Date archives "June 2015"

Project of the Day: Open Oil

Open Oil is a public domain reference source in textual terms for extractive industries Johnny West writes that: “We are working on putting contracts from the world’s oil and mining industries into the commons with the necessary analysis to make them accessible for public debate … We are co-developing a model to factor the effects… Continue reading

Towards a Coalition of Commons-Oriented Entrepreneurial Coalitions

Michel Bauwens: This idea came up during a conversation with Alanna Krause of Enspiral, when she visited Chiang Mai in June 2015. The basic idea is that peer production generally takes a triarchical form, i.e. open productive communities that co-contribute to a commons and common good; a ethical entrepreneurial coalition that creates livelihoods for the… Continue reading

A Burst of Festivals of the Commons: Italy, Greece and France

There has been a real surge of festivals on the commons in recent months, and in the months ahead!   The First International Festival of the Commons – Festival Internazionale dei Beni Comuni – will be held in Chieri, Italy, from July 9 to 2.  The event is a cultural happening sponsored by the borough Chieri… Continue reading

A critique of the (left and right) Anarchist Vision of Power, by David Harvey

Please carefully read the following quotes: 1. Every revolution, indeed, even every attempt to achieve basic change, will always meet with resistance from elites in power. Every effort to defend a revolution will require the amassing of power – physical as well as institutional and administrative – which is to say, the creation of government…. Continue reading

Book of the Day: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism

* Book: William E. Connolly, The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism (Duke University Press, 2013) Excerpted from a review by Zachary Loeb: “Connolly argues for an “ethic of cultivation” that can show “both how fragile the ethical life is and how important it is to cultivate it” . “Cultivation,” as… Continue reading

Michael Hudson on the reasons behind the financial war against the Greek people

A must-read interview transcript of economics professor Michael Hudson: (we recommend reading this analysis by Ann Pettifor as a complement) “SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to the Michael Hudson Report on The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore. The Euro is slipping against the dollar, and the European financial… Continue reading

100 Women who are co-creating the P2P Society – Oriana Persico of Art is Open Source

Continuing our series on P2P women we present this interview with Oriana Persico of Art is Open Source with Penny Travlou and Michel Bauwens. – Dear Oriana, tell us a bit about your life before creating Art Is Open Source and about the aims of your project ? Art is Open Source ( http://www.artisopensource.net/ ) was… Continue reading

A Introduction to the Basic P2P Ideas; Part 1: What is P2P?

Over the last ten years, the P2P Foundation has produced a sizeable body of material, both original and curated, but none of it is specifically designed as an introduction for newcomers and people who are not so familiar with the P2P approach. Hence Irma Wilson‘s proposal, during a trip which FutureSharp helped organize in South… Continue reading

Papal letter (4): the Roman Catholic church is now the foremost critic of capitalism

Roman Catholic church is now the foremost critic of capitalism. As the left fades in authority all over the world, the church has regained its voice. Excerpted from Giles Fraser: ” It is nothing less than a call to refigure our entire political mindset. No wonder Catholic Republicans like Jeb Bush are up in arms…. Continue reading

Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies: a regulatory nightmare?

  This post from the P2Pvalue blog by Florian Glatz is based on an article by Primavera de Filippi posted on Internet Policy Review – read the full article here Today we want to point you to one of the many studies we are conducting at P2PValue, regarding the different applications of peer-to-peer technology in today’s networked information… Continue reading

Atmospherics from the FLOW P2P Workshop in Cape Town on 11 June 2015

John Ziniades, one of the co-organizers with Anna Cowen, writes: On Thursday 11 June, Flow Africa hosted a conversation with Michel Bauwens in Cape Town, founder of the P2P Foundation and a leading theorist, writer, researcher and activist around the Commons, Peer Production, Copyfair, Cooperative economics, Distributed manufacture, and the Sharing and Collaborative Economy. The… Continue reading