As the familiar features of consumer society recede, new institutionalized forms of cooperativism can help to ease some of the disruption and foreseeable hardship. This is the first of a series of posts on post-consumerism. It was authored by Maurie J. Cohen and originally published at TruthOut: By famously implementing the $5 per day wage in… Continue reading
A few weeks before the US presidential elections: “I personally think that Donald Trump is going to get elected. I can’t think of a very plausible scenario for that to happen. My rational brain says that’s not very likely, but I think he’s going to get elected for reasons of dramatic aesthetics. In other words,… Continue reading
The Fibershed Project represents an integrated proposal for sustainable manufacturing that is essential for climate change, and creates employment. Our Mission & Vision Fibershed develops regional and regenerative fiber systems on behalf of independent working producers, by expanding opportunities to implement carbon farming, forming catalytic foundations to rebuild regional manufacturing, and through connecting end-users to… Continue reading
In this very recent video lecture Michel Bauwens focuses on value practices by peer production communities and in particular on the notion of ‘value sovereignty’, as a post-capitalist practice, and how to envisage it. The lecture took place on November 14 at the Kaaiteater in Brussels, Belgium. From the original notes to the video Which… Continue reading
An excellent interview with John Thackara about his last book “How to Thrive in the Next Economy”. Conducted by Jonny Gordon-Farleigh: Jonny Gordon-Farleigh: Your new book, How to Thrive in the Next Economy, explores practical innovations in sustainability across the world. What stories would you pick out as the most instructive for the scale of… Continue reading
Within the last century an obscure strand of philosophy related to “holons,” has, particularly with adherents in the world of emerging technology, stated to make inroads on how we conceptualize the “corporation” and other human institutions. Understanding this philosophy is vital for understanding both where we are are today, and how our world is likely… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Cat Johnson: Loomio is a worker-owned cooperative building open-source software to help organizations and communitieswith collaborative decision making. Based in New Zealand, the co-op is part of Enspiral, a collaborative network of social enterprises. Loomio’s vision is to create a world where it’s easy for anyone to participate in decisions that affect them…. Continue reading
The following text, written by Richard Heinberg, was originally published in the Post-Carbon Institute’s newsletter. America has plunged into the unknown. Why? Robert Parry has nailed it about as well as anyone. I leave it to him, and a thousand other pundits, to perform the post-mortem on yesterday’s surprising election results. What’s important now is to… Continue reading
Platform cooperativism is the radical idea that the internet would do more good if its major properties were democratically owned and governed. The second Platform Cooperativism conference took place last week in NYC, and to coincide with the event, Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider launched a new collection of essays on the topic, called Ours… Continue reading
The second platform cooperativism conference, Building the Cooperative Internet (videos here), was held at the New School and Civic Hall in New York City on November 11-13. Platform cooperativism is a movement for the democratic ownership and collective governance of the Internet platforms grounded in principles of worker solidarity. The inaugural conference in 2015, which over 1,000… Continue reading
The Future Economy — A “Thing Commons” So let’s take a look at the future of manufacturing and production, what myself and others often refer to as “maker culture.” To envision how a future economy will function, all we have to do is apply the principles of complex systems and panarchy and see what emerges:… Continue reading
In all the damage assessments and recriminations following the presidential election, one theme I’ve seen way too much of is blaming Trump’s victory on “political correctness.” One person blamed the Left for “demonizing white men” for the past eight years instead of focusing on economic and class issues. Another clutched his pearls about what a… Continue reading
http://teamhuman.fm/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/TH_09-DC-Vito.mp3 Playing for Team Human today is D.C. Vito, Executive Director of The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project). The LAMP brings hands-on media education into underserved communities, empowering students and teachers with the skills needed to comprehend, create, and critique media. In today’s episode, D.C. and Douglas make the concept of “media literacy” tangible for an interactive media… Continue reading
In high income countries, well meaning government programs often make an impact when they are implemented. However, long-term impact can disintegrate when the government hands the program over to citizens. For example, many governments subsidize housing in some way. But once a family is able to purchase a home, market prices increase over time. When… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Christopher D. Cook: In 2008, Alanna Krause hit a wall. Just 25 years old and already rising through the corporate ranks as a global technical support team leader at Bloomberg in London, Krause began to feel that her work was “meaningless.” “No matter how well I did my job or how much I… Continue reading
For the past several months I’ve been having conversations with a friend, Dave Jacke, who is a long-time designer of landscape ecosystems via his firm, Dynamics Ecological Design, of Montague, Massachusetts. In his long career in circles — he’s the author of a classic book Edible Forest Gardens — Dave came to realize that a “landscape-only”… Continue reading