From the RIPESS page:

“More than 300 people from 46 different countries will meet from 5th to 7th April at the University of Barcelona, in the first international preparatory meeting for the World Social Forum of Transformative Economies 2020 (WSFTE 2020). It will be a working meeting with organizations linked to transforming economies, networks and movements at local and international level.

The aim will be to get to know the different actors, establish the challenges to be discussed, and the process towards the WSFTE 2020. It is also intended to agree the work plans, the governance model and validate the next steps to follow.”

The meeting will be the first step in the process of confluence between movements and actions that transform the economy. The next milestone in this process will be the WSFTE of 2020, to then continue with a common global agenda that collects the shared challenges and how to face them from the transforming economies.

RIPESS, as one of the three driving networks of the WSFTE 2020 welcomes all SSE people and organisations to Barcelona and we wish you a very productive meeting!

For all the information about the WSFTE 2020 and the process that starts today, you can visit the Forum website www.transformadora.org

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By Ray Anderson and John A. Lanier: The original Mid-Course Correction, published 20 years ago, became a classic in the sustainability field. It put forth a new vision for what its author, Ray C. Anderson, called the “prototypical company of the 21st century”—a restorative company that does no harm to society or the environment. In it Anderson recounts his eureka moment as founder and leader of Interface, Inc., one of the world’s largest carpet and flooring companies, and one that was doing business in all the usual ways. Bit by bit, he began learning how much environmental destruction companies like his had caused, prompting him to make a radical change. Mid-Course Correction not only outlined what eco-centered leadership looks like, it also mapped out a specific set of goals for Anderson’s company to eliminate its environmental footprint.

Those goals remain visionary even today, and this second edition delves into how Interface worked toward making them a reality, birthing one of the most innovative and successful corporate sustainability efforts in the world. The new edition also explores why we need to create not only prototypical companies, but also the prototypical economy of the twenty-first century. As our global economy shifts toward sustainability, challenges like building the circular economy and reversing global warming present tremendous opportunities for business and industry. Mid-Course Correction Revisted contains a new foreword by Paul Hawken, several new chapters by Ray C. Anderson Foundation executive director John A. Lanier, and interviews with Janine Benyus, Joel Makower, Andrew Winston, Ellen MacArthur and other leaders in green enterprise, the circular economy, and biomimicry.

A wide range of business readers—from sustainability professionals to green entrepreneurs to CEOs—will find both wise advice and concrete examples in this new look at a master in corporate and environmental leadership, and the legacy he left.

Reviews and Praise

• “Unlike most business leaders for whom ‘the business case for sustainability’ is all that really matters, Ray Anderson unapologetically advanced a moral case as well, constantly focused on our duty to future generations. This is more important today than ever before, as we come to recognize that an incremental, softly-softly approach to corporate sustainability is pretty much a busted flush—we’ve simply run out of time. The Interface story is as inspirational today as ever, but it needs to be read for its deeper, radical reckoning: If not now, when? If not you, who?”—Jonathon Porritt, founder and director, Forum for the Future; author of The World We Made
  
• “I’m so glad Ray Anderson’s story is getting another telling—few sagas are more inspiring or more timely. We desperately need more and more people following in his footsteps with the same blend of humility and determination!”—Bill McKibben, author of Falter
  
• “Twenty years after its first edition, there is still so much for us to harvest and learn from Mid-Course Correction. When it came to the precariousness of our shared future, Ray Anderson was both impatient and relentless in fighting for a world of beauty, abundance, justice, and fairness. When Ray asked me to join the Interface board, his exact words were, ‘Come help me change the world!’ Those words stayed with me throughout my seventeen years working with him. This twenty-year update provides the perfect guide for others to join in climbing Mt. Sustainability, the most critical mission of our time.”—Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, CEO, Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future

• “So far, Ray C. Anderson is the twenty-first century’s undisputed master of making business a potent force for saving people and the planet. As his winning carpet and textile firm, Interface, now wrings out the last few percent of its fossil-fuel use, his bold strategy—take nothing, waste nothing, do no harm, do very well by doing good—inspires visionary leaders everywhere. This valuable update, with additions from his grandson, John Lanier, maps out necessary next steps.”—Amory B. Lovins, cofounder and chief scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; author of Reinventing Fire

• “Twenty-one years ago my friend Ray Anderson brought an engineer’s insight, a businessman’s rigor, a grandfather’s love, and a poet’s heart to what he called ‘the creative act of business.’ He challenged his company to ‘first to attain sustainability and then to become restorative,’ reminding all who would listen that ‘if your sustainability program is costing you money, you’re doing it wrong.’ And in this book and in his countless speeches—with a vision as clear as any since, to our peril and shame, and with a roadmap still valid—he challenged us all to do the same.”—Gil Friend, CEO, Natural Logic, Inc.; founder, Critical Path Capital

