In this podcast, Michel Bauwens joins some dots together and explains why the open source movement, the growing prevalence of peer-to-peer sharing economy platforms and new technologies like blockchain create the potential to create a fundamentally different economic model that circulates vale between businesses, people and the environment, rather than extracts it. Bauwens believes that we should move to an economy that is built on infinite resources like knowledge, rather than finite materials, and we have the structure and technologies to achieve it.

Ken Webster is a leading author, teacher and thinker when it comes to the circular economy.

Photo by Theen …

The post Podcast: Michel Bauwens, How Peer-to-Peer Can Change the World appeared first on P2P Foundation.

By this time many know about the hyper-exploitative business models of companies like Uber or TaskRabbit. Or about how AirBnB has heavily reduced housing stocks in cities worldwide. But in his new book, Keith A. Spencer goes further than just picking on a few high profile companies. He lays out an argument for why Silicon Valley, at its core, is a highly exploitative and problematic industry. With a look at the tech world from the vantage point of the marginalized and oppressed—those who have not benefited from the incredible wealth bubbling up in the valley—”A People’s History of Silicon Valley: how the tech industry exploits workers, erodes privacy, and undermines democracy” presents a damning thesis for why this new world of addictive gadgets and union-busting is increasingly undemocratic and dangerous.

The book is published by Eyewear Publishing.

Upstream producer Robert R. Raymond spoke with Keith A. Spencer at the offices of Salon in San Francisco, where Spencer is an editor.

Intermission music is by The California Honeydrops.

Upstream is an interview and documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. Weaving together interviews, field-recordings, rich sound-design, and great music, each episode of Upstream will take you on a journey exploring a theme or story within the broad world of economics. So tune in, because the revolution will be podcasted. 

The post Upstream Podcast: A People’s History of Silicon Valley appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The 21st century has seen an explosion in interest around Worker Cooperatives—particularly since capitalism’s 2008 crisis. In Part 1 of this 2-part series, Upstream explores how worker coops present a radically different kind of ownership and management structure—one that has the power to transform not only the workplace—but perhaps the economy as a whole.

The episode tells the story of Rich City Rides, a cooperatively owned and run bike & skate shop in Richmond, California. Through candid conversations with one of the founders, and drawing from the wisdom of community organizers and thought-leaders, Upstream explores how worker cooperatives can transform workplaces into commons that strengthen cooperative values and begin to bring social and racial justice to marginalized communities.

Upstream also take a brief trip to the Basque Country of northern Spain to explore how the rich cooperative environment there compares to that of the United States and the San Francisco Bay Area specifically. What challenges do co-ops in the United States face as they continue to bump up against the dominant, capitalist economic system? What can the movement learn from the successes and challenges of the Basque model?

Join Della Z Duncan and Robert R. Raymond, Upstream’s producers, as they take you on an informative and inspiring exploration through one of the most important movements that is challenging the extractive and exploitative economy: the Worker Cooperative movement.

Featuring​

• Richard Wolff – Economics professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, founder of Democracy at Work, and host of the weekly radio show Economic Update
• Gopal Dayaneni– Co-founder of Cooperation Richmond & Staff Member at Movement Generation
• Doria Robinson – Founder of Urban Tilth and Co-Founder of Cooperation Richmond
• Esteban Kelly – Executive Director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
• Gorka Espiau – Senior Fellow at the Agirre Lehendakaria Center at the University of the Basque Country
• Najari Smith – Worker/member of Rich City Rides bike & skate shop
• Roxanne Villaluz – Worker/member of a cooperative bakery & pizzeria
• Sofa Gradin – Political Organizer and Lecturer in Politics at King’s College in London

Music By:

• Jerry Folk
• Antwon
• The Roots of Orchis

Header Artwork by Phil Wrigglesworth

Part 2 of this 2-part series will be out in May, 2018, and will take a much deeper dive into the Basque Country and the Mondragon Cooperatives.

Upstream is an interview and documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. Weaving together interviews, field-recordings, rich sound-design, and great music, each episode of Upstream will take you on a journey exploring a theme or story within the broad world of economics. So tune in, because the revolution will be podcasted. 

The post Podcast: Worker Cooperatives – Widening Spheres of Democracy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

We often say that we couldn’t keep this project going without your support — well, this is LITERALLY TRUE. The laptop and the audio software that we use to produce our documentaries are now out of date and no longer working properly. As a result, we cannot begin to produce our 2018 season of episodes until we upgrade our equipment.

Please help us raise money to purchase new equipment so that we can produce our 2018 season and beyond.

We have a limited budget to make this project happen and it takes a certain quality of resources to produce in-depth, high-quality audio documentaries. Because we provide all of our content for free, we need to ask for your support to keep things going.

