* Proposal: The commons-based international Food Treaty: A legal architecture to sustain a fair and sustainable food transition. By Jose Luis Vivero Pol. Rencontres internationales « Penser une démocratie alimentaire », 25-27 novembre 2013, Nantes From the Summary: “Food as a purely private good prevents millions to get such a basic resource, since the purchasing… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2014"
John Michael Greer on intermediation and the end of the market economy
Extracted from his blog, John Michael Greer talks about the historical role of intermediation in both thriving and declining economies. This extract forms part of larger series of posts entitled “Dark Age America” One of the factors that makes it difficult to think through the economic consequences of the end of the industrial age is… Continue reading
Podemos: the political upstart taking Spain by force
The following article, written by sociologist Carlos Declos, is the best overview I have read of Podemos’ current situation. It was originally published at Reflections on a Revolution. Some frequent questions about the political singularity that now leads the polls in Spain. Just who are Podemos? And could they be a force for change? In… Continue reading
Only 60 Years of Farming Left if We Don’t Transform to Permaculture
Original post by Chris Arsenault for Reuters here. ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world’s top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said on Friday. About a third of the world’s… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics
* Essay: Kwasi Wiredu. Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics. A Plea for a Non-party Polity Summary: “Wiredu discusses the use of the consensus principle for political theory and practice in Africa. The consensus principle used to be widespread in African politics, and Wiredu elaborates on the example of the traditional political system of… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Money, Markets, Value and the Commons
“An interview produced by Alain Ambrosi, at the Economics and the Commons Conference which took place in Berlin from 22 to 24 May 2013. A conversation moderated by Ludwig Schuster with Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Pat Conaty, Anne Snick and Handro Sangkoyo. This video and the original footage are made available to you by Remix the Commons… Continue reading
Sharing as our common cause
The following text is the Executive Summary of Share the World’s Resources latest report: Sharing as our Common Cause. You can read or download the whole report here. This report demonstrates how a call for sharing underpins many existing initiatives for social justice, environmental stewardship, true democracy and global peace. On this basis, STWR argues… Continue reading
The Technology Problem
By John Jacobi. Original essay here. The biggest problems of the twenty-first century are and will be technological problems. Consider the problems we have already faced in the past decade: anti-biotic resistance, quickly spreading diseases due to transportation systems, mass surveillance, climate change, mass extinctions, invasive species, and so on. It is clear that the… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Stigmergy as a Universal Coordination Mechanism
* Article: Heylighen, F. (2015). Stigmergy as a Universal Coordination Mechanism: components, varieties and applications. To appear in T. Lewis & L. Marsh (Eds.),* Human Stigmergy: Theoretical Developments and New Applications*, Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics. Springer. From the Abstract: “The concept of stigmergy has been used to analyze self-organizing activities in… Continue reading
Space makers
The next revolution will come from space. The P2P aerospace revolution will incorporate hundreds of thousands of citizens into space exploration and will go far beyond what any state has been able to do so far. The first human settlers of new planets will be makers. 3D printers have reached space. The first, installed in… Continue reading
Basic Income as a Minimum Claim to Basic Resources
Republished from Scott Santens: “A basic income is in a way a minimum claim to resources, with each person using this to claim the resources most important to them. The fact a basic income is given regardless of work, makes it that much more clear it exists as such a claim on resources based on… Continue reading
Book of the Day: DIY Citizenship
Book: DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media. by Matt Ratto URL = http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/diy-citizenship “Today, DIY—do-it-yourself—describes more than self-taught carpentry. Social media enables DIY citizens to organize and protest in new ways (as in Egypt’s “Twitter revolution” of 2011) and to repurpose corporate content (or create new user-generated content) in order to offer political counternarratives…. Continue reading
The time is now for a cooperative sharing economy!
For hackers, “long tail workers,” and labor activists, now is the time to step up their efforts before the network effect chisels brands like Uber into stone. Excerpted from Trebor Scholz: “The backlash against unethical labor practices in the “collaborative sharing economy” has been overplayed. Recently, The Washington Post, New York Times and others started… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Using Illich for Resilient Community-Oriented Public Libraries
* Article: Illich in the library: putting theory into practice. Dan Grace From the Abstract: “The purpose of this paper is to draw out critical concepts and ideas useful to understanding how the public library can help build resilient communities, particularly in relation to the challenges posed by climate change, from the theories of Ivan… Continue reading
WHOLENESS: THE FOUNDATION OF A LIVING NEIGHBORHOOD
By Christopher Alexander. Original text here. EVERY ACT IS TAKEN IN THE CONTEXT OF SOME WHOLENESS The wholeness exists to begin with as a structure in the land and in the surrounding built environment The act which is taken must try to extend and enhance that wholeness There is then a new wholeness in that… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Learning from Cooperatives in the Global Crisis
Book: Capital and the Debt Trap. Learning from Cooperatives in the Global Crisis. By Claudia Sanchez Bajo and Bruno Roelants. Palgrave MacMillan (2013) URL = http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=688814 Description “The recent financial crisis has had a devastating impact around the globe. Thousands of businesses have closed down and millions of jobs have been cut. Many people… Continue reading