Excerpted from Trebor Scholz: “It’s a call to workers, designers, and developers. It’s up to you: the blue pill or, well, you know the Matrix story — the red. There has been backlash against unethical labor practices in the “collaborative sharing economy” because of an utter lack of concern for the workers. Take, for example,… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2015"
Book of the Day: Conflicts in the Knowledge Society
* Book: Conflicts in the Knowledge Society: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property. Sebastian Haunss.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013 Excerpted from a review by Eden Medina: “In Conflicts in the Knowledge Society, Sebastian Haunss studies the most visible movements that have challenged international intellectual property (IP) regimes. He positions the growing politicization of IP… Continue reading
Can political movements become enabling movements ?
The rapid transformation of the priorities of Syriza from a party promising radical change to a party that signs on to carrying out extreme neoliberal policies may require a fundamental rethinking of emancipatory politics. Here is the thought of R.C. Smith: “It remains true that, in spite of Syriza’s failures to date, the Greek people… Continue reading
Trebor Scholz et al on Cooperative Alternatives to the Sharing Economy
This is really good panel on the necessary cooperative forms for the sharing economy: ““Given the mounting attention to the unethical labor practices in the so-called “collaborative sharing economy” with labor brokerages like Handy and Uber, what are the alternatives? Imagine for one moment that the algorithmic heart of any of these citadels of anti-unionism… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Scaling Up the Convergence of Social Economy and Sustainability
* Book: Scaling Up: The Convergence of Social Economy and Sustainability. Co-edited by Mike Gismondi, Mary Beckie et al. BALTA, 2015 The P2P Foundation has been working on the convergence of the solidarity economy / cooperative model with the open/commons model, and with the convergence of the sustainability model with open/commons approaches. But here is… Continue reading
100 Women who are co-creating the P2P Society – Marion Rousseaux on the Commons in Lille, France
This is a truly heartening interview to see the depth of activity of urban commoners. The interview with Marion Rousseaux was conducted by Michel Bauwens, with the assistance of Mélanie Gabard and Simon Sarazin who are active in the same projects. * Michel Bauwens: First of all, tell us a bit about your personal backgrounds… Continue reading
Three initiatives that point the way for a Plan C in Greece
Excerpted from Theodoros Karyotis: “Greece is probably a peculiar case within Europe in that the state never had a positive role of economic redistribution and the welfare mechanisms were rudimentary even when they existed in the “good days” before the crisis severely hit. This is probably why within the social movements there are presently many… Continue reading
Choice citations about the need for ‘peer property’ models
Please find the exact source of the citations here. “The commons breaks with the individualistic vision as conceived by the capitalist tradition, a vision that has progressively transferred the idea of rights to individual people. The commons take inclusion and everyone’s equal right to access as its starting point, while property and the idea of… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Reconsidering the University Invention Ownership Model
* Essay: Reconsidering the Bayh-Dole Act and the Current University Invention Ownership Model. By Martin Kenney and Donald Patton. From the abstract: “The current model within which universities own the inventions made by their researchers was enshrined in the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. This paper finds that the current system, in which universities maintain de… Continue reading
A Commons Approach to European Knowledge Policy
We stand at a crossroads between a backward-looking regime of proprietary policies based on archaic economic models – and a burgeoning new system that respects the power of innovation and social practices in open networks, inviting us to make the most of an emerging world of knowledge commons. EU policies can help to strengthen the… Continue reading
Thoughts on Peer Production and its Implications for Solidarity Economics
Without a viable economic and political model that provides for the “employment” (compensation) of the Open Source Software developers at large, the Peer Production game is very much a playground of the bureaucratic-industrial complex. We don’t believe the author has actually read the P2P Foundation works, except perhaps superficially, since our analysis is the same… Continue reading
Interview with Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval on the Politics of the Common
The interview was conducted by Amador Fernández-Savater. Dardot and Laval are the authors of a book on neoliberalism and a book on the ‘common’: “Common, Essay on revolution in the 21st Century”. * “What was your intention in writing the book? Why set out this key idea of the common here and now? Pierre Dardot:… Continue reading
The economic foundations of abundance
An approach to the concept of abundance and the elements that make it more possible and closer today than ever before in the history of our species. We all understand that abundance exists when it becomes unnecessary to work out what is produced and what not, and above all, how much access to a given… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: How the Student as Producer is Hacking the University
* Paper: Student as Producer is hacking the university. Winn, Joss and Lockwood, Dean (2013) Student as Producer is hacking the university. In: Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age. Routledge. From the abstract: “This chapter discusses the Student as Producer project at the University of Lincoln and provides two case studies of how Student as… Continue reading
The best video of the year: 3 minutes on our precarious plight under neoliberalism
Worthless is marvelous spoken work on music poem by Agnes Török, a very powerful three minutes:
Umair Haque on the era of demagogic leadership
True leaders lead people to an impossible destination. It does not exist in the world. It exists in being. They lead us towards to our better selves. Those seared, impossibly, defiantly, courageously, with happiness, purpose, meaning. Lives which may swim in the mighty river of grace, and, because they give thanks for the boundless privilege… Continue reading