As a reminder, Natalia’s key thesis (see the article published on the 16th) is: – By severing cooperativism from its communal origins and and focusing on consumption, British cooperativism … 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… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The Open Book
* Book: The Open Book. Ed. by Jussi Nissilä, Kaitlyn Braybrooke et al. Reaktio, 2013. The Open Book has been built by The Finnish Institute in London and the Open Knowledge Foundation in honour of the first Open Knowledge Festival in Helsinki. It is the third book in the Reaktio series: “From makerspaces to data… Continue reading
Defining Journalism in a Network Age
Excerpted from Jeff Jarvis: (on the occasion of the Bradley-Manning trial and the testimony of Yochai Benkler) “As Benkler explained to the court, journalism is now a network – a “network ‘fourth estate’”. In this network, there are many roles that can be linked together: witnessing, gathering, selecting, authenticating, explaining, distributing. Each can be an… Continue reading
A critique of Andreas Weber’s Enlivenment thesis as reverse social darwinism
In a subsequent post, we will republish Andreas Weber’s beautiful and interesting essay, * “Enlivenment: Towards a Fundamental Shift in the Concepts of Nature, Culture, and Politics. Heinrich Boell Foundation, 2012 I have no problem with the above text, and fully agree with the thrust of it: we need to recognize the subjective aspects of… Continue reading
Project of the Day: FarmBucks
Excerpted from John Robb: “Here’s a quick glimpse of the future of food, and it’s a good future. When you and I buy local food, we typically have two options. We can buy them at a farmer’s market or we can buy them as a weekly delivery through a CSA (community supported farm). From my… Continue reading
Tiberius Brastaviceanu: A Pragmatic Critique of the Peer Production License
Republished from Tiberius Brastaviceanu: Why I still don’t believe in the p2p license A license for a technology is a limitation of use of that technology. A newly created technology is not a scare city by nature, because it is something that lives in the realm of knowledge, which has very low distribution costs. It… Continue reading
The root cause of European austerity is the transference of bank debt to the public
Thanks Max Keiser, for continuing to explain the European ponzi schemes that are sacrificing a generation. “Banks are technically bankrupt”.
Book of the Day: Digital Public Spaces
* Report/Book: Digital Public Spaces. Ed. by Drew Hemment, Rachel Cooper et al. FutureEverything, 2013 “This publication gathers a range of short explorations of the idea of the Digital Public Space. The central vision of the Digital Public Space is to give everyone everywhere unrestricted access to an open resource of culture and knowledge. This… Continue reading
Book of the Day: The Making Of The Indebted Man
How do we extricate ourselves from this impossible situation? How do we escape the neoliberal condition of the indebted man? Lazzarato argues that we will have to recognize that there is no simple technical, economic, or financial solution. We must instead radically challenge the fundamental social relation structuring capitalism: the system of debt. * Book:… Continue reading
The debate of the Economics of the Commons vs. Sharing Economics in the context of 19th century cooperativism
By severing cooperativism from its communal origins and and focusing on consumption, British cooperativism … 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. Excerpted from Natalia Fernández: “A “School of Sharing Economics,” or a “School of… Continue reading