I want Madison to be seen as a birthplace of the network that is connecting every person on the planet, indirectly, to every other person on the planet, in an explicit agreement to support each other’s right to their best possible life. Is that so much to ask??? Continuing our series on P2P women we… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2015"
Cooperatives are breaking into the domain of the sharing economy
After a good overview of the faultlines within the so-called sharing economy, the authors outline emerging cooperative alternatives. In short: if the sharing economy is the problem, then the cooperative economy is the solution! Excerpted from Brian Van Slyke and David Morgan: “Cooperatives are breaking into the domain of the sharing economy – in theory… Continue reading
Pope Francis on the need for structural social change
“In conclusion, I would like to repeat: the future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of great leaders, the great powers and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of peoples and in their ability to organize. It is in their hands, which can guide with humility and conviction this process… Continue reading
A realistic way out for Syriza supporters ?
The recent years of struggle have developed the famous grassroots solidarity movement that began – as all organizing must – by addressing the needs of people. Out of this grew the some 400 solidarity groups all across Greece addressing basic community needs through self-organized democratically run collectives which provide support for people’s health, food, housing… Continue reading
Why the killing of Greece is really the killing of Europe
Economic individualism, the degenerate son of liberalism, now turns into nationalist egoism. The political leaders of this Europe have let us down because they are denying us our future: the cynical and indifferent face of the rich appears, as it turns away while Greece is abandoned just as the boatloads of desperate refugees are left… Continue reading
From Local Common Wealth Trusts to a Global Network of Bioregional Commons Trusts
the most transformational part of Barnes’ vision is that common wealth trusts would be administering a sustainability budget—calibrating the input and output of material and energy within a bioregion—to rebalance the preservation/production of the primary resources in a geographical area. Hence, the metric used by common wealth trusts is not monetary value but biocapacity This… Continue reading
The place of the Commons in the Pope’s climate change Encyclical
Excerpted from Mike Sandler: “The Pope calls for “an agreement on systems of governance for the whole range of “global commons”. 175. The same mindset which stands in the way of making radical decisions to reverse the trend of global warming also stands in the way of achieving the goal of eliminating poverty. A more… Continue reading
The key social innovation behind the blockchain: from the invisible hand to the visible hand
In old security models, you tried to lock out all of the greedy, dishonest people. Bitcoin, on the other hand, welcomes everyone, fully expecting them to act in their own self-interest, and then it uses their greed to secure the network. In many of my lectures, I try to explain the following to highlight the… Continue reading
The neoliberal background to the Greek crisis
The crushing of political choice is not a side-effect of this utopian belief system but a necessary component. Neoliberalism is inherently incompatible with democracy, as people will always rebel against the austerity and fiscal tyranny it prescribes. Something has to give, and it must be the people. This is the true road to serfdom: disinventing… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Social Media, Politics and the State
* Book: Trottier, Daniel and Christian Fuchs, eds. 2015. Social media, politics and the state. Protests, revolutions, riots, crime and policing in the age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. New York: Routledge. Here is the summary of the book: This book is the essential guide for understanding how state power and politics are contested and… Continue reading
A critique of Sensorica’s open value accounting
Update statement by author Lars Zimmermann: ” I wrote this article a while back (in very bad english) and i want to add something to it today. I am still in for all the points i made in general. But i am not so sure if they really fit to what Sensorica is actually building… Continue reading
Policies for the Commons: Issue #7 – Journal of Peer Production
It is our great pleasure to announce the public release of Issue #7 of the Journal of Peer Production. This issue, which has been edited by George Dafermos and me, features several articles which explore how the principles of the commons, of peer production and of the social economy can form the basis for a… Continue reading
The historical origins of the Democratic Autonomy experience in Rojava
By focusing on hierarchy instead of class, Bookchin became the first Leftist thinker to offer a coherent, meaningful framework for the liberation struggles in the Middle East. His narrative implies that a revolutionary movement in Kurdistan is a struggle at the material origin of institutional hierarchy itself. Although such a localized struggle cannot automatically release… Continue reading
Report on the Open Source Open Society Conference in New Zealand
This is a very well done report on a interesting “Open Everything” type of conference organized in New Zealand, and which will see new editions: Open Source Open Society Report 2015
Official review of the first meeting of the EU Intergroup on the Commons
The debates in Italy (with the history of the referendum on water as common good) are the most advanced reflecting the content and strategic options. A interesting input gave Ernest Urtasun from the Catalonian left-green party – referring to a more general approach for a Fundamental Charter on Common Goods. Republished from Elisabetta Cangelosi, and… Continue reading
Research: Economic and Energy Consumption Aspects of Additive Manufacturing
* PhD Thesis: Economic aspects of additive manufacturing: benefits, costs and energy consumption. Martin Baumers. Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University, 2012. From the abstract: “Additive Manufacturing (AM) refers to the use of a group of technologies capable of combining material layer-by-layer to manufacture geometrically complex products in a single digitally controlled process step, entirely… Continue reading