June 2013 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: The Quantity Theory of Money is the Flat Earth Theory of Economics.
by Michel Bauwens 10 Jun '13

10 Jun '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends. <dk(a)telekommunisten.net> Date: Mon, May 27, 2013 at 10:31 PM Subject: The Quantity Theory of Money is the Flat Earth Theory of Economics. To: "Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends. Subscriber" <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> (Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.) __ There's old joke that you can prove that the earth is flat with a simple experiment you can do anywhere: Jump! Since scientists claim that Earth is rotating at a very high rate of speed, by simply jumping up as high as you can, you can prove it's not true! If the Earth were indeed spinning at such a fast speed, wouldn't you land hundreds of feet away instead of in the exact same spot you jumped from? Obviously the Earth is flat! QE god-damn D! Quantity Theory believers also often start with a similarly personal scale from which to understand a macroeconomic question. They have a fixed amount of money. Money, to them, is like a pile of stuff. If you imagine that everything else there is to buy in the world is a similar pile of stuff, then, obviously, if you take the total amount of money in the pile of money and divide it up by total amount of stuff in the pile of stuff you have the value of money. If you increase the amount of money, by, for instance (in the flat earth vernacular) "printing" it, each "piece" of money in the pile goes down in value, because the pile of stuff still has the same amount of stuff. "More money chases fewer goods" as they say. Joan Robinson frequently recounts that the great Michal Kalecki once exclaimed to her "I have found out what economics is; it is the science of confusing stocks with flows!" The trouble with the flat earth economists, is that they confuse the dynamic flows of production and consumption that make up an economy with static piles of stuff. Robinson further reasoned that "it is this confusion that has kept the Quantity Theory of Money alive until today." Just to start with, money is not something that is "printed," the physical number of paper bills or minted coins is simply an artefact of the retail demand for such bills to conduct cash transactions. Money is either spent into existence by the government, or lent into existence by the banks. The amount of money created by government spending is a matter of government policy, the amount of money created by banks is a matter of the level of qualified demand for borrowing there is in the economy. In neither case is there any pile of paper, coins, or anything else that limits how much they can spend or lend. A flat earth economist reasons that if more money is created ("printed") the value of money necessarily goes down. This would only be the case if the total number of things to buy where a fixed stock. Not only that, it also assumes that any new money would be necessarily spent on buying things, and these things are locally produced. In reality, of course, the number of things to buy is not fixed, in most economies, particularly in down-cycles, unemployment exists, and so does underutilized productive capacity. New money can be created in such a way so as to put more people to work and more capital to work to produce more things, as such, the flow of money and the flow of goods both increase. And of course, not all new money is spent on locally produced goods, thus newly created money is also sometimes simply saved, or used to repay debt, or is sent abroad and results in greater imports and foreign savings. When you add it all up, it becomes very clear that the amount of money that is "printed" (aka spent) by the government tells you very little about the value of prices on it's own, this can only be understood within the context of sectoral balances, taxation levels, unemployment, utilization of productive capacity and local and foreign propensity to save the currency. To put this in terms of macroeconomic identities, the quantity theory of money can be expressed as MV = PQ. M is the number of units of money in our pile of money, and V is the number of transactions that occur in a given period, this must, by definition, be equal to The Price Level (P) multiplied by the real GDP (Q), our pile of stuff. As Bill Mitchell argues, following Kalecki and Robinson, to render this a theory of inflation one has to assume that V and Q are fixed, in other words that propensity to save, invest and import never change and that the economy is always operating at full capacity. Since that is empirically demonstrable to be not the case, the assertion that an increase in M results in an increase in P is demonstrably not the case. This theory is as dead as they come. So what is the real reason that zombie economic theories like the Quantity Theory continue to stalk the earth when they have been unequivocally refuted ages ago? Remember that all money is created in one of two ways, it is spent into existence by the government or lent into existence by the banks. The Quantity Theory and the related monster mash of undead theories that go along with it are popular among proponents of social austerity because they falsely imply that "printing" money necessarily leads to inflation. This means that government should be artificially limited to spending only as much as it taxes. When tax revenues fall as a result of economic downturns, government should cut spending, just as the communities it serves need government spending the most. This is really a win-win for