• “Ray Anderson was one of the most extraordinary business leaders I ever met—and I have met and worked with scores. He was extraordinary in his early embrace of the sustainability agenda, years before most of his peers were even aware of the term. And he was extraordinary in his willingness to admit he had got parts of his response wrong, which is the remarkable tale brought bang up to date in Mid-Course Correction Revisited. Highly recommended for anyone wanting leadership in these challenging times.”—John Elkington, founder and chief pollinator, Volans; originator of the Triple Bottom Line

• “When I began my personal journey from a traditional business career to this world of ‘sustainability,’ Ray Anderson’s Mid-Course Correction was the first book I read. I felt the same ‘spear in the chest’ that Ray described, and so I followed his intellectual path of discovery. I am indebted to Ray’s legacy, and I know it is long past time to revisit his work. The global challenges we face are more daunting than ever, so the imperative Ray described has only gotten more urgent. We must convert ‘business as usual’ from an obsession with short-term profits to a relentless focus on using business to build a thriving world. Ray saw it clearly years before almost everyone, and it’s a critical time to bring his vision to a new generation of business leaders.”—Andrew Winston, founder, Winston Eco-Strategies; author of The Big Pivot and coauthor of Green to Gold

About The Author

Ray C. Andersonwas founder and chairman of Interface, Inc., one of the world’s leading carpet and flooring producers. His story is now legend: Ray had a “spear in the chest” epiphany when he first read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, inspiring him to revolutionize his business in pursuit of environmental sustainability. In doing so Ray proved that business can indeed “do well by doing good.” His Georgia-based company has been ranked number one in a GlobeScan survey of sustainability experts, and it has continued to be an environmental leader even after Ray’s death in 2011. Ray authored the 1998 classic Mid-Course Correction, which chronicled his epiphany, as well as a later book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist. He became an unlikely screen hero in the 2003 Canadian documentary The Corporation, and was named one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2007. He served as cochairman of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and as an architect of the Presidential Climate Action Plan, a 100-day action plan on climate that was presented to the Obama Administration.

Connect with this author

• Ray C. Anderson Foundation
• Ray Anderson on Facebook
• Ray Anderson on Twitter

Interviews and Articles

• Fast Company – How a Carpet Maker Became an Unlikely Hero of the Environmental Movement
• Atlanta Business Chronicle – Family of Interface Founder Ray Anderson Carrying on his Environmental Mission
• New York Times – Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet

Author Videos

• Ray Anderson: The business logic of sustainability

About John A. Lanier

John A. Lanier joined the Ray C. Anderson Foundation as executive director in May 2013 to advance the legacy of Ray, his grandfather. He is chair of the board of directors for Southface Energy Institute, the southeast’s nonprofit leader in the promotion of sustainable homes, workplaces, and communities through education, research, advocacy and technical assistance. Previously, Lanier was an associate attorney with Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan, LLP (now Eversheds Sutherland), specializing in US federal taxation. Lanier earned his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law, and he holds bachelor of arts degrees in history and economics from the University of Virginia. He blogs regularly and his TEDx can be viewed on YouTube.

The copy in the post is reprinted from chelseagreen. You can find the original post here. The video is reposted from the YouTube channel of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation.

The post Book of the Day: Mid-Course Correction Revisited appeared first on P2P Foundation.

A new VICE Special Report: The Future of Work premieres April 19 on HBO.

This video has been reposted from the HBO youtube channel.

The post The Future of Work – Jobs and Automation in Estonia appeared first on P2P Foundation.

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 you for being a part of the ACC team!

If you would like to support this project visit us at https://www.patreon.com/davidharveyacc

Help us reach 100,000 subscribers and gain access to more studio time!

[S1 E1] Primitive or Original Accumulation Prof. Harvey talks about how capital came to power, the brutality and the violence with which capital came to be, and what it is.

Follow us ONLINE:

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Presentation slides are here: https://meet.lucidmeetings.com/a/sJVq…

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Todd Weaver

Founder and CEO
PGP Fingerprint: B8CA ACEA D949 30F1 23C4 642C 23CF 2E3D 2545 14F7

(transcript follows)

Let me set the tone by using a quote from a great person of history:

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Let me start by stating: I believe we can change the future of computing for the better. However, currently something is wrong with our digital world; something basic, something is rotten at the core. I want to talk to you about what that is, how it came to be, and why we must change it. And I want you to care… because:

“A person who won’t care, has no advantage over one who doesn’t care.” ~ Mark Twain

This talk comes in three parts:

Part 1. History

The history of the mistreatment of our digital rights.

