“The ‘Unbroken Ground’ is a compelling new film that explores four areas of agriculture that aim to change our relationship to the land and oceans. Watch the film and hear from a panel of speakers – including filmmaker Chris Malloy and Birgit Cameron, Director of Patagonia Provisions- and taste Patagonia Provisions’ organic food sourced from… Continue reading
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Bauwens Explains the Great Value-Shift of Our Time
Michel Bauwens recently spoke at the Harvard Berkman Center to give his big-picture analysis of the economic and social transition now underway. The hour-long video of his talk provides a clear explanation for why peer production is flourishing and out-competing conventional business models and markets. It’s all part of an epochal shift in how value… Continue reading
The money-free lifestyle of Jean-François Noubel
I’ve met and talked with J-F Noubel on several occasions, and witnessed his radical implementation of a gift economy lifestyle. This video is a short portrait (extract) with English subtitles, very much worth seeing:
John Restakis on the Cooperative Experience in Emilia-Romagna and What It Means Today for Transformational Change
This was a keynote presentation earlier this year, for the Transform/er conference in Montreal, an event for and by young cooperative activists in Quebec, which was organized at Concordia University, by Ben Prunty, Laurent Levesque, and Jessica Cabana. and which has a prominent student cooperative food service coop with over 4000 members. In this talk,… Continue reading
Jeremy Rifkin on how to transform unions and coops for the digital age
Unions and cooperatives should start focusing on millenials and adapt to distributed governance, and if they do, they will win from the new monopolies, argues Rifkin in this interview for the European Trade Union Congress (ETUC/ ETUI). Rifkin is sometimes accused on not problematizing the transition to the zero-marginal cost society, but in this interview,… Continue reading
Finding Common Ground between the ‘precariat’ and the salaried and unionized workers
A brief summary of my message to a ETUI conference, associated with the European Trade Union Congress. Video interview Michel Bauwens, ETUC/ETUI conference ‘Shaping the new world of work’, Brussels, 27-29 June 2016.
Woelab and the e-waste 3D Printer
The following article, originally published at “Motherboard – The VICE channels”, presents the first 3D printer made from e-waste: “Members of the WoeLab community have invented the world’s first 3D printer made almost entirely from e-waste, built computers with discarded electronics inside plastic jerry cans, and are in the process of repurposing a discarded fridge… Continue reading
Stephanie Rearick on Building Community Livelihood Through Mutual Aid Networks
“How does an economy work to satisfy basic livelihood within a cooperative? What are Time Banks and Mutual Credit? How does a Sociocracy operate? How is Money administrated in a Mutual Aid Cooperative? How can work and value be redefined when working in collaborative networks? How are the lives of people joining this sharing economy… Continue reading
Documentary: Governing a Mayan Forest
“A great documentary on how indigenous communities in Guatemala are managing successfully their community forest of about 21,000 hectares. It is a nice example of self-governance and illustrate many of the design principles Elinor Ostrom found in her analysis of many case studies.” By Julian Moll-Rocek. 48 Cantones: The Mayan Forest ??? jmollrocekPhoto by archer10… Continue reading
Douglas Rushkoff on Reprogramming the Economy: From Growth to Prosperity
This is a very passionate lecture by Douglas Rushkoff, warning us not to blindly follow the digital models proposed to us by Silicon Valley, especially as it concerns democracy: From the notes to the You Tube Video Douglas Rushkoff is the author of “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.” In his Personal Democracy Forum… Continue reading
The Gender Wage Gap Part Three: Emotional Labor and Other Conundrums
Part Three in my video series on the wage gap aims to open a creative conversation about the future of work, money and gender. I start by discussing some of the current feminist arguments advocating that women be paid for their emotional labor as a way of closing the wage gap, and I share why… Continue reading
Recycling plastics everywhere with cheap open source machinery
This is a promo video of the Precious Plastic project, which provides both the open source designs and the instruction manuals for the free sharing of cheap DIY machinery to recycle plastics everywhere. It’s a good example of what distributed manufacturing model of ‘cosmo-localism‘ can do. From the shownotes to the video: We developed DIY… Continue reading
Trebor Scholz on How Platform Cooperativism Can Unleash the Network
Great lecture at the re:publica conference in Berlin: “The distrust of the dominant extractive model of the “sharing economy” is growing. Labor and logistics companies such as Uber have been criticized for eliminating democratic values such as accountability, dignity, and rights for workers. Using various examples, Scholz will introduce what he calls platform cooperativism, an… Continue reading
The Gender Wage Gap Part Two: Discrimination or Choice?
Is the gender wage gap due to discrimination or choice? This week’s video explores the popular idea that women experience a “motherhood penalty” and men experience a “fatherhood premium/bonus” in working wages, and that this contributes significantly to the wage gap. I investigate whether these constructs hold up under close scrutiny and also share why… Continue reading
Procomuns Plenary 12: Value and Collaborative Production
Video of a presentation on the topic of value and collaborative production, with Marco Berlinguer. Note: All Procomuns videos feature simultaneous translation, please switch from left to right channels to change languages. This plenary was filmed at PROCOMUNS, a 3 day event which was held in Barcelona in March, 2016 to discuss commons-oriented approaches to… Continue reading
The Gender Wage Gap Part 1: Why Statistics Are a Bitch
This is the first of three videos that will tackle an investigation of the gender wage gap in an attempt to go beyond popular rhetoric and get underneath its underlying causes. This week’s video discusses the often quoted statistic that women earn 77 (or 79 or 82) cents on every man’s dollar for the same… Continue reading