Excerpted from Umair Haque: “Money’s pouring into the tech industry today. Too much money, chasing too few truly groundbreaking investments. And so a bubble is inflating?—?but not just any bubble. A bubble of an especially insidious kind. Of stuff that’s beyond eyewateringly, painfully, mind-numbingly trivial. I’m going to call it a Servitude Bubble. For the… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2015"
Why we need the ‘meent’: re-historisizing the Dutch Commons
Etymologically the word ‘meent’ shares its root with ‘menigte’, which is the Dutch translation of the Latin ‘multitudo’ (Philippa et al. 2005, 179-81 and 2007, 323-24). They share a Middle Dutch adjective, ‘maneg’ meaning ‘many’ (Philippa et al. 2007, 334). Because this was the same in Old English and Old Frisian, the ‘meent’ and the… Continue reading
Beyond the Gig Economy: The Trend towards Full-Employment Startups
Excerpted from Farhood Manjoo: ““Fundamentally what it boiled down to was that we had to create good jobs to make sure that our operators were vested in our company,” said Saman Rahmanian, a co-founder of Managed by Q, a start-up that provides commercial cleaning and supply services. Of course, creating “good jobs” entails costs. Managed… Continue reading
Latest Issue of Stir Magazine Now Out
http://stirtoaction.com/stir-summer-issue10-pre-order-discount/ STIR Summer 2015 Issue/10 – £2.95 – 25% off! Climate Column — Raja Jarrah “Over the coming months, in the lead up to the annual UN climate conference, this time in Paris (COP21), we will see politicians escalating the rhetoric about this being a a historic moment, crossroads, nay, a last chance, to confront… Continue reading
A summary of the arguments for making the socialized internet into a sustainability engine
How is internet technology related to the transition to a sustainable future, according to my vision and those of others in the P2P Foundation? We see the internet not as a given or a ‘essentialized technology’, but as a locus of struggle between different values and usages, determined by the design of the systems, ‘by… Continue reading
Abundance is the end of divisions in production
A society of abundance is a society in which productivity is not separate from research, conversation and knowledge, as if they were different worlds, and knowledge itself is not divided into professional and mercantile knowledge. It is a society where community is directly productive, without divisions. The culture in which we were brought up is… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: In Search of Democratic Academic Publishing Strategies
* Essay: The Power of Free: In search of democratic academic publishing strategies. Jan Blommaert. Summary of the thesis: “In this polemical essay, I intend to engage with the current system of academic publishing, in light of the debates about possible Open Access publishing strategies. I write my remarks from my own position in the… Continue reading
Screencast: An Overview of the Transformative Proposals of the P2P Foundation
Thanks to Irma Wilson of FutureSharp, South Africa, for her assistance in producing this screencast, presenting the different proposals of the P2P Foundation on one overview slide, which is explained here: “The three key responses we see from the world in crisis can be grouped as the movements around Sustainability, Openness and Solidarity, gives the… Continue reading
Introduction to P2P Class Theory ( 3) : Are Developers Part of the Working Class ?
Excerpted from David Judd and Zakiya Khabir: “Software developers are much better compensated than the average worker in the tech industry. Last year in the U.S., the median worker earned a paltry $35,540 compared to $91,320 for software developers and programmers. And this doesn’t include the comprehensive benefits packages that are the industry norm. Even… Continue reading
Christian Fuchs on Social Media in Times of Capitalist Crisis
“In this video Christian Fuchs discusses his book, OccupyMedia! Social Media in Times of Capitalist Crisis and Political Change. The talk was given at the University of Cambridge – Department of Sociology, as part of the “Researching (with) Social Media” reading group (February 2, 2015).” Watch it here:
In support of the “No” in the Greek Referendum: 5) James Galbraith
only the “No” can save Greece – and by saving Greece, save Europe. A “No” means that the Greek people will not bend, that their government will not fall, and that the creditors need, finally, to come to terms with the failures of European policy so far. Negotiations can then resume – or more correctly,… Continue reading
Property Rights, Inequality and Commons
I recently spoke at a conference, “Property and Inequality in the 21st Century,” hosted by The Common Core of European Private Law, an annual gathering of legal scholars, mostly from Europe. They had asked me how the commons might be a force for reducing inequality. Below are my remarks, “The Commons as a Tool for… Continue reading
The Real Question of the Referendum: The Enclosure of the Greek Commons
Being a typical academic, allow me to begin with a definition: the commons is a term used to describe shared resources (such as land, water, air, culture, science, infrastructures) in which each stakeholder has an equal interest. The devastating enclosures of the English commons, between 16th and 19th centuries, has been labeled as the “revolution… Continue reading
Trailer: The Altruism Revolution
A very promising documentary on the history of cooperation and its vital function for the survival of humanity: “In our materialist society where it seems that cynicism and profit reign supreme, one idea is shaking up conventional thinking: Altruism has existed since the dawn of time, it’s an essential factor of social living… and we… Continue reading
In support of the “No” in the Greek Referendum: 4) Theodoros Karyotis
Republished from Theodoros Karyotis in ROAR magazine: (a mustread) “The decision of the Greek government, late last Friday, to put the proposals of the creditors to referendum caught by surprise even those who, from a grassroots perspective, have been fighting against the murderous austerity in Greece in recent years. After all, the negotiations had just… Continue reading
An update on the Finnish Basic Income Pilot Project
Via the Basic Income Earth Network Finland, Otto Lehto: “This is the situation in our country. Finland elected a new parliament in April 2015. For the first time, the majority of parliamentarians have expressed their support, ranging from mild to strong, for a Basic Income (of some kind or another, since it is not entirely… Continue reading