The above critique is suggested by David Ronfeldt here below: “As trust in the NGO phenomenon has declined, proponents of developing a new sector that would have strong ethical bases have turned increasingly to the concept of “the commons.” Indeed, the most interesting and auspicious activity in favor of a new sector is developing around… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Chris Anderson on the 3D Printer Revolution
Wired magazine explains: “With the advent of affordable, advanced desktop 3-D printers like the Makerbot Replicator and Cubify’s Cube, we’re standing at the starting line of a manufacturing revolution. These tools, once reserved for top-level firms, give curious minds everywhere rapid prototyping capabilities for almost any type of project. Online 3-D object storehouses like Shapeways… Continue reading
Movement of the Day: The School of Commoning in London
Based in London, the School of Commoning offers workshops, seminars and courses and has a thriving online presence to connect sharing advocates and facilitators. Cat Johnson explains: “The School of Commoning is a worldwide community of people participating in the local and global commons. It offers workshops, seminars and courses and has a thriving online… Continue reading
Closed Nature of Cradle to Cradle Certification Process Holds Back Progress of the ‘Circular Economy’ in Pioneering Netherlands
Via the Economic Realms blog, an assessment of the progress of the ‘circular economy’ (zero waste because waste becomes raw material for other processes): “I was interested to find out whether experts working on the circular economy in the Netherlands also shared Braungart’s confidence. Krispijn Beek, who worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation… Continue reading
Influence of Peer Reviews in Making Choices
Social media has become one of the most discussed platforms that bring people of similar interests together. There are other online agencies and websites that focus on encouraging people of similar interests to share their opinions, views, principles and suggestions. The P2P Foundation is one such organization that follows peer-to-peer technology to raise consciousness towards… Continue reading
Nine Temporalites for the Commons
Here I detail nine key discourses or perspectives that offer fundamentally different visions for the world. These can be considered counter hegemonic knowledges and temporalities, and indeed each one has a distinctly different narrative to the dominant hegemonic rationality. I do not argue that these are the only counter-hegemonic narratives that either exist or should… Continue reading
Influence of Peer Reviews in Making Choices
Social media has become one of the most discussed platforms that bring people of similar interests together. There are other online agencies and websites that focus on encouraging people of similar interests to share their opinions, views, principles and suggestions. The P2P Foundation is one such organization that follows peer-to-peer technology to raise consciousness towards… Continue reading
Video of the Day: Tim O’Reilly on the Birth of the Global Mind
Tim O’Reilly’s “Birth of the Global Mind” is a Long Now Foundation presentation, which touches on sharing and open source at the end of the presentation. Stewart Brand introduces the talk: “As a student of the classics at Harvard in the 1970s, O’Reilly was impressed by a book titled The Discovery of the Mind: In… Continue reading
The Triune Peer Governance of the Digital Commons
The following is one of my contributions to the excellent book of readings on the commons: The Wealth of the Commons, edited by David Bollier and Silke Helfrich. Michel Bauwens: “In a foundational essay, “The Political Economy of Peer Production” (Bauwens 2006), I defined commons-based peer production in two different ways. The first perspective draws… Continue reading
Wouter Tebbens reviews Wolfgang Hoeschele’s The Economics of Abundance
Republished from Wouter Tebbens: “Now let me intent to summarise Wolfgang Hoeschele’s book: * Wolfgang Hoeschele. The Economics of Abundance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity, and Sustainability. Gower Publishing, 2010 The creation of scarcity In the first part of the book, Hoeschele addresses the production of scarcity. The mechanisms designed to create artificial scarcity… Continue reading