A review of Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin by Janey Biehl (Oxford University Press, 2015, 344pp, _22.99) Derek Wall: Almost every day, we learn of new horrors in the Middle East. Syria and Iraq are suffering from a brutal war. Fundamentalist groups like the so-called Islamic State and authoritarian leaders are murdering… Continue reading
Futurists warning about the threats of AI are looking in the wrong place. Humanity is already facing an existential threat from an artificial intelligence we created hundreds of years ago. It’s called the Corporation. Jeremy Lent: Some of the leading thinkers of our time are unleashing a stream of warnings about the threat of artificial… Continue reading
The OPEN 2019 Community Gathering is an open space event designed to strengthen the network of communities and organisations that are working on building a collaborative, regenerative economy. When: Thursday, 27 June – Friday, 28 June9:00 am – 8:00 pm Where: University of London, Malet Street, London In previous years, we’ve promoted platform co-ops in a traditional conference format. This… Continue reading
My new book, nearly 3 years in the making, is finally in print. It’s called “Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age” and is published by the Democracy Collaborative. The release date is June 1 and it’s available here. As our democracy hangs in the balance, I hope this book allows many… Continue reading
Primavera De Filippi, researcher at CNRS and faculty associate at the Berkman Center, Harvard Law School, is investigating emergent decentralized technologies to design new governance models. In this final talk of the session Blockchain Technology Beyond Bitcoin at Lift16, Primavera De Filippi explored the possibilities that live at the intersection between the blockchain and art,… Continue reading
Jesse Onslow: Citizen initiatives across the Belgian capital are finding new ways to collaborate and coordinate their efforts. Could this be a new model for influencing social change in cities? Brussels is a city that’s intimate with inertia. In its center stands the Palais de Justice, a grand 19th-century courthouse that was once described as… Continue reading
Cross-posted from The Open Coop and written by Oliver Sylvester-Bradley. Having re-watched the webinar on Catalysing Collaboration at Scale I wondered if it might be possible to identify some of the key themes of collaboration. Truly effective, synergistic, collaboration is an elusive beast at the best of times and the idea of making it work at scale,… Continue reading
The video above is a recording of a webinar exploring how to catalyse collaboration at scale. This first event of OPEN 2019 covers the ideas behind The DNA of Collaboration and Harmonious Working Patterns to explore ideas which might help all the people, communities and organisations working on creating a new, decentralised, regenerative economy collaborate better to produce more impact. Panelists:… Continue reading
I frequently encounter a notion, among those drawn to cooperatives, that a cooperative should be an amorphous, faceless collective in which old-world skills and norms of leadership can be discarded. How does this work out for them? Not well. Usually one of two entirely predictable things happens as a result — and generally both. One is a tyranny… Continue reading
The Network Society Today: (Revisiting) the Information Age Trilogy “Manuel Castells The Information Age Trilogy has been one of the most influential works to understand the societal change in the awake of the digital revolution of the last decades. It is, as Frank Webster (2002: 97) points out, one of “the most illuminating, imaginative and intellectually rigorous account of the… Continue reading
Originally available via Democracy at Work as part of the “Anti-Capitalist Chronicles” series. This episode: ‘Primitive or Original Accumulation’. From Democracy at Work To our Patreon community: thank you for supporting David Harvey’s Anti-Capitalist Chronicles on Patreon! Your support helps us compensate the staff and additional workers it takes to put an episode together. Thank… Continue reading
A new open-source license addendum, Commons Clause, has lawyers, developers, businesses, and open-source supporters fighting with each other. Written Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Linux and Open Source, originally posted on ZDNet on August 28, 2018 Most people wouldn’t know an open-source license from their driver’s license. For those who work with open-source software, it’s a different story. Open-source license fights… Continue reading
A Movement of MovementsIs Another World Really Possible?Edited by Tom Mertes Charts the strategic thinking behind the movements challenging neoliberal globalization. A Movement of Movements charts the strategic thinking behind the mosaic of movements currently challenging neoliberal globalization. Leading theorists and activists—the Zapatistas’ Subcomandante Marcos, Chittaroopa Palit from the Indian Narmada Valley dam protests, Soweto anti-privatization campaigner… Continue reading
Will Ruddick is a development economist focusing on currency innovation. After completing graduate school researching high energy physics as a collaboration member at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, he found his analysis skills and passion drawn to alternative economics and development. Since 2008 Will has lived in East Africa and managed several successful development programs… Continue reading
World Religion has been mostly excluded from the technology discussion so far. But how much do the different Religions, mostly based on ideas of community, interconnection and empathy have in common with the ways we celebrate technology? Both are often based on devotion and various practices and rituals. Addressing the common grounds we ask what… Continue reading
“The fight for climate justice is the fight of our lives, and we need to do it right.” By grassroots collective Wretched of The Earth. This letter was collaboratively written with dozens of aligned groups. As the weeks of action called by Extinction Rebellion were coming to an end, our groups came together to reflect on… Continue reading