Natalia Fernandez of Lasindias.net argues: By severing cooperativism from its communal origins and and focusing on consumption, British cooperativism and the ICA caused lasting damage to the transformative capacity of cooperativism, which we should not repeat today in the debate between the economy of the commons and collaborative consumption. She explains why (please note the… Continue reading
Open platform for peer-driven food production needs your help
Source: BoingBoing Please note now there are only 2 days left! Devin sez, We need the crowd’s help to fund development (or just to find awesome pro-bono developers) of a platform that facilitates peer production driven local food systems. Think Craigslist meets Etsy with the ethos and practices of couchsurfing all about homemade, home… Continue reading
A conversation on openness, peer production and sustainability at Rio+20
Panel discussion at Humanidade 2012, a social enterpreneurship and sustainability satellite conference in Rio, expertly handled by Rolando Lemos. Speakers are Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, Silvio Mehra, Brazilian network theorist and educational reformer, and Michel Bauwens. Some Portuguese, mostly English.
Book of the Day: Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems
Book: Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems. Byh John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. Basic Books, 2012 In Interop, technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser explore the immense importance of interoperability — the standardization and integration of technology — and show how this simple principle will hold the key to our success… Continue reading
Person of the Day: John Robb
Via TechCrunch: “Your writing has focused on three themes: global guerrillas, resilient communities, and, more recently, drone disruption. Could you give the quick nutshell summaries of each of those? Sure. The general theme of my work is to be at the center of the information flow in the place the world is changing the fastest…. Continue reading
Project of the Day: OccuCopy
Occupy Wall Street related printshop based in Brooklyn, NYC. Simone Weichselbaum says about this: “we are trying to show people that a democratic economy can work,” said Dale Luce, 25, cofounder of OccuCopy print shop at 388 Atlantic Avenue.Two of the businesses got their start last fall in Zuccotti Park where OWS set up camp.Now,… Continue reading
Peer-to-peer and Marxism: The Berlin Debate
Jean Lievens’s introduction: On May 3, Jonathan Clyne, Lena Hanno, Alex Dirmeier and Jean Lievens had a discussion with Michel Bauwens on peer-to-peer and Marxism. The discussion took place in the lobby of the Palace Hotel in Berlin. Here’s a slightly edited transcript of the discussion. The recording was reasonably good, but our voices were… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Promise of Regional Currencies
Book: People Money – the Promise of Regional Currencies. By Margrit Kennedy and Bernard Lietaer with John Rogers. Triarchy Press, 2012 ‘People Money’ is the first English edition of Margrit Kennedy’s and Bernard Lietaer’s 2004 German book ‘Regionalwährungen'(also published in French and Spanish). The Introduction by John Rogers: “The global financial crisis that began in… Continue reading
Labour and The Commons at Rio
Asbjørn Wahl comments on an important resolution adopted in Rio. In the resolution it is referred to ‘the Commons’ several times. What makes this remarkable is that the resolution is adopted by the Trade Union Assembly organised by International Trade Union Cpnfederation ITUC and Trade Union Confederation of the Americas. Wahl advises to the Norwegian… Continue reading
Why Germany is pushing Greece to the brink
A summary of the logic behind the crisis by John Michael Greer: “During the global real estate bubble of the last decade, European banks invested heavily and recklessly in a great many dubious projects, and were hit hard when the bubble burst and those projects moved abruptly toward their real value, which in most cases… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Open E Land (Open Everything Land)
Open E Land is part of a worldwide movement working to transition to a sustainable, just, resilient social-economic model. Our name reflects our beliefs: Knowledge should be shared openly and not encumbered by patents or trade secrets. Our economic, environmental, and energy problems are all linked and cannot be solved in isolation. We need to… Continue reading
Commons/P2P Next Steps: Creating Sustainable Commons Based Institutions
Source: School of Commoning A major theme that came up throughout our first School of Commoning workshop with Michel Bauwens concerned the need to co-create sustainable commons based institutions. The overriding sentiment was to create institutions that are commons and are therefore inherently sustainable by their nature. In the transition to these commons based institutions… Continue reading
Have we reached a P2P tipping point?
Simone Cicero of Meedabyte believes there are signs that the p2p ‘revolution is at hand’ … The original article has many links. Simone Cicero: “”Economists and theorists of innovation such as Jeremy Rifkin, Yochai Benkler, Michel Bauwens, and several others have concluded that the Third Industrial Revolution is at hand,” are the opening words of… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Casa da Cultura Digital
Source: Katie Fehrenbacher When I read that the Geeks on a Plane group, which I’m traveling with this week through Latin America, would be visiting a Brazilian hacker space, I didn’t envision a picturesque Italian villa, with a flowing fountain and a cobblestone-filled square. But that’s exactly where the folks of the Sao Paulo-based Casa… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Occupy Consciousness
The Evolver Social Movement just released a free e-book anthology that brings together a variety of perspectives on Occupy, offering a multi-dimensional approach to the ongoing insurrection. At a time when the initial energy around Occupy has flagged in some areas, we believe this anthology is a powerful tool as it explores not just the… Continue reading
Occupy in the current cycles of struggle
Excerpted from Chris Hedges: “In every conflict, insurgency, uprising and revolution I have covered as a foreign correspondent, the power elite used periods of dormancy, lulls and setbacks to write off the opposition. This is why obituaries for the Occupy movement are in vogue. And this is why the next groundswell of popular protest—and there… Continue reading