Continuing our coverage of the European Parliament’s heinous proposition for filtering uploaded content, Julia Reda writes about the disturbing consequences it could have for FLOSS projects. Julia Reda: Free software development as we know it is under threat by the EU copyright reform plans. The battle on the EU copyright reform proposal continues, centering on the plan to… Continue reading
Karun Cowper speaks with urbanist, activist and “Audacities” initiator Sharon Ede on “cosmo-localisation” in the New Economy in Australia and beyond. About Sharon Ede Sharon is an urbanist and activist who works to build the sharing/collaborative movement in Australia and beyond. In 2017, she established AUDAcities, a catalyst for relocalising production of food, energy and fabrication in cities,… Continue reading
Every year, TNI publishes a State of the Power report, which this time has the central theme of building ‘counter-power’. This volume contains many gems; every article brings new material about the evolution of social movements, with special attention this year to the commons as an expression and experience of counter-power (see the article on… Continue reading
Automation and digitisation are rising in farming and the broader agri-food sector. Germany – industrial powerhouse of Europe – seems an obvious place to embrace AGTech. From precision farming and data ownership to embodied energy and cost, what are the opportunities, the impacts and the implications? And how are agroecologists responding? Helene Schulze: When the body… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Darren Sharp: Commercial sharing platforms like Uber and Airbnb have reshaped the transportation and housing sectors in cities and raised challenges for urban policy makers seeking to balance market disruption with community protections. Transformational sharing projects like Shareable’s Sharing Cities Network seek to strengthen the urban commons to address social justice, equity,… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Ruby Irene Pratka: Call it “An Inconvenient Truth” for the market economy. In “The Third Industrial Revolution,” American economic and social theorist, business school professor, and policy adviser Jeremy Rifkin lays out a bleak vision of a near-future world devastated by climate change, mass extinctions, slow economic growth, and rising levels of extremism and inequality…. Continue reading
This is a fascinating and probing interview. It will provoke deep reflection on the questions of economic growth, the over-simplistic way we advocate for the transition to renewables, the incredible challenges to change systems …. the list goes on. No answers here and no promise of certainty for the outcome for human evolution. Nevertheless, it… Continue reading
What Blocked My View of the Commons Étienne Le Roy: Writing about commons as a member of a scientific community, which itself has developed only recently, has raised a number of problems for me. First, there is the time lag with which the complex problem of the commons gained our attention in the first place. Why… Continue reading
How much faith can we place in corporations to save us from climate change? The following is extracted from An Inconvenient Truth: How Organizations Translate Climate Change into Business as Usual, by Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg and Why corporate promises to cut carbon can’t be trusted by the same authors. Abstract “Climate change represents… Continue reading
The map’s creators say they envision an equitable distribution of land and resources in the country. According to the nonprofit Urban Institute, the wealth of White families was seven times greater than that of Black families in 2016. The following article was written by Jean Willoughby and originally published by YES! magazine Jean Willoughby: Last month, Dallas… Continue reading
Jason Hickel: It’s hard to ignore the headlines these days, with all their warnings about ecological breakdown. Last year brought troubling news on everything from plastic pollution to soil depletion to the collapse of insect populations. These crises are worsening as our demands on the Earth intensify. Right now, virtually every government in the world is committed to pursuing economic growth:… Continue reading
The following article was published in The Sociological Review 66, no. 2 (March 2018). Updated 2018.02.05. The disappointments of the online economy – for instance, user surveillance and systemic labor abuses – stem at least in part from its failures to meaningfully share ownership and governance with relevant stakeholders. Under the banner of ‘platform cooperativism’,… Continue reading
Jenny Gellatly and Marcos Rivero: Fear and uncertainty seem to have settled into our societies, not only among citizens, but also political leaders and transnational corporations who see their capitals and centres of power stagger in the face of the combined effects of slowing global economic growth, imminent energy decline and increasing climate chaos. In… Continue reading
This isn’t about one or two good projects, or a small corner of a procurement budget getting earmarked for local vendors while everything else remains business as usual. It’s about taking the first steps towards truly transforming our economy so that it works for the many, not the few. Great graphical resources from The Next… Continue reading
We talk to Brett Scott the alternative financial activist about the opportunities and challenges of transforming the economy. Your work can be described as economic anthropology, an attempt to explore the historical origins and current approaches to economics. How cultural is our economic system? I come from an anthropology background and one of the main… Continue reading
Cross-posted from Shareable. Anna Bergren Miller: Here’s the problem: As home prices soar, cities around the world face a crisis of affordability. In London, U.K., the situation is especially acute: According to a 2016 Lloyds Bank study, the ratio of average home sales price compared to average earnings is 10-to-6. Without the means to meet… Continue reading