“As Caulkin notes in the Financial Times, “the invisible link between sluggish innovation, cost-cutting, share buybacks, the jobs and pay squeeze, and neo-Taylorism, is management incentives. What locks them all together in a tight, self-reinforcing paradigm is shareholder value–the assertion that the sole purpose of the company is to maximize returns to shareholders.” If this… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2014"
Call for Papers: Back to the future: Commons from a Long-Term Perspective.
Session Proposal for the 16th Biannual Conference of the IASC (International Association for the Study of the Commons) Edmonton, Alberta – 25-29 May 2015. Session organizers: Miguel Laborda-Pemán and Tine de Moor (Utrecht University) Commons face nowadays important challenges. Rapid developments associated with global economic integration, population growth, demand for agricultural land and climate change… Continue reading
Recommendations on The Right to Be Forgotten
Recommendations on The Right to Be Forgotten by La Quadrature du Net and Reporters Without Borders Introduction The European Union Court of Justice ruling of 13 May 2014 on a case brought by Google Spain highlighted the problems for the protection of freedom of expression and the right to information posed by the right to… Continue reading
P2P Theory: What’s the right approach to the state in the p2p transformation ?
A contribution by Theodoros Karyotis: “The “state” in the thought of many political thinkers (Castoriadis preeminently, but also Bookchin, Holloway etc) is not just a generic term for a structure of large scale governance. On the contrary, it signifies a model of governance where power does not reside in the intended political community, but in… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Bruce Sterling on Design Fiction
“[…This] is gonna kinda hurt: In the startup world, you work hard and you move fast in order to make other people rich.” Don’t miss this outrageously inspiring video, where Bruce Sterling proceeds to break the hearts of a few thousands wannabe venture capital baiters at last year’s NEXT Berlin conference for “digital forethinkers and tech experts”.
An intro to Diaspora
“Maybe Diaspora was born just before its time, and maybe now, people will realize what a gift has been given to us by the Diaspora founders and the community that continues to build, create and maintain this project.” I’m overjoyed that the Ello hype-machine is currently reviving interest in Diaspora and decentralised networks that set… Continue reading
Media Labs in Europe: Mapping Places and Networks
“Whether you were born into the networks or simply interested in digital creation, nowadays there are places and communities where you can learn, create and share knowledge. These laboratories (labs) are mediation spaces dedicated to practice, expression and creation as much as critical commitment on the role of technology in art and society. Individual users,… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Smart Cities as Democratic Ecologies
Book: Smart Cities as Democratic Ecologies. Ed. by Daniel Araya. Palgrave Macmillan, to be published fall 2014. Description “There are over 400 cities in the world today with a population of more than one million urban residents and close to 20 cities with a population of more than 10 million. Indeed, over half the world’s… Continue reading
Podemos as a template for the New Left
Joana Ramiro writing for Left Unity, describes how Podemos’ unprecedented tactics and organizational methods can reinvigorate the New Left in Europe though a wider (if not full) acceptance of P2P dynamics. You can read the original article here. “Marketing guru Philip Kotler wrote that “the costumer will judge the offering by three basic elements: product… Continue reading
P2P Theory: The becoming-rent of profit
Excerpted from an article on the spectrum commons by Rachel O’Dwyer: The communism of capital is characterised by a return and proliferation of forms of rent (Vercellone, 2010). Rent is the revenue that can be extracted from exclusive ownership of a resource, where value is contingent on its availability with respect to demand (Harvey, 2001)…. Continue reading
Join the Global #MapJam to Organize the New Economy in Your City
Starting next Monday, October 13th and continuing through the end of the month, groups are coming together all over the world in pursuit of a shared goal. We want to map every city to make visible the economic transformation that’s already happening, connect it and organize for collective power. The 2nd Annual Global #MapJam is… Continue reading
Can the Lower Energy Consumption of Distributed Manufactured Goods help the environment?
Yes:, via Tessel Renzenbrink: “A study from Michigan Technology University shows 3D printed products require 41% to 74% less energy than large-scale manufactured goods. Since the First Industrial Revolution manufacturing has gone through stages of increasing centralization. But with the emergence of affordable open source 3D printers the pendulum may swing back to decentralized home-based… Continue reading
Faircoin as the First Global Commons Currency?
“Inventing a new global monetary system is – let us concede – unprecedented. But after twenty years of living in networked culture, it’s also safe to say that “the experts” never anticipated crazy ideas like Linux, wikis, social networking, Bittorrent, open design and manufacturing, 3D printing or Bitcoin, let alone that millions of users would… Continue reading
Video of the Day: A Short Introduction to the Cleveland Model
“Find out how anchor institutions like hospitals and universities can help worker cooperatives create green jobs in the neighborhoods that need them most.” Here’s a short but very well explained introduction to the Cleveland Model of urban cooperativism, where a city’s public institutions and land-based assets turn towards local worker-owned co-ops for all manner of… Continue reading
Book of the Day: On Catholics and Software
eBook: On Catholics and Software. By Marco Fioretti. 2014 URL = http://mfioretti.com/assets/files/mfioretti-on-catholics-and-software.epub Description Marco Fioretti: “This ebook collects, all in one place, my main writings from 2005 to 2013 on a specific topic: //how Catholics should choose and use software, digital standards and other digital technologies//. Please note that, while I usually write “Catholics”… Continue reading
Changing Society Without Taking Power
By Ed Lytwak: “It is important to understand Holloway’s brilliant double entendre “taking power.” Taking power is not just the taking “of” state power but the collective power of society’s hierarchical structure to “take” – appropriate – the commonly created wealth, including the commons of the natural world. The capitalist economic system controls not just… Continue reading