reading
Ecuador Public Radio interview with Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens was recently invited to appear on Ecuador Public Radio for the programme La Cabina, to discuss peer-to-peer economies, alternatives to copyright and propietary technology, and what this all means in the Ecuadorian context. The interview is in Spanish and English.
On the SIMPOL initiative (2): interview with the founder John Bunzl
We presented the International Simultaneous Policy Organization as P2P Movement of the Day on October 8. Interview of John Bunzl, conducted by PCDN’s Maha Hilal : On Simpol * Can you talk about the concept of Simpol and talk about the types of policies that fit within the Simpol purview? Sure. The whole idea of… Continue reading