Excerpted from Darren Sharp: “The Australian Government has recognised that flexible work practices create benefits that flow to employers through cost savings and productivity gains while workers enjoy less commute time and more work-life balance. Yet there is room for improvement with Australia recently falling to ninth place behind the United States in the latest… Continue reading
A profile of Chaihuo, Shenzhen’s first “maker space”.
Excerpted from Celeste LeCompte: ‘Chaihuo, Shenzhen’s first “maker space.” It’s a sort of community center where members get together not to play basketball but to build robots, learn programming skills and dream up do-it-yourself (DIY) technology projects. Chaihuo is one of about a dozen such places in China. The first, XinCheJian, appeared in Shanghai in… Continue reading
Post-Gezi, sharing and gift economies are blooming in Turkey
Excerpted by EMRAH GÜLER: (the original also presents the Zumbara Time Bank in Istanbul, of which I am an adviser) “Turkey’s very own Gezi Protests, are defining the new decade. On the purest and most simple level, these civil uprisings and mass gatherings are revitalizing forgotten communities, creating new ones, and reclaiming public spaces as,… Continue reading
Event: The Pirate Bay 10 Year Anniversary 2003 – 2013
This August 10th to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of The Pirate Bay the Swedish Pirate Party are throwing a party. The organisers are crowdfunding the event and with only a few days to go they could do with all the support you can give. If your in Stockholm Sweden get yourself a ticket. http://www.tpb10.com/
A call for a Dissenting Academy and a Social Imaginary of Co-operative Accumulation
Republished from Pat Conaty: “History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. I fear tragic farce due to deep ignorance on practical things that is a widespread problem currently, at least in my view. Let me explain. In brief, Co-operative Commonwealth has been a sound vision since it was… Continue reading
Some thoughts and leads on distributed (p2p) property
Republished from an email discussion by Pat Conaty: “I think the issue of property rights is complex. I don’t think we can drop this and imagining some free space commons. History shows this leads toward authoritarian outcomes. The Commons require repair, renewal and stewarding and this all requires labour of diverse sorts. This value added… Continue reading
Four Futures Scenarios for Power in the Network Era (2): Analysis of the current situation
“This article asks questions about the futures of power in the network era. Two critical emerging issues are at work with uncertain outcomes. The first is the emergence of the collaborative economy, while the second is the emergence of surveillance capabilities from both civic, state and commercial sources. While both of these emerging issues are… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Commons-Based Peer Production in the Perezian Framework
* Article: At the Turning Point of the Current Techno-Economic Paradigm: Commons-Based Peer Production, Desktop Manufacturing and the Role of Civil Society in the Perezian Framework. By Vasilis Kostakis. Triple C, Vol 11, No 1 (2013). From the abstract “Following the theory of techno-economic paradigm shifts (TEPS), this paper calls attention to the phenomenon of… Continue reading
Report: Working with our Cultural Values
* Report: Common Cause. The Case for Working with our Cultural Values. by Tom Crompton. By WWF-UK et al., September 2010 Excerpts! An understanding of values must be incorporated into civil society campaigns As discussed, on the one hand, simply conveying information about bigger-than-self problems is likely to leave many people unmoved – or perhaps… Continue reading
Movement of the Day: ReCommon
Re:Common goals will work to produce structural change both in finance and natural common management: “Re:Common goals will work to produce structural change both in finance and natural common management, in solidarity with those directly affected by an harmful and unjust development model, both in the global South and in Italy and Europe. In order… Continue reading