Book: Wiki Government. How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. Beth Noveck. Brookings Institution Press, 2009 An excerpt from Beth Noveck’s book, which we presented last Monday. Beth starts by outlining the lessons of her own Peer to Patent project, which point to the need to generalize the practice of… Continue reading
Peak Oil and the Meltdown (2): the volatility trap
We continue our processing of the essay by Richard Feinberg, which relates oil scarcity to the current crisis and sets clear limits on a eventual recovery. In this excerpt he explains that the volatility in oil prices, which confuses people, is part and parcel of the Peak Oil thesis. Richard Feinberg: Why Did Oil Prices… Continue reading
Trade exchange and credit clearing is not barter
Via Thomas Greco: People often ask me how the credit clearing process that I advocate might be established and where existing successful models are to be found. I point them to the commercial “barter” sector, the 75 year old WIR Bank in Switzerland, and a few exchange alternatives that have been emerging spontaneously from the… Continue reading
The U.S. as the New Argentina?
You just gotta read this if you want to be prepared for the post-meltdown world. In this text, Charles Hugh Smith* conducts a little thought experiment. Imagine you were part of the transnational elite class of the richest investors, and you know things are going terribly wrong. All the patches you have tried to keep… Continue reading
Peak Oil and the Meltdown (1): the role of oil scarcity as trigger
Richard Heinberg has published a crucially important guest post at the “Peak-Oil thesis” related Oil Drum website. This excerpt explains how the subprime trigger was preceded by an oil price crisis, which should be seen as the real cause of the current meltdown. Richard Heinberg: “Continual increases in population and consumption cannot continue forever on… Continue reading
Crisis at the Factor E Farm
Readers of this blog will know that we have consistently supported the Open Source Ecology project, which consists of creating a full set of open source technologies for resilient communities. We have not written this anywhere, but in conversations at the Oekonux conference we also suggested to Marcin Jacubowski that this was not yet in… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Wiki Government
Book: Wiki Government. How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. Beth Noveck. Brookings Institution Press, 2009 Beth Noveck, professor of law and director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School, famous for her successful Peer to Patent project, has published a new book about… Continue reading
Indigenous community-based aspects of the Bolivian movement
Interesting details about the indigenous aspects of the social change movement in Bolivia, which gained power with the electoral victory of Evo Morales. In this excerpt, Fernando Huanacuni, one of the most important Aymara intellectual references in Bolivia, highlights the difference of approaches with the traditional Latin-American left. “Beyond the indigenous movement, do you not… Continue reading
20 Theses against green capitalism
Very interesting set of 20 political theses about green capitalism, that warrant a serious discussion. The text is from Tadzio Mueller and Alexis Passadakis. Alexis is a member of attac Germany’s coordinating council, Tadzio a part of the Turbulence editorial collective (www.turbulence.org.uk). They are both active in the emerging climate justice movement, and can be… Continue reading
Government By Goldman Sachs: the video
Via Thomas Greco: “Reporter Matt Taibbi recently wrote an article for Rolling Stone called The Great American Bubble Machine. In this five part video he elaborates upon the theme and describes how Goldman Sachs has virtually taken over the U.S. government.”
How long will this meltdown last? Until 2038?
“Those who expect a swift return to the business-as-usual of 2006 are fantasists. A slow and difficult recovery, dominated by de-leveraging and deflationary risks, is the most likely prospect.” (Martin Wolff) As most readers of this blog know, I have my own timeline for p2p-induced transformations. It goes roughly like this: given that 2008 was… Continue reading
The True Cost Economics Manifesto
The importance of this initiative by Adbusters, aimed at undermining the ideological stranglehold of destructive economic theory now dominating universities, cannot be overstated. Sign it here. For background on Adbusters’ strategy to radically reject neoclassical economics, see the article by Steve Keen. “We, the Undersigned, make this accusation: that you, the teachers of neoclassical economics… Continue reading
Bernard Lietaer on the role of complementary B2B currencies in this crisis
Japan ” tried the classical solutions, and after five years, they stopped believing the economic downturn was a cyclical thing, that it was like all the other ones. That’s when they started implementing these structural kind of solutions, which is why Japan is a full-scale laboratory of complementary currencies. However, Japan still haven’t gone to… Continue reading
Principles of ethical social enterprise
Proposed by Franco Papeschi & Tory Dunn: (details and background here) “1. Does the initiative help people use time to their best advantage? 2. Does it strengthen relationships between people? 3. Does it have a clear socially beneficial mission (or in the absence of clarity, a positive trajectory in a socially beneficial direction)? 4. Does… Continue reading
The use of social network analysis in labor conflicts
Via Turbulence #1: “Valery Alzaga talks to Rodrigo Nunes about the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) global organising approach “VA: Research is the first step, before the organising begins. First, you need to identify a ‘universe’. What is the size of the market? Who are the players involved (owners, building management, cleaning companies)? What share… Continue reading
Changing from the outside in …
Our research is showing that there are very few — maybe even no — conditions under which properly equipped users engaged in open innovation cannot outdo closed. In this long and very interesting interview with open innovation researcher and advocate Eric von Hippel, he makes the point that organization don’t really change from the inside,… Continue reading