Most Big Tech companies that abuse people are based in the US, therefore I will describe the history from that perspective. Some things you need to understand: Governments write the rules of the game that society plays. There are always rules, and governments influenced by Big Tech are writing those rules. If you are somebody who wants no rules whatsoever, you will quickly realize rules will be written that govern you, without your involvement.

My sage advice to you: Write the rules. Let’s write the rules that we want to see in an ethical society that respects freedoms and liberties.

Nearly everybody knows that exploitative Big Tech abuse our digital rights, because it’s at the core of their business. It’s the root problem. It will not “get better” unless any one of three things happen:

1. Government regulation (that is ethical for society)
2. Business models change (to something ethical for society)
3. People switch (to something ethical for society)

Big Tech—corporations whose business model exploits humanity for profit—they all suffer from a systemic toxin, that discourages personal freedoms and removes any digital rights we as society demand. Big Tech corporations are already starting the marketing to try to differentiate themselves from it. But marketing alone will not remove the poison within their business model.

Minor disclaimer: You may ask “But… You’re a Company?” Actually, we’re a Social Purpose Corporation (SPC). And that is not just a series of buzzwords, it’s a legal framework of a business that carries with it significant importance. it is the reason we can’t ever exploit people for profit, it is the reason we are unlike all Big Tech who were formed to strip your digital rights in the name of maximizing shareholder value.

There was a recent article in Inc. magazine about us:

“Purism is what is called a ‘Social Purpose Corporation,’ which allows a business to prioritize social objectives over fiduciary duties.” ~ Christine Lagorio-Chafkin – Senior writer Inc.

Let me dive deeper into the problem. All corporations, including all Big Tech giants, have a single goal: Maximize Shareholder Value. That’s it. That’s the only goal. But it’s not just a goal. Under eBay v. Newman, a lawsuit setting legal precedent stating:

The law makes it literally malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits.

So if given the choice of making $1 by exploiting people online, or opting to treat people ethically, the Corporation must exploit people online for the dollar, or the board of directors and executives could face a lawsuit from any shareholder that claims they did not maximize the value of their shares.

The regulations at the foundation of Big Tech are forcing the exploitation of our digital rights.

Quoting Chancellor William B. Chandler, III who sums up the problem perfectly in his Delaware Court opinion when eBay sued Craigslist for not maximizing its shares:

“Having chosen a for-profit corporate form, the directors are bound by the fiduciary duties to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of its stockholders.” ~ Chancellor William B. Chandler, III

We have centuries of legal precedent in the physical world, advanced by science and society guiding our moral compass, trespassing laws, freedom of speech, privacy rights, protection against personal harm and abuse. We have nearly no digital rights. Big Tech trespasses on your data, restricts speech, obliterates privacy entirely. Big Tech exploits people, causes harm and inflicts abuse upon our society.

If somebody approached your bedroom window from outside, put a camera up and started recording, you would immediately call the authorities and report the numerous laws broken—a case would be opened, arrests could be made, charges could be pressed, trials could ensue, criminals could go to jail; but in the digital world none of that exists—you are forced to leak far more details than a camera in your bedroom would share, and you are forced to leak that personal data from your phone all the time.

Big Tech exploits you every millisecond of every day.

All future government regulation will be influenced, funded, and lobbied by Big Tech. Could you imagine a future regulation where Big Tech wins to cryptographically sign everything with their keys, under their control on their products? What a nightmare scenario… Could you imagine your mobile phone under the complete control of Apple or Google?

We need to write the rules based on values we want in society.

AI algorithms from Big Tech have one input variable: $Maximize_Shareholder_Value. That translates directly into

1. Gather everything on all of the society
2. Keep people digitally captive
3. Maximize exposure time
4. Polarize opinion to elicit more profit

That is not what AI should be taught. Due to data manipulation, no two people in society are getting the same information; it is impossible to have a sane debate about any polarizing topic because we aren’t starting with a foundation of shared knowledge. What if the input request to AI algorithms was “Build an ethical society that respects freedoms and digital rights”? What would society look like then?

Maximizing shareholder value in a society that has nearly no digital rights, guarantees exploitation of that society. Why did we let this happen? How did we let this happen? I know why. Because… It’s convenient to give up control. It is convenient for you to download a proprietary application that exploits you, agree to the legal binding terms of service you didn’t read, and blissfully believe Big Tech is helping you in the digital world. It’s inconvenient to stand up for your freedom.

It seems we are offered to choose between convenience and control or inconvenience and freedom

I believe we can have both convenience AND freedom. We can actually build technology that benefits society faster when they are based on principles we deem ethical.

