Next year will be the 40 years anniversary of Christopher Alexander‘s seminal work “A Pattern Language”. 20 years ago Nikos A. Salingaros wrote the following text: Alexander tried to show that architecture connects people to their surroundings in an infinite number of ways, most of which are subconscious. For this reason, it was important to… Continue reading
Plastic has been described as a lot of things, but precious? That’s a new one. However, one team in the Netherlands is working to change how we view plastic, taking it from a waste product that is clogging up our oceans, landfills and animals, and reframing it as a valuable resource. Precious Plastic brings plastic… Continue reading
On April 19, I delivered a short opening keynote talk at the EDGE Funders Alliance conference in Berkeley, California, on the challenges facing progressive philanthropy in fostering system change. My remarks were based on a longer essay that I wrote for EDGE Funders, “A Just Transition and Progressive Philanthropy,” which is re-published below. The weak… Continue reading
I’ve been talking with a lot of my friends recently — in private where they felt comfortable letting their guard down — about the dirty little secret no one is supposed to talk about. The shame people feel when they can’t find a job… …or pay their bills. …or go to the dentist. …or that… Continue reading
Video panel exploring the question: how can we promote industrial restructuring and relocation based on open design, collaborative R&D and shared networks? A discussion on co-creation networks, locally produced open design, sustainability, learning and mutual aid. Featuring Mara Ballestrini, Tomás Díez, Wouter Tebbens, and others. Note: All Procomuns videos feature simultaneous translation, please switch from left to… Continue reading
Michel Bauwens: Karatani, in The Structures of World History, makes a key argument that the key underlying structure is less the mode of production, than the ‘mode of exchange’. The mode of exchange point of view, allows him to talk about the Capital-Nation-State nexus, instead of believing that state and nation are epiphenomena (superstructures). For… Continue reading
Launched about four years ago as an “autonomous project of collective initiative” of the Catalan Integral Cooperative (CIC), with the aim of exemplifying a humane and environmentally sustainable model of living, SOM Pujarnol is a small community of people animated by the principles of the integral revolution and agro-ecology, who live and work in a… Continue reading
By Daniel Waterman “I was recently alerted to a documentary on Dutch TV highlighting malpractice among locksmiths in the Netherlands. The focus of the program was on the exorbitant prices locksmiths charge for door opening and lock replacement. The problem was traced to competition between companies that use Google ad-words to reach customers. Many of… Continue reading
A new Harvard poll shows 51 percent of Millennials do not support capitalism (compared to 42 percent who do). An older Reason-Rupe poll found “socialism” beat “capitalism” in popularity 58 to 56%, but the “free market” was overwhelmingly more popular than a “government-managed economy.” The spin-meisters are quick to frame this as Millennial confusion about… Continue reading
As cooperative culture spreads into the tech world Loomio is part of a new wave of entrepreneurs figuring out how to finance a more democratic, values-centered online economy. Perhaps you remember the scenes, during the Occupy movement in 2011, of hundreds or thousands of people making decisions together in parks and squares. They used strange… Continue reading
Video panel exploring the current situation in the city council, Generalitat, Spanish administration and European Commission level. Which are the different roles of the administrations? Which is the most appropriate model of collaborative economy to be promoted from the administrations? Featuring Álvaro Porro, Benedetta Brighenti, Jennifer Kang, Mayo Fuster and Prodromos Tsiavos, the presentations start at 12:06…. Continue reading
What an amazing surprise that the theoretical innovation that I thought I had introduced, by interpreting the relational grammar of Alan Page Fiske as a history of dominations of modes of allocating resources, has been done by another much deeper scholar and philosopher, i.e. the Japanese scholar Kojin Karatani. In the preface to his major… Continue reading
As a Rules & Policy analyst, this is a busy time of year at my office. The State Legislature is closing their session and that means a flood of bills are being voted on. We have to analyze them clause by clause to discover anything we believe might impede our department from carrying out its… Continue reading
Last November, the Platform Cooperativism conference — a coming out party for the cooperative Internet — took place in New York City, initiated by Nathan Schneider and Trebor Scholz. Last month, the first #PlatformCoopBerlin meetup followed in Berlin with Michel Bauwens as the keynote speaker. The small venue was packed. More than 50 people attended instead of the 30 that… Continue reading
Ursula Huws is a long-standing researcher on the labor conditions in the digital economy and has produced the following report, which also distills these “Key policy recommendations“: Ensure self employed and freelance workers have greater access to the basic rights enjoyed by those in employment Relax regulations that restrict the ability of independent workers to… Continue reading
Xnet and other 72 other civil society organizations from the 5 continents send a letter to the European Telecom Regulators asking them to uphold net neutrality in the current negotiations about the future of the Open Internet in the European Union. The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) and the 28 telecom regulators… Continue reading