“Why had the maker culture become concerned only with industrial methods – prototyping future mass-produced objects? What would be the concrete outcomes of a number of success-eager young talents spitting out objects made out of melted plastic, hardly – if ever – recyclable, everywhere in the world? Doesn’t the planet have enough useless objects made… Continue reading
Date archives "April 2015"
Open Value Networks and Commons Based Peer Production
Originally Posted on – http://commonsfest.info/en/2015/anichta-diktia-axias/ Open Value Networks and Commons-based Peer Production With the advent of the computer and the internet, we are able to communicate and coordinate with an increasing number of people. That has allowed new possibilities in the organizational forms of production that were never possible before. Commons-based Peer Production One such… Continue reading
What is Open Source Lab Equipment?
Source – BIT Magazine http://www.bitmagth.com/2015/03/what-is-open-source-lab-equipment.html One of the biggest obstacles to getting into biology, particularly genetics and synthetic biology, is the cost of equipment and expendables. A handful of large companies make the unique, precise equipment required for laboratories, and because supply and demand is small, the cost is very high. Usually, this price barrier… Continue reading
basicincome.co Universal Basic Income on a Co-Op Dividend Scheme
Author – Johan Nygren – https://medium.com/@resilience_me/basicincome-co-op-82855663f042 “Consumers’ cooperatives allocate dividends according to their members’ trade with the co-op. For example, a retail co-op store chain may return a percentage of a member’s purchases from the co-op, in the form of cash or store credit. This type of dividend is informally named divi or divvy” –Wikipedia… Continue reading
Another Life is Possible – Homage to Catalonia
Stories about the construction of a sustainable, solidary and decentralized economy I spent much of the past month visiting and meeting with people and projects across Catalonia. There is no doubt something resilient in the Catalan spirit that has enabled them to respond to the current crisis with what are some of the most creative… Continue reading
Russia’s Small-Scale Organic Agriculture Model May Hold the Key to Feeding the World
Original post by Jonathan Benson in Natural News here. Imagine living in a country where having the freedom to cultivate your own land, tax-free and without government interference, is not only common but also encouraged for the purpose of promoting individual sovereignty and strong, healthy communities. Now imagine that in this same country, nearly all of… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Italian Operaismo and the Information Machine
‘machines don’t explain anything, you have to analyze the collective apparatuses of which the machines are just one component’ * Article: Italian Operaismo and the Information Machine. Matteo Pasquinelli. From the abstract: “The political economy of the information machine is discussed within the Marxisttradition of Italian operaismo by posing the hypothesis of an informational turn… Continue reading
Encommuns.org is making business around commons transparent
We are moving from fragmented outbreaks of the commons to an emerging eco-systemic thinking about the commons economy, which attempts to make it into a organic system that can self-produce itself. Next to the FairCoop/FairCoin project, and the Mutual Aid Network in Wisconsin, here is a first presentation of encommuns.org, based in Lille, in the… Continue reading
Meta-Industrial Villages: what happens after the miniaturisation of technology ?
Excerpted from William Irwin Thompson: “DECENTRALIZATION of cities and the miniaturization of technology will alter the center-periphery dialectic of traditional civilization and make a whole new cultural level possible. What will take place in the metaindustrial village will be that the four classical economies of human history, hunting and gathering, agriculture, industry, and cybernetics, will… Continue reading
We have to mobilize against a systematic shut down of democratic accountability, participation and transparency
The following text is from a presentation by Heike Loeschmann of the Heinrich Boell Foundation on Transformational Change at the recent EDGE Funders Alliance Conference in Baltimore. Special thanks to Heinrich Boell who have supported our work on Commons Transition and facilitated meetings of commoners and cooperators last year that lead to the development of… Continue reading
Movement of the Day: Breaking The Frame
Breaking The Frame is a growing network, which aims to democratise decisions about technology. We are bringing together different campaigns in order to learn from each others’ experience and strengthen our work. They explain: “Breaking the Frame started around the Breaking the Frame Gathering in 2014, aimed at a deeper understanding of the politics of… Continue reading
Open Source Farming Equipment is vital for farmers
Excerpted from KYLE WIENS: “There’s not much you can do with modern ag equipment. When it breaks or needs maintenance, farmers are dependent on dealers and manufacturer technicians—a hard pill to swallow for farmers, who have been maintaining their own equipment since the plow. “[DIY repair] is cheaper than calling out the technician. But that… Continue reading
To Minimize the Influence of Cars is a Key Factor for Successful Neighborhoods
Read the original article at CARFREE.ORG. The Problem The industrialized nations made a terrible mistake when they turned to the automobile as an instrument of improved urban mobility. The car brought with it major unanticipated consequences for urban life and has become a serious cause of environmental, social, and aesthetic problems in cities. The urban… Continue reading
Globally, we are not de-industrializing
The stats on the issue, excerpted from Michael Roberts: “The world is not de-industrialising. Globally, there were 2.2bn people at work and producing value back in 1991. Now there are 3.2bn. The global workforce has risen by 1bn in the last 20 years. But there has been no de-industrialisation globally. De-industrialisation is a phenomenon of… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Theorising and Analysing Digital Labour
* Article: Theorising and analysing digital labour: From global value chains to modes of production. By Christian Fuchs. The Political Economy of Communication, Vol 1, No 2 (2013) From the abstract: “This paper considers the following question—where do computers, laptops and mobile phones come from and who produced them? Specific cases of digital labour are… Continue reading
Ongoing Commodification of the Commons
By Stefeun. Original article at Doomstead Diner here. Reverse Engineer kindly invited me (1) to develop here one of the comments I posted on Gail Tverberg’s blog Our Finite World. It was a link to a very good article by Cory Morningstar on her blog “The Art of Annihilation”(2). To summarize it, she says that… Continue reading