financial elites with lots of money! On one hand, the immiseration of workers by way of austerity allow capitalists to push for lower wages and benefits, as the workers are in a weaker position to resist, on the other hand, any without infusion of money from government spending, additional money needs be borrowed instead, thus increasing interest income for all those financiers smart enough to be very rich! The Quantity Theory of Money is nothing more than a fable invented to convince the whole of society that they should have less, so that the to very rich can have even more! In any case, as is is my tradition, I will bring a small pile of money to spend on a signification volume of beer on Tuesday night, so join me at Toronto Stammtisch at The Embassy in Kensington Market, the rest of the Telekommunisten crew and friends and will be at Cafe Buchhandlung in Berlin. Please come! -- The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list subscription: You are subscribed to the following list: Dmytri Kleiner/ Friends. using the following email: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com You may unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: http://freshsent.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/friends/michelsub2004/gmail.c… If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. You may also change your subscription by visiting this list's main screen: http://freshsent.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/friends If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <mailto:[email protected]> The following physical address is associated with this mailing list: Cafe Buchhandlung Tucholskystr 32. Berlin-Mitte Amtsstunden: Jeden Deinstag, 20:00 - 24:00 http://www.telekommunisten.net -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fw: Yes, QE for Jobs
by robert searle 10 Jun '13

10 Jun '13

----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Positive Money <info(a)positivemoney.org.uk> To: Robert <dharao4(a)yahoo.co.uk> Sent: Thursday, 6 June 2013, 13:11 Subject: Yes, QE for Jobs Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Dear Robert, Good news! 63 of you have donated so far this week to help us kickstart the new campaign 'QE for jobs'. You’ve helped us to increase our monthly donations by £307 and you’ve sent £490 in one-off donations so far. This means that we have already raised a substantial amount needed. It is a great step forward, but we've still got some way to go. If you can help, please set up a monthly donation here or email mira(a)positivemoney.org if you would like to increase your donation. You may be interested to read our new blog post where we address some concerns related to the 'QE for jobs' idea. A Big Thank You to everyone who has helped in any way with the Positive Money campaign to date. If the 'QE for jobs' campaign is successful, it will be the first realistic step towards fixing the money system. Once there is a precedent for money created by a public body, responsibly and under control, and spent into the economy debt-free, it will become easier to win the argument that banks should be prevented from creating money as debt. ------------------ Saturday's email: We need your help to start a new campaign. Could you create jobs with £375 billion to spend? Since the crisis the Bank of England has created £375 billion of new money in an attempt to get the economy going again. But instead of putting it into the real economy, where it could support businesses, shops and real jobs, they’ve just pumped it into the financial markets. That’s why the stock market is near its highest ever level, even though there are around 2.5 million people who can’t find jobs at all, and a further 3 million people who can’t get enough hours of employment. [1] Meanwhile over 500,000 people have become dependent on food banks to live. [2] This is crazy This is a crazy approach to fixing a broken economy. If just a fraction of that £375 billion had been spent into the real economy by the government, as new debt-free money, it would have created jobs, allowed us to reduce our debts, and get the economy going again. We have tried to explain this to the government [3], and even the former chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Adair Turner has said that “If [President] Herbert Hoover had known in 1931 that [the policy of creating money and spending it into the economy through government budgets] was possible, the US Great Depression would have been less severe.” [4] We want to campaign for a better approach Instead of seeing more money flooding the financial markets, we want to see the power to create money be used for something useful. There’s so much that needs to be done, including: * Rebuilding the hundreds of school buildings that are not fit for purpose (the government has just borrowed £700million from private banks – who will create the money used to pay for the rebuilding – instead of using their own power to create money). * Switching the country over to clean and renewable energy so that we don’t become dependent on countries like Qatar for energy imports in the future * Getting money directly to ordinary people by creating jobs so that they can start to pay down some of their debts It’s an idea that’s already been mentioned by leading economic commentators in all the mainstream papers. And now even the Treasury is interested – in their latest review of monetary policy [5], they included a section on Adair Turner’s suggestions. So now is the best time for this campaign. Our campaign (codename "QE for jobs") would ask for £50 billion to be created by the Bank of England and spent by government