Society’s technology genius is not lacking, its moral genius is. Trust in Big Tech is eroding rapidly. No Big Tech company has core values that help our digital rights. The largest challenge we will face is the marketing budgets of Big Tech, when they claim things like:

“We protect your privacy” ~ Big Tech
Actually, You exploit personal private data without a persons knowledge
“We use encryption” ~ Big Tech
Actually, It’s inside proprietary apps that you control
“We are secure” ~ Big Tech
Actually, You hold the master keys controlling society
“You can trust us” ~ Big Tech
Actually, You won’t let anybody verify anything

Part 2: The present

Currently, Big Tech is maximizing shareholder value without values. The products, software, and services offered by Big Tech will continue to mistreat people unless we can establish what digital rights are and change society for the better.

Then we advocate, regulate, and build products that adhere to those digital rights.

Mark Twain famously wrote:

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” ~ Mark Twain

I believe there are five fundamental digital rights:

1. Right to Change Providers
   If a person wants to change a service provider, they can easily move to another. (Decentralized Services)
2. Right to Protect Personal Data
   A person owns and controls their own master keys to encrypt all data and communication, nobody else. (User-controlled Encryption)
3. Right to Verify
   Society has the freedom to inspect the source of all software used, and can run it as they wish, for any purpose. (Software Freedom)
4. Right to be Forgotten
   A service provider only stores the minimal personal data necessary to provide the service. Once the data is no longer required, it is deleted. (Minimal Data Retention)
5. Right to Access
   A person must not be discriminated against nor forced to agree to any terms and conditions before accessing a service. (Personal Liberty)

If we can do those things, we can change the future of computing for the better.

Part 3: The future

As technology gets closer and closer to our brain, the moral issues of digital rights become clearer and clearer.

It started with computers, where we would leave them and come back to them. Then phones, that we always have on or near us with millisecond leakage of personal data beyond human comprehension. Then wearables, that are tracking very private details. IOT devices are everywhere— I have to stop to remind everybody: “The S in IOT is for Security” ~ Anonymous—and finally, surgically implanted.

A question to consider: What Big Tech Company would you purchase your future brain implant from? This is coming.

However, I believe we can change the future of computing for the better. Let’s stand together and invest, use, and recommend products and services that respect society.

What future will you choose?

Reposted from Purism

The post The Future of Computing and Why You Should Care appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Filmed by Jonathan Hiller: HillerVisual.com

CharlesEisenstein.org

The post Charles Eisenstein on the case for a Universal Basic Income appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Video reposted from Youtube

Today, these trends have reached their extreme – but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

Reposted from Ian McKenzie’s Website

Ian McKenzie: Almost exactly 7 years ago, I had just completed reading Charles Eisenstein’s new book ‘Sacred Economics,’ where he outlines the principles and practices of an economic system that is based on the story of Interdependence rather than the current story of Separation.

He covers topics like: negative interest currency, universal basic income, and the internalization of costs – complex things that while necessary to put a system into action, might cause the lay person glaze over.

Beyond the information, there is something else I recognized in Charles’ words that I believe is one of the reasons so many have been drawn to his work.

In a time when most modern people harbour a secret self-loathing at the seemingly endless destruction and hubris of their fellow humans, Charles embodies the frequency that “maybe we are not a mistake.”

Maybe humans are more than an biological accident.
Maybe, as the collective crises deepens, we are on the cusp of our initiation into planetary adulthood.
Maybe humans actually have a noble place in cosmos, not as the Lords of nature but as her Lover.

For this mysterious reason, after completing his book I reached out to Charles and asked if I could come shoot a short film. He agreed, and soon after, I joined him at his family home in Pennsylvania, staying for a week to record an interview, eventually ending up on Wall Street in the midst of the #Occupy movement.

The resulting film Sacred Economics (2012), has now been seen almost a million times. I have received countless comments of gratitude for how the film has fundamentally altered the trajectory of their lives.

And for some inexplicable reason, perhaps as mysterious as the first time I felt the call, I decided to craft a remix – not to replace the original, but to experiment with a richer soundscape and updated visuals that bring the necessity of the message into present day.

This new short Sacred Economics (2019) is offered once again as a gift to the global community, with gratitude from my Patreon supporters.

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The Fifth South-South Forum on Sustainability (SSFS5) was organized by Global University for Sustainability and the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, together with 10 co-organizers, on 13–18 June 2018, in Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China.

SSFS5 focused on “Transformative Visions and Praxis”. On Day 3 (15 June 2018), in the session of “Community Governance and Participatory Democracy”, John RESTAKIS (Community Evolution Foundation, Canada) delivered a lecture on The Rojava Revolution: Co-operation, Environmentalism, and Feminism in the North Syria Democratic Federation. The video is produced by Global University for Sustainability, 2018.

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