In the context of the evident dangers of Monsanto’s Green Data Revolution and its intrusion on the life of farmers, Roberto Bissio argues: “While “big data” has enormous potential, the potential is for evil as well as for good. In promoting a “data revolution” as part of any monitoring and accountability mechanism attention must be… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2014"
Unifying the various new economy movements and proposals
* Report: Weaving the Community Resilience and New Economy Movement: Voices and Reflections from the Field. By the Post Carbon Institute, 2014 Cat Johnson introduces the report: “The new economy has several different names including the sharing economy, the solidarity economy, community resilience, transition, the oppositional economy, and more. At its core, however, is an… Continue reading
P2P Theory: The contradictions in the communism of capital
Excerpted from Rachel O’Dwyer: “There are irreconcilable elements inherent to the communism of capital. These are sometimes presented as a contradiction between the productive nature of the capitalist, as a generator of new forms of wealth, and the parasitic character of the rentier. By exploring the communism of capital through the lens of spectrum regulation,… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Merchant Sharing in a Zero Marginal Cost Economy
* Article: Merchant Sharing. Towards a Zero Marginal Cost Economy. Laurent Fournier. From the Abstract: “This paper is the first attempt to formalize a new field of economics; studding the Intangibles Goods available on the Internet. We are taking advantage of the digital world’s specific rules, in particular the zero marginal cost, to propose a… Continue reading
Update by Simon Michaux on Peak Mining
Simon Michaux has recently added a comment to his brilliant 2013-lecture on peak mining: Data has been collected since this was uploaded and this presentation has evolved. I now have data to show that the year 2005 was a turning point. Oil supply became inelastic and at the same time Chinese demand for raw materials… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Handbook for Active Democracy
* Book: From Arrogance to Intimacy: A handbook for active democracies. By Andy Williamson and Martin Sande URL: http://activedemocraci.es/ “This new and original book will show you how we can make our democracies ready for everyone by being open, sharing and collaborative. It’s about taking democracy on a journey from arrogant and controlling to intimate… Continue reading
Research Thesis: Grassroots Collective Entrepreneurship in Africa
* Master’s Thesis: Perceptions of Grassroots Urban Youth Entrepreneurs about Collective Engagement: an extensive case study in East Africa. Fernando Cesar Pires Baptista. Master’s Thesis in International Development Studies Graduate School of Social Sciences University of Amsterdam, 2011 From the Abstract: “Based on the evidence that the general strategy of liberalization – and in particular… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Algorithmic Governance of Common-Pool Resources
* Article: ALGORITHMIC GOVERNANCE OF COMMON-POOL RESOURCES. By By Jeremy Pitt and Ada Diaconescu. From the Abstract: “As we saturate our everyday environment with computing and communication technologies, we can increase our capacities for successful collective action if we devise system infrastructures to support self-organization, self-management and pro-social behavior. Elinor Ostrom’s institutional design principles for… Continue reading
UN: only small farmers and agroecology can feed the world
Original article by Nafeez Ahmed in The Ecologist here. Excerpt: “Modern industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water and resource availability. The stark warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Prof Hilal Elver, In… Continue reading
Collaboration Lab Camp 2014
“At the heart of our economies, a diversification and increasing importance of collaborative practices can be observed. By proposing alternative paths of value creation and sharing, these practices open new perspectives in terms of consumption, production and innovation models.” – Michel Bauwens From October 4th until October 8th a special event will take place to… Continue reading
Research Thesis (PhD): Making Commons for Peer Production
The opening of production is mobilizing and feeding a number of possible futures that span from the creation of a post-capitalist mode of production based on shared resources, to the idea of collaboration and sharing as the new mantra for possible business models and startups. An in-depth mapping of the opening of production, the possibilities… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: The Political Economy of Bitcoin
* Essay: The (A)Political Economy of Bitcoin. By Vasilis Kostakis, Chris Giotitsas. Triple C, Vol 12, No 2 (2014) From the Abstract: “The still raging financial crisis of 2007–2008 has enabled the emergence of several alternative practices concerning the production, circulation and use of money. This essay explores the political economy of the Bitcoin ecosystem…. Continue reading
Going beyond the Sharing Economy, an event in Gijón, Spain
Please support our friends at the Anchovy League (isn’t that a great thing name? Who wouldn’t want to join an Anchovy League!) on their upcoming event, “Beyond the Sharing Economy“. It’ll be interesting to see Neal Gorenflo speak about the current state of the Sharing Economy and what that means to who, exactly, specially given his… Continue reading
What if the so-called sharing economy masked a failing economy ?
There’s no denying that the sharing economy can – and probably does – make the consequences of the current financial crisis more bearable. However, in tackling the consequences, it does nothing to address the causes. It’s true that, thanks to advances in the information technology, some of us can finally get by with less –… Continue reading
A potential landmark in netarchical profit sharing ?
Back in the days, one of the proposed demands of the Free Culture Forum in Barcelona, was for proprietary platforms to re-invest 15% of profit back into the community of contributors, but without turning the contributions into commodities, to avoid a return to pure production for money. Remarkably, the Reddit management is thinking in the… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: An Opportunity for Innovative Credentialing for eLearning in Africa
* Article: eLearning in Africa and the Opportunity for Innovative Credentialing. Gertjan van Stam From the Abstract: “The ubiquitousness of Information and Communication Technology triggers the current revolution in education. Online repositories of courses, through MOOCs or otherwise, open exciting possibilities for access to learning, also in Africa. A multitude of constraints must beovercome, spurred… Continue reading