“Syriza’s failure to deliver on any of its campaign promises or to reverse the logic of austerity lifts the veil of illusion regarding institutional top-down solutions and leaves the grassroots movements exactly where they started from: being the main antagonistic force to the neoliberal assault on society. Now is the moment for a broad alliance… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2015"
Messages from the Immaterial Commons: 4
Stepping aside from neoliberal faith – The heresy of Commoning One of the great things about the commons tradition is that every instance is local and idiosyncratic and requires that we make it up as we go along. But do we have to reinvent the commonweal? Yes – probably we do, but what might be generic?… Continue reading
Daniel Pinchbeck et al. on the transition to a new and sustainable planetary culture
Daniel Pinchbeck, co-founder of the Center for Planetary Culture, recently co-authored a synthesis of proposals for deep planetary social change, which takes into account not just technical infrastructures, but also social infrastructures and culture change, and presented in a easy to understand language. In this video discussion with Carne Ross (carneross.com) and Peter Buffett, the… Continue reading
Delimiting Commons-Based Peer Production
Mapping 30 areas of activity (Fig. 1) (This post by Marco Berlinguer & Mayo Fuster originally appeared on the P2Pvalue blog) It has been for some time now that research is engaging around a fauna of new forms of production that have been progressively appearing in the sectors more intensively impacted by the Internet and… Continue reading
James Galbraith on the consequences of a Greek capitulation
Excerpted from an interview conducted before the news of the agreement was know, but still relevant. James Galbraith is interviewed by Lynn Parramore. * LP: What are the alternatives for Greece at this point? JG: “Capitulation or exit. It really depends upon a political judgment in the Greek government, which is opaque to me. There… Continue reading
Swiss solution for Greece: two currencies – Bernard Lietaer Euro co-designer
Book of the Day: the MoneyLab Reader
* Book: MoneyLab Reader: An Intervention in Digital Economy. Geert Lovink, Nathaniel Tkacz, and Patricia de Vries (eds). Institute of Network Cultures, 2015 Here’s the summary: “MoneyLab is part of a global movement that demands the democratization of the design of our financial futures. Audacity is essential in times of crisis. And so we must… Continue reading
David Graeber on Resistance In A Time Of Total Bureaucratization
The lecture by David Graeber for a audience of occupying students in Amsterdam is a bit chaotic at first but is very much worth your time listening to. Watch the video here:
Next to Plan A, rendition, and plan B, grexit, Greece needs a Plan C, i.e. a plan for commons transition
Excerpted from Jerome Roos in Roar magazine: “All we know is this: over the past couple of years, the debate within Syriza on how to resolve the crisis has essentially revolved around two poles: the government’s original plan A — to end austerity within the eurozone — and the more radical alternative originally proposed by… Continue reading
Messages from the Immaterial Commons: 3) The Psychosocial Field
The Psychosocial Field The core elements of the psyCommons proposal are rapport, the quality of felt contact with others, chat, and learning from experience. This inevitably tentative handle on the human condition accounts reasonably well for our capacity to survive, recover and even flourish as a persons. And yet… And yet… rapport can dry up,… Continue reading
Jonathan Dawson on transformative education in economics
“It’s a wonderful time to be active in the field of Higher Education”, Jonathan tells us, “you can actually smell the revolution that is brewing”. He shows us how the movement of student protest, sit-ins, and the like are an exciting call for positive change in not only what we teach, but also in how… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Comparing Successful Grassroots Innovations in Renewable Energy
* Article: Of solar collectors, wind power, and car sharing: Comparing and understanding successful cases of grassroots innovations. By Michael Ornetzeder and Harald Rohracher, Linköping University Post Print, 2013 From the Abstract: “Grassroots activities so far have not been sufficiently appreciated as sources of innovation. Transition processes towards more sustainable socio-technical energy, transport or production… Continue reading
Solving the two fatal flaws of capitalism ? Common Wealth Propertization vs. Common Wealth Privatization
A useful distinction explained by Peter Barnes: “Common wealth is hugely valuable. We couldn’t live without it, and we certainly couldn’t have the amazingly productive economy we now have without it. The trouble is that the market doesn’t see this common wealth—it’s like the dark matter of the economic universe. And that’s what needs to… Continue reading
Closed in and crowded out: urbanising against the city
Cross-posted from CommonsTransition.org, Carlos Delclós explores the gap between people and increasingly unaccountable institutions beholden to financial interests, citizens are rising up to reclaim the commons. The ubiquity of social unrest and economic conflict in Europe tells us that we are living in times of intense contradictions. Where streets have not filled up with massive… Continue reading
Australia may be poised for more rapid uptake of community energy solar
Status report excerpted from Nicky Ison and Ed Langham: (the original article has many links) “Here in Australia, while the community energy sector is still new, a recent baseline assessment found that there are now 19 operating community energy projects, which have as of the end of 2014 generated 50,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy –… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Digital Depression
* Book: Dan Schiller, Digital Depression: Information Technology and Economic Crisis. University of Illinois Press, 2014 Excerpted from a review by Richard Hill: “According to some, the current governance arrangement for the Internet is nearly ideal. In particular, its global multi-stakeholder model of governance has resulted in a free and open Internet, which has enabled… Continue reading