Michel Bauwens asked me to post the background narrative to my Peer Trust Network Project. The project is in its infancy, and is very much an ongoing story. The narrative is long, so I’m breaking it into parts. When I started the project it wasn’t even a project, it was just a list of books… Continue reading
Smári McCarthy on some issues with Open Hardware Licenses
Do we need Open Hardware Licenses for Open Source Physical Objects, and under what conditions? Smári McCarthy: “The problem with Open Source licenses on physical objects is that even though they might do the trick in a legal context, it isn’t what they’re designed to do, so the wording is all wrong. It’s like selling… Continue reading
Eric Harris-Braun on Acknowledging Ethical Value
This should be read as an update to Adam’s essay on the valuation of the esteem economy, which we published in excerpts in the last four days. Here, open money advocate Eric Harris-Braun makes a number of valuable distinctions, equating ethical contributions with ‘acknowledge wealth’. 1. The Wealth Typology “Wealth is access to well-being. There… Continue reading
Reporting from the Bay Area: Favors.org and its thankyous currency
I have never been very good at live reporting, but here are a few words on the lecture tour in the Bay Area. My first lecture, after a one hour walk in the woods with Howard Rheingold and a British student in ‘cultural geography’, was the Santa Rosa Integral Salon, a most interesting collection of… Continue reading
Adam Arvidsson: Value in Ethical Economy. Conclusions on Money and Esteem
Adam concludes his essay in this last part: “However the socialization of ICTs and common standards will make them easily convertible. As Paul Hartzog imagines the scenario in his ‘The future of money’ : So, here’s a scenario for the future. You go to a rock concert, and you’ve never seen the opening band before…. Continue reading
Stefan Meretz: outcompeting private property?
Stefan Meretz made an interesting intervention at the German Keimform blog, part of a dialogue about the importance of the different forms of property. Stefan Meretz: “lets turn to the (most) interesting question of transformation. What shapes will the coming conflicts have, when peer production challenges capitalism within the physical sphere? What happens then with… Continue reading
Adam Arvidsson: Value in Ethical Economy. Part Three: Can there be currencies of esteem?
Part three of the landmark essay by Adam Arvidsson, first published at IDC. Go the IDC version for the references. Adam: Traditional systems of honor and esteem have worked in close-knit communities. Scaling them towards the contemporary information economy will necessarily entail making esteem transferable between different communities with different value standards. What is needed… Continue reading
Adam Arvidsson: Value in Ethical Economy. Part Two: The Valuation of Esteem
Part two of a draft essay by Adam Arvidsson that was first published at IDC. Go that version for the references. Adam: “Brands have a double nature. On the one hand they are commodities, objects with certain monetary values that are traded (mainly) on financial markets. On the other hand they are a form of… Continue reading
Evening with Bauwens, March 11th, Mission 607
New Mobilities: Ce-more about what’s happening in the mobile world: Are we shifting towards a psycho–civilised society?
Internet journal First Monday has just published a new paper by Kingsley Dennis that takes a look at the possible detrimental effects of wireless technologies; especially how they might affect neuronal functions – in military, industrial, and social terms. New Mobilities: Ce-more about what’s happening in the mobile world: Are we shifting towards a psycho–civilised… Continue reading
Adam Arvidsson: Value in Ethical Economy. Part One: Brands as the third circuit of value
In an earlier landmark essay (to which I collaborated somewhat for an updated version), Adam Arvidsson had posed the key problem of our emerging era of peer production, or what he calls the ethical economy, namely that we are increasingly creating vital but hitherto ‘unacknowledgeable value‘. In this new essay, no less of a landmark… Continue reading
Stan Rhodes on the role of money in the peer economy
Stan Rhodes, which is working on his own project and vision for a “utilicontributist economy”, critically engages with Christian Siefkes alternative project. Stan Rhodes: “1. “Competition.” This word can mean several things, but for rival goods (physical goods and services), there is always competition. Even in Alfie Kohn’s book about competition (No Contest: The Case… Continue reading
Notional Slurry » There are exactly two ways: one, and many
There are two ways to succeed in the complicated, burdensome flowless interrupting world we’ve made. Two ways to Get Things Done; anybody telling you there’s only one is selling something. Two ways to satisfice and maybe even to excel. Notional Slurry » There are exactly two ways: one, and many
Christian Siefkes on the Difference between the Peer Economy and the Market Economy
Last in the series that was originally published in Keimform.de. Christian Siefkes: “We have seen that it is indeed possible to generalize peer production to material production in such a way that its essential traits–it is based on contributions, on free cooperation, and on commons and possession–are preserved. So far, peer production has been largely… Continue reading
Vinay Gupta proposes State in a Box solution for failed states
Vinay Gupta of Hexayurt fame, has written an intriguing paper that explains the state in a box concept to create state services in the absence of a state. Read the whole paper here. The State In A Box concept: “State In A Box (SIAB) is a set of interwoven concepts which relate to the idea… Continue reading
Marcin Jakubowski on the efficiency of open manufacturing
Marcin responded to a query on when open manufacturing could be more efficient than the current model favouring large-scale concentration: “General conditions favor large. We need to identify and tackle those. Those are the legal and financial infrastructures, which are difficult to deal with. There is subsidy and monopoly creation, financial non-transparency, and many other… Continue reading