“Cooperative businesses have lower failure rates than traditional corporations and small businesses, after the first year of startup, and after 5 years in business. About 10% of cooperatives fail after the first year while 60-80% of traditional businesses fail after the first year. After 5 years, 90% of cooperatives are still in business, while only… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2014"
Book of the Day: The Corporatization of Activism
Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism, by Peter Dauvergne and Geneviere LeBaron, Polity, 200 pp. Review Gus Speth: “As national and international challenges mount across the full spectrum of human affairs, and as more and more acute observers conclude that the problems we face trace back one way or another to our system of political… Continue reading
Research: 3D printing, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Democratization of Art
* Master’s Thesis: “The Art and Craft of the Machine”: 3D printing, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the democratization of art. Patokorpi, Lassi. 2014. University of Tampere. Lassi Patokorpi writes: The Arts and Crafts Movement of late 19th century England professed to democratize art and the production wares. The most prominent character of the… Continue reading
How Corporate Science Subverts Academic Science
Excerpted from Ralph Nader: “Global corporations today, such as energy, drugs, “defense,” banking, mining etc. – are power-concentrating machines driven to defeat, diminish or co-opt any forces advancing contrary civic, political or economic values. One of the least noticed, uneven struggles is that between corporate science and academic science. Unlike academic science, corporate science is… Continue reading
Background to the social and political structures in Kobane: Kurdish Communalism
Excerpted from an interview with Ercan Ayboga conducted by Janet Biehl in 2011: (see also the #mustwatch video below) ” —Does assembly democracy have roots in Kurdish history? —Assembly democracy has limited roots in Kurdistan history and geography. As I’ve said, the society’s village character was and is still fairly strong. Some villages had hierarchy… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Who Owns Native Culture
* Book: Who Owns Native Culture? Michael F. Brown. Harvard University Press, 2004 URL = http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674016330 Description “The practical and artistic creations of native peoples permeate everyday life in settler nations, from the design elements on our clothing to the plot-lines of books we read to our children. Rarely, however, do native communities benefit… Continue reading
Video: Sheldon Wolin on Inverted Totalitarianism
First of a fascinating series in which Chris Hedges interviews political philosopher Sheldon Wolin. They discuss Wolin’s concept of Inverted Totalitarianism and how democracy requires continuous opposition and vigilance by the citizenry. Really interesting insights into the nature of the contemporary simulacrum of democracy:
Hannah Arendt on How Bureaucracy Fuels Violence
States that have attempted to centralise power, whether from the ‘left’ or ‘right’ of the political spectrum (these distinctions become essentially meaningless in many cases once the totalitarian state is fully formed), have inevitably, and usually unwittingly, created an unaccountable bureaucratic minion class which unthinkingly carries out state violence either directly, or by remaining passive… Continue reading
Ecuador’s Government to launch Digital Currency and ban the competition.
Original article by Belén Marty Ecuador’s Congress, dominated by the ruling socialist PAIS Alliance, is on the verge of approving a new reform, presented by President Rafael Correa as an urgent matter. The law is for the creation of a digital currency and financial-regulation system controlled by the executive. At the same time, it prohibits… Continue reading