Date archives "November 2014"

Essay of the Day: Spectrum Regulation in the Communism of Capital

* Essay: Spectre of the commons: Spectrum regulation in the communism of capital. By Rachel O’Dwyer. From the Abstract: “The past decade has seen a growing emphasis on the social and juridical implications of peer production, commons-based property regimes and the nonrivalrous circulation of immaterial content in the online domain, leading some theorists to posit… Continue reading

Sharing economy, direct economy, p2p production… what a mess!

The “sharing economy” is educating us for living in an economy with increasing non-market spaces, but it is the continuum of practices that today link up the “direct economy” and the “p2p mode of production” what will take us “beyond,” towards a new way of producing and sharing. First of all: this post is long,… Continue reading

Mobilising a counter-hegemonic climate movement

As concerned citizens mobilise for climate change demonstrations across the world, never has it been more important to embrace a collective demand for ‘system change’ as the surest way to limit global warming and ensure environmental sustainability. More than two decades after international climate change negotiations officially began, governments have made little progress towards implementing… Continue reading

Sharing as the new common sense in a post-growth world

We need to talk a lot more about sharing as a way to radically reframe the post-growth debate, argues a recent report from the Green House. If growthism is the substitute for a more just and equal society, then it’s time that we all start saying so – and embrace a new common sense for… Continue reading

Omega Institute Hosts First Major North American Conference of Commons Activists

It’s always been frustrating to me that Europeans and people in the global South appreciate the potential of the commons far more than most Americans, even among political progressives and activists. Happily, this past weekend saw a big shift.  In Rhinebeck, New York, the Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL) – part of the noted… Continue reading

Moving beyond mobilization: Hungary knows how to protest

By Ben Knight, co-founder, @Loomio @benjaminmknight  Yesterday, 100,000 people mobilized in the streets of Budapest, in response to a proposed tax on Internet access. “The Internet tax is a symbol of the government’s authoritarianism – we not only need to defeat the Internet tax, we need to believe that we are capable of criticizing and… Continue reading

It’s time for a post-Piketty vision of shared wealth

The latest bestseller in economics has done a great deal of service to progressives in highlighting the imperative of shared wealth. But given the social and ecological limits to economic growth, this emerging conversation on global sharing has to get a lot more radical. There is no doubt that Thomas Piketty’s best-seller, Capital in the… Continue reading

Should we consider the new internet monopolies as public utilities ?

They became big through the free use of a public infrastructure and tax avoidance. It’s time to suggest anti-netarchical policies to break up these new monopolies, argues Richard Eskow: “The Big Tech mega-corporations have developed what Al Gore calls the “Stalker Economy,” manipulating and monitoring as they go. But consider: They were created with publicly… Continue reading

Book of the Day: The Black Box Society

* Book: Frank Pascuale. The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. URL = http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674368279   Description ‘Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior—silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed, to the point… Continue reading

Brazilian Hackerspaces as Spaces of Resistance and Free Education

* Article: Activism in Brazil: hacker spaces as spaces of resistance and free education. Raquel Renno. From th eAbstract: “Hackerspaces and medialabs in unusual and traditional cultural places seem to be the alternative to the educational and digital gap between rich and poor in Brazil. Raquel Renno analyses this gap and reconstructs the subversive potential… Continue reading

P2P History: The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century

* Essay: E.P.Thompson. The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century. A summary by provisionaluniversity: “Thompson identifies the many ways in which discontent and protest arose around the issue of food prices as the market economy came to displace the ‘moral economy’, one which was not based on the ‘invisible hand’ of… Continue reading

The netarchical strategy: First lure them in and establish your monopoly, then monetize

This strategy could be described as “serial monopoly” and “serial monopsony.” It enters a market, leverages an economic advantage (sales tax exemptions, revenues from other product lines) and then preys on competitors until it reaches something like a monopoly position. Serial monopolists are always thinking about the next market to be dominated. Today’s revenues are… Continue reading