In covid-19, neoliberal capitalism has met a formidable foe. The pandemic has shown just how fragile and dysfunctional the market/state order — as a production apparatus, ideology, and culture — truly is. Countless market sectors are now more or less collapsing with a highly uncertain future ahead. With a few notable exceptions, government responses to… Continue reading
According to an April 6 article on CNBC.com, Spain is slated to become the first country in Europe to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) on a long-term basis. Spain’s Minister for Economic Affairs has announced plans to roll out a UBI “as soon as possible,” with the goal of providing a nationwide basic wage that… Continue reading
Written by Anders Lisdorf. Originally published in Shareable While health authorities focus on top-down measures to get COVID-19 supplies to hospitals in need, home-grown initiatives are enlisting regular people to create open-source equipment. Rather than wait for the impact of government efforts to persuade manufacturers to move into emergency production of ventilators and protective equipment,… Continue reading
By Vasilis Kostakis and Chris Giotitsas, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology.. Originally published in Antipode Online. Introduction E.F. Schumacher’s seminal work Small Is Beautiful (1973) champions the idea of smallness and localism as the way for meaningful interactions amongst humans and the technology they use. Technology is very important after all. As Ursula… Continue reading
Written by Bernd Bonfert. Orignally published in ROAR Magazine. As the pandemic forces us into lockdown, activists across Europe demonstrate that there are still ways to organize and practice solidarity at a safe social distance. The coronavirus pandemic is confronting us with unprecedented contradictions. The foundations of neoliberal capitalism are crumbling before our eyes, as… Continue reading
Republished from the Center for Artistic Activism. We’re forming a global, advocacy innovation lab to Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 and you can take part. Around the globe we are taking rapid, drastic action to slow the spread of COVID-19. As we come to terms with the daunting path forward, it’s hard to imagine the… Continue reading
Written by Robert Raymond. Republished from Shareable.net Early last week, when Republican Lt. Gov. of Texas, Dan Patrick, suggested that the elderly should be willing to die from COVID-19 to get the economy back in action, something major shifted. If just briefly, the mask came off. Here was an elected official explicitly offering human sacrifices to appease… Continue reading
By Eleftherios Diakomichalis, with Andrew Dickson & Ankur Shah Delight. Originally published in permaweird In this post, we analyze Wikipedia — a site that has achieved tremendous success and scale through crowd-sourcing human input to create one of the Internet’s greatest public goods. Wikipedia’s success is particularly impressive considering that the site is owned and… Continue reading
The Coronavirus and the Need for Systems Change, Pt.1 The Coronavirus pandemic raises many questions about public health, global diseases and the way we produce and distribute cures and treatments. Who pays for the corona vaccine and how? How is that innovation organised? Who profits? Commons Network has been an advocate in this domain (‘access… Continue reading
The DLT4EU program is about to launch its Call for Applicants. The applications will be possible from 14th April to 6th May and links to the registration of online interest form will be soon available on this website. To register interest and be considered for applying, teams must apply before 6th May 2020 (11:59pm GMT)…. Continue reading