In our report Intelligent Sharing: unleashing the potential of health and care data in the UK to transform outcomes, we recommended a number of measures to promote and facilitate what we termed ‘data philanthropy’, and the passage of the Data Protection Bill through Parliament affords us a timely opportunity to explore how Government might implement some… Continue reading
A few weeks back we announced Michel Bauwens’ intervention at Democracy Day in Belfast. Now, courtesy of our friend and colleague Kevin Flanagan, we present the audio for Michel’s talk. Presentation resources This is a recording of the presentation ‘Commoning our Democracy’ by Michel Bauwens of the p2pfoundation.net/ at the Imagine Festival in Belfast 14/03/2018. imaginebelfast.com/events/commoning-our-democracy/ Slides… Continue reading
The labour market in the UK has changed dramatically since 2006. Employment and social protection today for most new jobs is either thin or absent and as a result a new in-work poverty trap is burgeoning. 7.1 million workers (more than 20 percent of the workforce) are in precarious forms of work and 30 percent… Continue reading
Impacts of resource hungry exploitative economies “What is 120 times the size of London? The answer: the land or ecological footprint required to supply London’s needs.” — Herbert Giradet Our ecological footprint exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate. A number of useful indicators and frameworks have been developed to measure the ecological impact that humanity and its… Continue reading
Since 1834, when slavery was abolished on the Caribbean island of Barbuda, land there has been owned as a commons. The entire population collectively owns and controls the land, not private owners and developers. That may be about to change – with all the catastrophic results usually associated with enclosure. After Hurricane Irma devastated 90%… Continue reading
David Bollier and Silke Helfrich: In Part II of Patterns of Commoning, we introduced a broad diversity of remarkable commons. The goal was to explain their origins, context and other salient features, and in so doing make this invisible realm of social experience more visible – and thus more easily spoken about and discussed. Unlike many… Continue reading
In this eye-opening dialogue between Franck Gaudichaud and sociologists Miriam Lang and Edgardo Lander, the initial promise and subsequent disappointment of 21st Century Socialism is thoroughly analysed in the Venezuelan and Bolivian context. When asked toward the end of the interview what the solutions are, the interviewees stress the importance of self-organised, bottom-up initiatives, alternative… Continue reading
Community food enterprises are a success story of local collective action and have the potential to make significant contributions to local economic resilience. However despite its success, and the existence of some supportive policy drivers, the sector faces barriers to realising its full potential. Better Land-Based Economies explores these contributions, the issues they face, and… Continue reading
The prognosis for our planet, now widely accepted, is shattering our vision of a bright future for our cities, characterised by abundance and technological expansion. As a result, we urgently need to envision and confront the scenarios that are likely to become our reality, in the hope that this work of imagination can help us… Continue reading
This is a follow up on our earlier article on finding techniques for ‘reverse dominance’, i.e. avoiding the concentration of power. More indications of how to restore a new balance towards egalitarian (or rather ‘equipotential’) outcomes come from David Graeber, who wrote a very important article summarizing the last 3 decades of findings from archaeology… Continue reading
Nestled in Galicia’s fertile hills, the commons community of Froxán is engaged in a struggle to protect its territory and history from Spanish miner Sacyr’s plans to re-open the San Finx tungsten mine. The defining feature of Froxán’s resistance has been the community’s decision to counter the advances of mining by working positively for land, culture… Continue reading
Norwegian Layman’s Christianity peaked in this house. The man who lived here for almost 40 years, Magnus Johansen Dahl from Spydeberg, was the son of a “husmann”, which in some aspects was worse than serfdom. Serfs were many places well protected by traditions. In spite of his background, Dahl became the apostel of the Totenåsen Hills…. Continue reading
Dirk Holemans is the co-founder and co-director of OIKOS, a green Belgian think tank which has published two dutch-language books by Michel Bauwens. He has written a book which deals with the tension between freedom (individual) and security (social protection etc…). The book is of great interest, because it places the current dilemma’s in the… Continue reading
Christina Oatfield: Have you noticed how many tech start-ups are interested in food these days? We have. There are now dozens of apps you can use to order food to be delivered to your door — either by a human being or sometimes even by a robot. You can order take-out, groceries, or partially prepared… Continue reading
In a system of reverse dominance, however, the many act in unison to deflate the ego of anyone who tries, even in an incipient way, to dominate them. The following article makes an important point: Egalitarian societies didn’t just happen, they had a culture and ‘techniques’ that maintained it and Peter Gray calls it “reverse… Continue reading
This site is about foraging in the city. It promotes the idea that cities can become edible. That edible cities are a commons that all urban actors should strive to produce together. Adrien Labaeye is taking the lead on this great new initiative dedicated to foraging and the urban food commons. The following texts are… Continue reading