with the aim of increasing employment and doing some of the long-term things that are essential for this country. Can you help us kickstart the campaign? We’ve speaking to potential partners and there’s a lot of interest in this idea, but we need to have the funds to get the ball rolling. Currently we have 378 people who donate every month, and this keeps the campaign going. If we can increase that to 430, we’ll be able to focus on this huge opportunity to get a change in the monetary system and have money created in the public interest for the first time in decades. If you can, please help by donating monthly, either by direct debit or paypal: Donate now Here’s the plan: Over the next 2 years we’re aiming to: · get the idea of ‘QE for jobs’ into the mainstream public debate · get the main political parties to adopt it into their 2015 manifesto · build a large movement of individuals and groups in support of the campaign · get business leaders to write an open letter to George Osborne asking him to carry it out This doesn’t mean we are changing direction. Our main objective will always be to fully change the way that money is created so that banks can no longer create money and cause the kind of crisis that we’re facing today.[6] This is a campaign that we think will lead the way to getting the money creation more mainstream. It is a step in the right direction and would mean our reforms are more likely to be implemented. It could also raise our profile and broaden our network along the way. Why donate to Positive Money? Compared to most not-for-profits and charities, we’re tiny and don’t have any huge funders to support our work. However, we are tackling one of the root causes of many problems. We depend on the monthly donations of around 350 of the 11,500 people receiving this email, to provide half of all our funding, plus a number of grants from smaller charitable trusts. Donate now Any donations made in June will be DOUBLED... The James Gibb Stuart Trust, who helped Positive Money to get off the ground, are currently matching any donations set up this month, for the next 12 months. That means if you start donating £10 a month, it’ll be matched with an additional £120 over the next year. Plus if you donate £10 or more per month – we will send you a free copy of the book Modernising Money.  If we can raise an extra £1200 a month in donations, this will be doubled by the James Gibb Stuart Trust and we'll be able to cover a significant amount of our costs for a QE campaign and at least keep Positive Money going until the 2015 election. Donate now ====== [1] http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64… [2] http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64d… [3] http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64d… [4] http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64… - p34. [5] http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64d… [6] http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64d… Best wishes, Ben, Drew, Fran, Henry, Miriam & Mira http://positivemoney.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7396d6c5dc44c9d3b64d… Share this email: Join us: View email in your browser | Unsubscribe | Update your profile | Forward to a friend Copyright (C) 2013 Positive Money All rights reserved. We're sending this to you because you signed up at www.positivemoney.org.uk or at one of our former sites (eg. Bank of England Act or OneGoodCut) Positive Money 205 Davina House 137-149 Goswell RoadLondon, - EC1V 7ET United KingdomAdd us to your address book

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Fwd: Facing historic ethnic dynamics in Syria and the Middle East (and the world)
by Michel Bauwens 08 Jun '13

08 Jun '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tom Atlee <cii(a)igc.org> Date: Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 6:19 PM Subject: Facing historic ethnic dynamics in Syria and the Middle East (and the world) To: undisclosed list <cii(a)igc.org> Dear friends, I found this article useful from a social evolutionary perspective. The dynamic it describes seems like a relatively insoluble situation. But then again, it once seemed that South Africa was such a situation. So I'm curious about the potential shifts possible through scenario work of the kind that facilitated the end of apartheid in South Africa. "A diverse team of South African leaders—from the opposition and the establishment, left and right, black and white; businesspeople, politicians, academics, trade unionists, and community workers" used "scenario methodology to work together on how to effect a successful transition to democracy" - "a project that became known as the Mont Fleur Scenario Exercise. The Mont Fleur team’s scenarios, published in 1992, asked the question: How will the South African transition go and will the country succeed in “taking off”? Each of the four stories gave a different answer and had a different message. South Africa was in the middle of the contentious and risky transition negotiations. Nobody knew how or even whether they would succeed, or if the country would remain stuck, embattled, and isolated. As a set, the scenarios provided a provocative road map for this transition. There were three dark prophecies of futures to avoid: Ostrich, in which the minority white government sticks its head in the sand to try to avoid a negotiated settlement with the black majority; Lame Duck, in which there is a prolonged transition with a constitutionally weakened government that, because it purports to respond to all, satisfies none; and Icarus, in which a constitutionally unconstrained black government comes to power on a wave of popular support and noble intentions, and embarks on a huge and unsustainable public spending program, which crashes the economy. Then there was one bright vision of a future to work towards: Flight of the Flamingos, in which the transition is successful because all the key building blocks are put in place, with everyone in the society rising slowly and together." (excerpted from http://reospartners.com/news-view/268/ ) You can read the full official report at http://www.wbasc.