The work we are doing through Upstream is more important than ever. Our documentaries help give voice to the most pressing issues of our time. By supporting us in this crowdfunding campaign with your tax-deductible donation, you’ll invest in us to continue to tell the stories that we hope will lead us to a better world — one that puts people and planet over profit.

Over the last three years we’ve grown and deepened our impact immensely, producing eleven full-length documentaries and dozens of stand-alone interviews reaching thousands of listeners.

And we’re really just getting started! We have big plans for 2018, with several documentaries already in the works (including a series on worker cooperative and an episode on feminist economics). But we will not be able to produce these documentaries without your support.

Thank you for contributing anything that you can. Every donation helps. And if you cannot afford to chip-in, you can still help by sharing this crowdfunding campaign with your networks.

With deep gratitude, thank you again. Together we can bring about the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

In solidarity,

Della & Robert

Photo by tixyvix

The post New economics podcast Upstream needs your help! appeared first on P2P Foundation.

“This week, I am delighted to welcome Alexander Douglas, a lecturer in philosophy at St. Andrews University, to the show, to talk about his recent book: The Philosophy Of Debt. It was great to talk to Alex about the nature of debt and money, and how all of this stuff is explicitly linked to the power relations and class structure of our society. We also got to talk about how this MMT stuff can be viewed or fits in from a Marxist point of view, a synthesis of which I think could be extremely fruitful.”

You can find Alex’s blog here, and his book here.

Photo by Thomas Hawk

The post Podcast: Money and Power, by From Alpha to Omega appeared first on P2P Foundation.

You can download the podcast at this link.

This podcast was originally published here.

Show Notes

0:00 – 0:40 – Introduction
0:40 – 9:00 – The history of the digital commons
9:00 – 17:20 – What is money? What role does it play in society?
17:20 – 29:20 – The value of transactional data and how it gets tracked
29:20 – 34:25 – The centralisation of transactional data tracking and its role in algorithmic governance
34:25 – 37:50 – Resisting transactional data-tracking
37:50 – 46:00 – What is bitcoin? What is a cryptocurrency?
46:00 – 54:25 – Can bitcoin be a currency of the digital commons?
54:25 – 1:04:47 – The promise of blockchain governance: smart contracts and smart property
1:04:47 – End – Criticisms of blockchain governance – the creation of an ultra-neo-liberal governance subject?

Photo by btckeychain

The post Rachel O’Dwyer on Bitcoin, Blockchain and the Digital Commons appeared first on P2P Foundation.

A project team called Economics for Transition has just launched UPSTREAM, a podcast of radio documentaries and interviews highlighting cutting-edge stories of global leaders and initiatives challenging and transforming our dominant economic system.

So far, the show has generated an exceptional response, it made it to the “new and noteworthy” section of Itunes within the first week and has generated over 1000 downloads and listens. Additionally, Steve Fraser, author of The Age of Acquiescence called it a “richly detailed, informative, and entertaining podcast helps to unmask the masquerade.”

In their pilot episode, The Sharing Economy? they look at how companies like Airbnb and Uber have influenced an entire generation and entirely shifted the economic landscape of major cities like San Francisco. Through candid conversations with journalists and industry insiders, they uncover the dark side of these giant companies and investigate how this phenomenon arose and what dramatic implications are in store. The conclusion they arrive at, which is in direct alignment with the work of the P2P Foundation, is a call for a true sharing economy, one based on shared profit and economic democracy.

To be able to continue to challenge mainstream media’s portrayal of “the economy” and celebrate new economic initiatives, they are asking for your support and participation, here’s how you can help:

• LISTEN to the first episode, a critique of the Sharing Economy, and the first interviews with global economic leaders
• CONTRIBUTE to the crowd funding campaign so that she can produce and share more material. You can give as an individual or as a sponsor organization.
• SHARE this project and the campaign with your networks and friends: www.economicsfortransition.org and http://tinyurl.com/upstreamsupport
• FOLLOW the project on social media Facebook, twitter, instagram, Itunes

Thank you!

The post Announcing UPSTREAM- Launch of a Podcast about Economics for Transition appeared first on P2P Foundation.

KMO welcomes author, journalist and filmmaker, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, to the C-Realm Podcast to talk about his new novel as well as the role the that US and British foreign policy and intelligence agencies played in empowering Sunni extremists and bringing the Islamic State to power. After discussing the depressing state of affairs in the Arab world as well as in Western countries who remain strong militarily but whose economies are floundering, Nafeez describes why the emerging solar energy sector and the open source revolution leave him essentially optimistic in the face of a storm of converging crises.

Music by The Humble Grapes.

The post Podcast of the Day/C-Realm: Nafeez Ahmed on Optimism in the Face of a Gathering Storm appeared first on P2P Foundation.