Video of a discussion on the topic of Open Source Circular Economy and the commons of reuse. Examples? Suggestions? What do we need to facilitate them? What tools are needed? Meeting spaces? Challenges? Opportunities? Including social organizations from Barcelona and beyond, with Leandro Navarro, Anita García, and others. Note: All Procomuns videos feature simultaneous translation,… Continue reading
Date archives "June 2016"
Outlandish – Platform Co-ops event
True sharing organisations share the organisation too, by making members owners with real democratic voting rights, enabling them to have a say in the decision by which they are affected. Saturday night is not the time most people chose to meet to discuss disrupting democracy. But that’s what happened at the Platform Co-ops event in… Continue reading
Policies for Commons Collaborative Economies at the European level
We believe that on the part of government institutions it is time to define and advance the promotion of viable production and entrepreneurship alternatives, ones that fulfill the conditions for transparency and open resources as an engine of real progress, resilience and multiplication of opportunities. It is time for governments to act and stop the… Continue reading
Towards a ‘General Political License’ to regulate the relations of the commons with the political world
Maia Dereva explains an important conceptual innovation produced by the Asssembly of the Commons in Lille, really brilliant: “At the last Assembly of the Commons of Lille (France), a group of deputies who came especially from Paris was received. A morning walk led them to discover a lot about the commons of the of territory… Continue reading
The remarkable keynote of Yochai Benkler on the state of the commons/sharing movements and the tensions within
I didn’t attend this year’s Ouishare conference in Paris, always a highlight of the year, but I received many echoes of participants who said they were blown away by the closing keynote of Yochai Benkler, who responds to what his has experienced during these 3 days in Paris. It’s indeed a remarkable synthesis of where… Continue reading
On the Crucial Role of the World Bank in the Global Ecological Crisis
I have always been frustrated by the lack of integrative capacity of two groups of people. On the one hand, the currency reformers, who blame the structure and creation mechanisms of money for the growth imperative of capitalism and other dysfunctions; but on the other hand, the more classical Marxists who refuse to see any… Continue reading
Podcast: Kevin Carson on Mutualizing the Water Commons
Kevin Carson was recently interviewed by Andrew Stewart of the Rhode Island Media Cooperative on the issue of corporate water privatization, with an emphasis on commons-based ownership and cooperative management as an alternative. The original interview podcast can be found here, along with a write-up by Stewart that hits on the highlights of the discussion…. Continue reading
Video: Neoliberalism as Utopianism
Interesting discussion between Chris Hedges and author John Ralston Saul discussing and dissecting neoliberalism as an ideology. From the notes to the video: In this episode of Days of Revolt, host Chris Hedges and author John Ralston Saul discuss neoliberalism as an ideology, the breakdown of that ideology, and what comes next. The two draw… Continue reading
Call for papers: What’s Next in Design? Or Design of What’s Next?
A call for proposals for the ‘Design For Next’ international conference was recently published. This event will bring people from all over the world in Rome to explore two different large questions: What is Design for the Next? and What is the ‘Next’ focus for Design? Conference theme “Contemporary shifts in society, technology, production are… Continue reading
How open source can accelerate the circular economy shift
Sam Muirhead The shift to a circular economy presents a wicked, multidimensional problem: how can we redesign our operating system so that it works in the long term, and reflects the current context in terms of resources, energy and economic pressures? It’s hard to know where to start. After all, with our once-successful linear economy reaching its limits,… Continue reading
On the dangers of letting business-led multi-stakeholderism drive global law and policy-making
Excerpted from PARMINDER JEET SINGH: “Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has proposed a new business-led initiative for framing global e-commerce rules. Announcing it at the Boao Forum for Asia, he said: “Let businesses drive it with governments and NGOs and other organisations participating”. Mr. Ma’s proposed setting up what he calls… Continue reading
Procomuns Plenary 10: Blockchain & Public Administration
Video exploring the topic of the Blockchain and public administration, with Primavera de Filippi and Rachel O’Dwyer. Note: All Procomuns videos feature simultaneous translation, please switch from left to right channels to change languages. This plenary was filmed at PROCOMUNS, a 3 day event which was held in Barcelona in March, 2016 to discuss commons-oriented… Continue reading
“Intellectual Property” Keeps Right On Killing
Habitual apologists for agribusiness like Reason‘s Ron Bailey gushingly cite studies that show glyphosate, the “active ingredient” in Roundup, is unlikely to cause cancer in the concentrations that appear in supermarket produce. But as it turns out, the focus on glyphosate may actually have been a distraction. There’s evidence (“New Evidence About the Dangers of… Continue reading
Cosmo-localism and the futures of material production
Photo By Nicholas Zambetti – http://www.arduino.cc/, CC BY-SA 3.0, This exploratory essay posits the idea of ‘cosmo-localism’ (or ‘cosmo-localization’) as a potentially useful concept in both explaining a new economic model and in formulating sustainable development pathways. It is a thought stimulation exercise that invites us to join a conversation about the design of a new… Continue reading
11 Platform Cooperatives Creating a Real Sharing Economy
By Cat Johnson As “death star platforms” such as Airbnb and Uber continue their pursuit of global domination, an alternative is rising in its wake. Platform cooperatives, which share the value they create with the users they depend on, are on the rise. As Shareable co-founder Neal Gorenflo writes in How Platform Co-ops Can Beat… Continue reading
Project Of The Day: Community Exchange System
Have you ever had an “IDEA”? Perhaps it was a killer app, or 3D print design. Maybe you heard a complaint repeatedly and imagined a service to solve the problem. Or you had a vision of a song, a film, or a book. Your friends liked your idea. A few of them assured you your… Continue reading