An important initiative related to the creation of an Energy Commons, i.e. the Solar Commons project: “The Solar Commons is a plan to produce renewable energy in our public right of way and capture the common wealth it generates in a community trust dedicated to local social equity. Using principles of commons management, the Solar… Continue reading
The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio
The Evergreen Cooperatives is a new model of economic development, launched with support of the local public authorities:
2010: the year of Zombie Capitalism
This is a absolute must-see video interview with Steve Keen, Australian economist and one of the rare dozen who predicted the meltdown. The conversation with insights about why the Obama strategy can’t work start 13 minutes in the video: (source: Max Keiser Interviews) The video below, a critique of Bernanke’s policies, is also worth listening… Continue reading
2010 will be the year of the new currencies
Mira Luna asks if there is a perfect alternative currency to replace the present dysfunctional monetary system. The experts she interviewed give her ideas on where present trends may be, or should be, headed. Excerpt: “Recently, I surveyed some of the top currency experts in the world about where the currency movement is headed and… Continue reading
Towards a global innovation commons against climate instability
We covered this before, but David Bollier’s clear explanation warrants republication, especially after the failure of the Copenhagen summit: David Bollier: “David E. Martin, an intellectual property activist who works with many developing countries, argues that a great many green technologies are already in the public domain and ready to be developed. They just need… Continue reading
Re-inventing Suburbs
I’ve asked Eric Hunting, our ‘p2p architecture’ analyst, to look into the Re-Burbia competition, which aims to make suburbs sustainable. Here’s his report: “In the Summer of 2009 the green design blog Inhabitat held an open design competition on the intriguing theme of recycling suburbia. Apparently striking a chord, the competition saw some 400 entires… Continue reading
IP counterproductive for science and innovation
An excerpt from an editorial in The Guardian on November 26, by John Sulston, with Sarah Chan and Professor John Harris (participants in the Manchester Manifesto for an Open Science) John Sulston: “The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to… Continue reading
A Collection of Citations on Open, free, participatory, and commons-oriented learning approaches
For the citation sources, go here. * Schools need to open up to peer-based learning models “When you look at children’s learning outside school, it is driven by what they are interested in, which is the direct opposite of school-based learning. For example, in the United States a group of students were interested in Manga,… Continue reading
Towards a New Multilateralism for the Global Commons
We covered James Quilligan landmark essay before, but David Bollier’s fine presentation makes it worth returning to it. David Bollier: “If commons are to take root and grow in our society, at the local, national and international levels, what might that mean for the future of the nation-state, multilateral institutions and public policy? These are… Continue reading
Cooperation and hierarchy in the collaborative firm
Book: The Firm as a Collaborative Community – Reconstructing Trust in the Knowledge Economy / Charles Hecksher & Paul S. Adler. Tom Haskins has been reading the book, and took extensive notes. The book seems full of provocative, sometimes counter-intuitive insights. Chapter Two: Bureaucratic vs. Collaborative Efficiency “In the second chapter, Charles F. Sabel contrasts… Continue reading
What type of blog is this?
OK, it’s holiday time … We subjected our blog to a psychological analysis at Typeanalyzer and here’s what came out. Pretty accurate I think: * INTJ – The Scientists The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it – often with… Continue reading
Umair Haque: Evolving leaders to builders
The 21st century doesn’t need more leaders – nor more leadership. Only Builders can kickstart the chain reaction of a better, more authentic kind of prosperity. A very important point made by Umair Haque in “The Builders Manifesto“: Excerpt: “Leaders don’t create great organizations — the organization creates the leader. 20th century economics created a… Continue reading
The 10 best P2P (nonfiction) books of 2009
Below is a, admittedly subjective, list of the best books to have crossed our desk this year. Criteria are that I had the occasion to examine the book, that it had a certain impact, and sufficient positive reviews. A glaring omission is Negri and Hardt’s Commonwealth, which I have been unable to examine. The book… Continue reading
Derrick Jensen on the Decolonizing of our Minds and the New Subjectivities of Change
3 contributions on the individual aspects of social change efforts. Do also check out the excerpts from the Re:Invention documentary below, about personal transformation in times of crisis. 1.“Do Something” Derrick Jensen on the subjective necessities for social change: In other words: What do you need to do? Derrick Jensen: “A lot of the indigenous… Continue reading
David Harvey on the need for a (p2p-less!) “co-revolutionary theory”
Just as the right is doing (see our previous articles on Red Toryism), the left is also rethinking it’s theories in the light of the meltdown and concurrent crisis of neoliberalism; and the emergence of network (p2p) dynamics. David Harvey formulates some new proposals for a left transition theory, based on a articulation of seven… Continue reading
The next finance: socially responsible trading networks and their alternative trading systems
From an article by Hazel Henderson: “When the collapse came, some like-minded investors and traders had already begun to build new exchanges from the bottom up. An underlying infrastructure already existed in the form of alternative trading systems (ATS). ATS are electronic markets such as Instinet and Archipelago, regulated by the SEC, that broker financial… Continue reading