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Mont-Fleur.pdf Dynamic Facilitation and Nonviolent Communication are also interesting possibilities, if they were given some support in the circumstance. In any case, this article articulates major trends to keep in mind. Coheartedly Tom ============ June 8, 2013 Butterflies in Damascus by Uri Avnery founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Avnery see his other articles at http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery DURING THE Spanish civil war of 1936, a news story reported the deaths of 82 Moroccans, 53 Italians, 48 Russians, 34 Germans, 17 Englishmen, 13 Americans and 8 Frenchmen. Also 1 Spaniard. "Serves him right," people in Madrid commented, "Why did he interfere?" Similar things could now be said about the civil war in Syria. Shiites from all over the Muslim world stream into Syria to help Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship to survive, while Sunnis from many countries hasten there to support the rebels. The implications of this go well beyond the bloody Syrian struggle. It is a historic revolution, region-wide and perhaps world-wide. AFTER WORD WAR I, the victorious colonial empires carved up the territories of the vanquished Ottoman Empire among themselves. Since colonialism was out and self-determination was in, their new colonies were dressed up as independent nations (like Iraq) or as nations-to-be (like Syria). European-style nationalism took hold of the new Arab nations. The ancient idea of the pan-Muslim "Umma" was pushed away. The idea of a pan-Arab super-state, propagated by the Baath party and Egypt's Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, was tried and failed. Syrian nationalism, Iraqi nationalism, Egyptian nationalism and, of course, Palestinian nationalism won. It was a doubtful victory. A typical Syrian nationalist in Damascus was also a part of the Arab region, of the Muslim world and of the Sunni community - and the order of these diverse loyalties was never quite sorted out. This was different in Europe, where the national loyalty was unchallenged. A modern German could also be a Bavarian and a Catholic, but he was first and foremost a German. During the last decades, the victory of local nationalism in the Arab world seemed assured. After the short-lived United Arab Republic broke up in 1961 and Syrians proudly displayed their new Syrian passports, the future of the Arab nation-states looked rosy. Not any more. TO UNDERSTAND the immense significance of the present upheaval one has to go back in history. Two thousand years ago, the modern idea of "nation" was unthinkable. The prevalent collective structure was the ethnic-religious community. One belonged to a community that was not territorially defined. A Jewish man in Alexandria could marry a Jewess in Babylon, but not the Hellenic or Christian woman next door. Under Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman emperors, all these dozens of sects enjoyed a wide autonomy, ruled by imams, priests and rabbis. This is still partly the case in most former Ottoman territories, including Israel. The Turks called these self-governing sects "millets". The German historian Oswald Spengler, in his monumental "The Decline of the West", asserted that great cultures were like human beings - they are born, grow up and die of old age within a thousand years. Middle-Eastern culture, according to him, was born around 500 BC and died with the decay of the Muslim Caliphate. Judaism, which was born in the Babylonian exile around 500 BC, was just one sect among many. Arnold Toynbee, the British historian who espoused a similar theory, claimed that today's Jews were a "fossil" of this obsolete culture. What happened later was that European societies went through many stages, the latest being that of the "nation". In Europe, the Jews were a sinister and hated anomaly because they clung to their former existence as a homeland-less, dispersed ethno-religious sect. This was done quite consciously: the rabbis erected a "fence around the Torah", separating Jews from everybody else, making it impossible for them to eat with non-Jews or marry them. Jews orginally congregated in ghettos because of their need for a Synagogue they could walk to on the Sabbath, public bath (Mikvah) etc. When the situation of the nation-less Jews in nationalist Europe became increasingly difficult, Zionism was born. By a sleight-of-hand it postulated that Jews were not only an ethno-religious community, but at the same time also a "nation like other nations". This was a necessary fiction, until Zionism succeeded in creating a real nation - the Israelis. With the founding of the Israeli state, the Zionist doctrine lost its purpose and should have been dismantled, like the scaffolding of a finished building. Everybody expected this to happen in due course - Hebrew Israelis would be a "normal" nation, and their connection with the Jewish world would become secondary. TODAY WE are witnessing a kind of Jewish counter-revolution. In Israel there is a comeback of the world-Jewish connection, while separate Israeli nationhood is denied. It is a