Shareable’s Cat Johnson interviews Kali Akuno, the coordinator of Cooperation Jackson, which is a network of ethical cooperative institutions fighting for social justice and race equality in Jackson, Mississippi. This interview is an excellent companion piece to Mira Luna’s recent article on Solidarity St Louis, where Cooperation Jackson is named checked as an influence. With a median… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2014"
I’m a Luddite!
I’ve a long time felt that I’m different, actually from I was a child. I remember how I reacted with anger when the road outside our house was paved, I think I was about 7 years at that time. Today I hate the view of cars, power lines, the sound of fans and so on…. Continue reading
Shared Machine Shops / The Journal of Peer Production
This latest edition of the Journal of Peer Production is edited by Maxigas (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) and Peter Troxler (International Fab Lab Association, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences). Despite the marketing clangour of the “maker movement”, shared machine shops are currently “fringe phenomena” since they play a minor role in the production of wealth,… Continue reading
Adam Curtis – On the Kurdish Fighters of Kobane
In the battle for Kobane on the Syrian border everyone talks about the enemy – IS – and the frightening ideas that drive them. No-one talks about the Kurdish defenders and what inspires them. But the moment you look into what the Kurds are fighting for – what you discover is absolutely fascinating. They have… Continue reading
Is Peer-to-Peer Energy the Next Big Sharing Thing?
In Spain, solar panels are being taxed so that it is less financially viable to produce one’s own energy than it is to connect to the grid owned by the major electricity providers – no coincidence that the ex-premier of Spain now works for the main electricity company (which was of course privatised on his… Continue reading
Event/Greece 6/11 – Wind Empowerment with Michel Bauwens
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Book of the Day: State of Crisis
* Book: State of Crisis. By Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni. Polity Press, URL = http://politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=9780745680941 Description “Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no… Continue reading
How Uber drivers, making less than the minimum wage, are organizing with assistance of taxi drivers
This was written on the occasion of a recent strike in New York which involved 2,000 Uber drivers. Excerpted from Kaja Whitehouse: ““Uber has become like Walmart. Drivers now make less than the minimum wage when we do the math,” said Abdoul Diallo of the newly formed Uber Drivers Network, which opposes new lower fare… Continue reading
Research Is Just the Beginning: A Free People Must Have Open Access to the Law
The open access movement has historically focused on access to scholarly research, and understandably so. The knowledge commons should be shared with and used by the public, especially when the public helped create it. Source – Corynne Mc Sherry / Research Is Just the Beginning: A Free People Must Have Open Access to the Law… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Collective Action After Networks
Organisation of the Organisation-less: Collective Action After Networks. By Rodrigo Nunes. PML Books (Mute / Post-Media Lab), 2014. Summary: “Rejecting the dichotomy of centralism and horizontalism that has deeply marked millennial politics, Rodrigo Nunes’ close analysis of network systems demonstrates how organising within contemporary social and political movements exists somewhere between – or beyond –… Continue reading
A commonard’s interesting life
G Paul Blundell, a member of Acorn Community, has written an article for las Indias answering the question, “What is an interesting life?” This article is one in a series of short essays where various well known P2P-oriented thinkers, including Kevin Carson, Neal Gorenflo, and Michel Bauwens, answer the same question. You can browse through the series… Continue reading
Video Vortex #10 Istanbul
Istanbul, Oct 31 & Nov 1, SALT Beyoglu and SALT Galata. The 10th annual meeting of Video Vortex is to be hosted in Istanbul at venues and institutions around GALATA all involved in this year’s topics: art, activism and archives.. The 10th annual meeting of Video Vortex is to be hosted in Istanbul at venues… Continue reading
A Paradox to Savor: A High-Quality, Free Economics Textbook
The economist Paul Samuelson once wrote, “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—or crafts its advanced treaties—if I can write its economics textbooks.” What a pleasure to learn that an insurgent team of economists, The Core Project, is about to rewrite the nation’s laws. The new introductory economics textbook is called The Economy. It… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The Cybernetic State
Book: The Cybernetic State. By Javier Livas. From the preface: “The emergence of a cybernetic State is now a real possibility, and most likely inevitable in the near future. This book sketches this information age organization and the cybernetic management principles on which it is based. As we shall see, many of its features are… Continue reading
How Super-Star Based Technological Change Is Driving Inequality
Excerpted from David Rotman: ““My reading of the data is that technology is the main driver of the recent increases in inequality. It’s the biggest factor,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor of management at MIT’s Sloan School. The coauthor, with fellow MIT academic Andrew McAfee, of The Second Machine Age, Brynjolfsson, like Piketty, has recently… Continue reading
Co-ops and Commons: Exciting Convergences in the UK
New Start magazine, a British magazine associated with the Manchester-based Centre for Local Economic Strategies, has just come out with a terrific issue (#525, October 2014) about co-operatives and commons. The essays focus on how “more democratic forms of ownership – of land, housing, workplaces and the public realm – can revive our places.” While… Continue reading