Life in a Network for Survivors: The Thermonuclear Apocalypse and the Protocols of Freedom A text on the impact of Cold War era apocalyptic fantasy today. A search for the missing ideological history of internet protocols. An essay by P2P foundation’s Nicolás Mendoza (site), presented this week in four daily parts. The final version of… Continue reading
Revolutionary Flows of Value in the Macroeconomy
Source: Dmytri Kleiner “In continuation from the last two essays looking at the macroeconomics of class struggle (#1) (#2) we will try to describe the process of revolution within the framework as developed so far. The old acrimonious accusations between so-called “Reformist” and so-called “Revolutionary” positions are counter productive. The reformist strives to improve certain conditions… Continue reading
The Syriza proposals to get Greece out of the Crisis
Via: A summary of the main points of the proposals of the Syriza party in Greece: “1. Creation of a shield to protect society against the crisis • Not a single citizen without a guaranteed minimum income or unemployment benefit, medical care, social protection, housing, and access to all services of public utilities. • Protection… Continue reading
How to coordinate bottom-up enterpreneurial projects that work with a commons?
Excerpted from Brian Davey, who explains how Stafford Beer’s Viable System Models approach can help: “How are the entrepreneurial projects to be co-ordinated and how will the emerging movement to hold the earths commons resources in trust manage themselves. The two processes are, as already explained, not quite the same – nonetheless both have much… Continue reading
Hacking the Planet through the new Eco-Digital Commons
Republished from David Bollier: “”When thinking about the commons, most people make a sharp division in their minds between natural resource commons (for water, air, land, forests, wildlife, etc.) and digital commons (free software, Wikipedia, Creative Commons-licensed content, social networking, etc.) It is assumed that these two universes are entirely separate and distinct, and have… Continue reading
Does the progressive reduction of the optimal scale of production require confederalist governance?
The progressive reduction of the optimal scale of production, which is the origin of the crisis, but also of the viability of the p2p alternatives, generates an inevitable conceptual tension between the universal nature of the commons and the local character of a growing part of production physical and distribution. Republished from David de Ugarte… Continue reading
Towards the good ‘global society’
This text is excerpted from: • Essay: The Commons and World Governance. TOWARD A GLOBAL SOCIAL CONTRACT. Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marín. Forum for a New World Governance. April 2012 (draft version) Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marín: “Today, the essential question of political philosophy is not just concerned with how to create a “good society”… Continue reading
P2P, Nanotechnology and Piezotronics
A note from Layne Hartsell of the Seoul Study Group: “Piezotronics is a field of nanotechnology using various crystals with non-central symmetry alignments called wurtzite crystals, to produce electrical charges or ‘piezoelectric effect.’ Some examples of wurtzite crytals are ZnO, GaN InN and ZnS. In application, new piezo materials can harvest ambient and minute energies… Continue reading
P2P Culture as a post-capitalist framework
Republished from Poor Richard: “”P2P culture is the post-capitalist framework that makes the most sense to me. It includes but transcends capitalism; and encompasses many hybrids of open and closed, public and private, hierarchical and egalitarian associations. P2P emphasizes cooperation, openness, fairness, transparency, information symmetry, sustainability, accountability, and innovation motivated by the full range of… Continue reading
Al Jazeera’s The Stream on Protest Currencies
Aljazeera’s The Stream reports on how people declare economic independence by establishing alternative currencies.
Discussing the Commons at the Rio+20 People’s Summit
This text was prepared by thematic groups of the World Social Forum to discuss the Commons on the occasion of the Rio+20 People’s Summit. Forwarded by Silke Helfrich: Capitalism is more than a mode of production. It is a social and political logic that radiates throughout society. Its logic not only structures institutions and concentrates… Continue reading
Can the Digital Commons Save the Natural Commons? Brian Davey says no.
Brian Davey and Michel Bauwens participated in a joint panel at the McPlanet Conference in Berlin. The conference report from Brian is here. In this panel, I defended the position that digital commons are a crucial part of the solutions to the sustainability crisis,and Brian Davey disputed it. He published his notes, which we reproduce… Continue reading
The Power of networks
republished via Experiencia: “In this new RSA Animate, Manuel Lima, senior UX design lead at Microsoft Bing, explores the power of network visualisation to help navigate our complex modern world: Network visualization has experienced a meteoric rise in the last decade, bringing together people from various fields and capturing the interest of individuals across the… Continue reading
Revisioning the sanctity of property
The following is excerpted from the essay: • Essay: The Commons and World Governance. TOWARD A GLOBAL SOCIAL CONTRACT. Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marín. Forum for a New World Governance. April 2012 (draft version) Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marín: “Another central element to both democracy and capitalism has contributed to the atomization of societies: the… Continue reading
Why China may not be ‘capitalist’: the Role of the State in Chinese Economic Development
* Essay: The Chinese Economic Miracle – A Triumph for Capitalism or the Planned Economy? By Jonathan Clyne. Please request the full document, which exists in both abridged and full-length version, from author Jonathan Clyde via [email protected] More generous excerpts are here. The Key Thesis of Jonathan Clyne is the following: “A transitional economy is… Continue reading
Preparing for the People’s Summit at Rio+20
* Essay: Another Future Is Possible. Draft forwarded by Silke Helfrich. This working document, in preparation for the seminar of May 9 and 10, 2012, pulls together the proposals set out in the texts produced by the Thematic Groups of the Thematic Social Forum that was organized in Porto Alegre from January 24 to 29,… Continue reading