reversal of Zionism. The events in Syria indicate a similar process. Throughout the region the ethno-religious community is coming back, the European-style nation-state is disintegrating. The colonial powers created "artificial" states with no consideration to ethno-religious realities. In Iraq, Arab Sunnis and Shiites and non-Arab Kurds were arbitrarily put together. In Syria, Sunnis, Shiites, Alawis (an offshoot of the Shia), Druze (another offshoot), Kurds and diverse Christian sects were put into one "national" pot and left to stew. In Lebanon the same was done, with even worse results. In Morocco and Algeria, Arabs and Berbers are put together. Now the ethno-religious sects are uniting - against each other. The Syrian civil war has united the Shiites - from Lebanon to Iran - in defense of the Alawite semi-Shia regime. The Sunnis from all over the place rally to the cause of the majority Sunnis. The Syrian Kurds have already created a de facto joint state with the Kurds in Iraq. The Druze, more dispersed and customarily more cautious, are awaiting their turn. IN THE Western world, the obsolescent nation-state is being superseded by supra-national regional confederations, like the EU. In our region, we may be reverting to the ethno-religious sects. It is difficult to foresee how this will work out. The Ottoman millet system could function because there was the overall imperial rule of the Sultan. But how could Shiite Iran combine with the majority Shiites in Iraq, the Shiite community in south Lebanon and other Shiite communities in a joint entity? What about the dozen Christian sects dispersed across many countries? Some people believe that the only viable solution for Syria proper is the disintegration of the country into several sect-dominated states - a central Sunni state, an Alawite state, a Kurd state, a Druze state, etc. Lebanon was also a part of Syria, until the French tore them apart in order to set up a Christian state. The French created several such little states, in order to break the back of Syrian nationalism. It did not work. The difficulty of such a "solution" is illustrated by the situation of the Druze, who live in two unconnected territories - in South Lebanon and in the "Druze mountain" area in Southern Syria. A smaller Druze community lives in Israel. (As a defensive strategy, the Druze in every country - including Israel - are patriots of that country.) The disintegration of the existing states may be accompanied by wholesale massacres and ethnic cleansing, as happened when India broke apart and when Palestine was partitioned. It is not a happy prospect. Toynbee, by the way, did not only consider the Jews as a fossil of the past, but also as the harbinger of the future. In an interview he granted my magazine, Haolam Hazeh, he expressed the hope that the nation-state would be superseded by world-wide ideological communities, like the Jewish diaspora. He may have been thinking of the communists, who at the time seemed to be turning into a world-wide supra-national community. That experiment failed, too. AT PRESENT, a war is raging among Israeli historians. Prof. Shlomo Sand is maintaining that the Jewish nation was invented (like all nations, only more so), and that the concept of Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) is a Zionist invention as well. Now he also asserts that he is not a Jew, but an Israeli. Against these heresies, a whole phalanx of Zionist professors is in full cry. Since I never even finished elementary school, I wouldn't dare to stick my head out and get caught up in the battle of the professors. I will, however, remark that I, too, object to sliding back into a world-wide Jewish sect and advocate the recognition of the new Israeli nation in Israel. YES, WE are an Israeli nation, a nation whose existence is bound to the fate of the State of Israel. This does not mean that those of us who are Jews have to disown our Jewish past, its traditions and values, and our connections with the world-wide ethno-religious Jewish community. But we have reached a new stage in our development. So, perhaps, have the Arab and other Muslim peoples around us. New forms are in the making. History shows that human societies are changing all the time, much as a butterfly develops from an egg into a caterpillar, from there to a chrysalis and from there to the beautifully colored adult. For the butterfly, that is the end. For us, I hope, this is a new beginning. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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CfP: Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorizing Digital Labour and Virtual Work: Definitions, Forms and Transformations
by Christian Fuchs 06 Jun '13

06 Jun '13

CfP: Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorizing Digital Labour and Virtual Work: Definitions, Forms and Transformations Special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique Download CfP: http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/CfP_DigitalLabour.pdf CfP: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/14 Supported by COST Action IS1202 “Dynamics of Virtual Work”-Working Group 3 “Innovation and the Emergence of New Forms of Value Creation and New Economic Activities“ (http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com, http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/wg3/) tripleC (http://www.triple-c.at) Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Editors: Marisol Sandoval, Christian Fuchs, Jernej A. Prodnik, Sebastian Sevignani, Thomas Allmer In 1845, Karl Marx (1845, 571) formulated in the 11th Feuerbach Thesis: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”. Today, interpretation of the world has become an important form of labour that is expressed on and with the help of digital media. It has therefore become common to talk about digital labour and virtual work. Yet the changes that digital, social and mobile media bring about in the world of labour and work have thus far only been little theorized and theoretically interpreted. In order to change the information society to the better, we first have to interpret digital labour with the help of critical theories. Theorists of the world from different fields, backgrounds, interdisciplines, transdisciplines and disciplines have to unite for this collective philosophical task. The overall task of this special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique is to gather contributions that help to an understanding of how to critically theorize digital labour, virtual work and related concepts. Theorizing digital labour requires us to provide grounded 1) definitions of digital labour and virtual work, 2) systematic distinctions and typologies of forms of digital labour and 3) theorizing the transformations that digital labour is undergoing. All submitted papers should be theoretical and profoundly engage with the meanings of various concepts. Rather than presenting case studies, papers should focus on fundamental theoretical concepts and discuss definitions. They can also explore the relations between concepts, the historical development of these concepts, typologies and the relevance of different theoretical approaches. The special issue is interested in theorizing the broader picture of digital labour. We welcome submissions that cover one or more of the following or related questions. 1) Concepts of Labour * How should concepts such of work and labour be defined and what are the implications of these definitions for understanding digital labour and virtual work? * Which theoretical or philosophical definitions of work and labour exist and which of them are meaningful for understanding virtual work and digital labour? * What is the difference between labour and digital labour? What is part of digital labour and what is not? Which online, offline, knowledge, physical, industrial, agricultural etc forms of work are part of it or not part of it? Is digital labour only knowledge labour that happens online or do we have to extend the concept to the offline realms and physical labour? Where is the demarcation line? Is digital labour also labour where digital technologies are of vast importance or not? Does digital labour involve the physical forms of work necessary for producing digital labour? * Is there a difference between 'work' and 'labour' and if so, how does it matter for the discussion of digital labour and virtual work? * What is the role of Karl Marx’ theory of labour and surplus value for understanding digital labour and virtual work? * Is the traditional distinction between the material base and superstructure in the realm of social media and digital labour still valid or does it become blurred or undermined? Are new information and communication technologies and social media, their production and use (n)either part of the base (n)or the superstructure or are they part of both? *If in the agricultural and industrial age land and nature have been the traditional objects of labour, how do the objects of labour and productive forces look like in the world of digital media and digital labour and how are these productive forces linked to class relations? * What is meant by concepts such as digital labour, telework, virtual work, cyberwork, immaterial labour, knowledge labour, creative work, cultural labour, communicative labour, informational work, digital craft, service work, prosumption, consumption work, online work, audience labour, playbour (play labour) in the context of digital media? How should they be defined? How are they related? How have they developed historically? How are these concepts related to the wider social context and the existing capitalist order? How can a systematic typology of the existing literature in this research field be constructed? Should any of these concepts be rejected? Why? Why not? Do any of these concepts especially matter? If so, why? * What is the etymological history of concepts such as work and labour in different languages and how have these concepts changed throughout history? Which of these historically different meanings are important for understanding digital labour and virtual work? * What are historically new aspects of digital labour, what are predecessors of digital work and which aspects of digital labour have parallels to the pre-digital era? * What is the role of the concept of value for understanding digital labour and virtual work as well as “immaterial” labour, affective labour, knowledge/communicative/information work etc in the context of digital media? 2) Forms of Labour * What is the role of agricultural, industrial, service and knowledge work in the world of digital labour and how are they related? How are different modes of production related to each other in the world of digital labour? * What are the important dimensions for constructing a typology of work that takes place in online spaces (e.g. crowdsourcing, online gambling, gold farming, turking, microwork, production of and trade with virtual items, clickwork etc)? * How can a typology of alternative forms of online work that rejects the profit logic be constructed (e.g. free software development, creative commons and copyleft publishing, Wikipedia collaboration, peer-production, open access publishing, file sharing etc)? * Which forms of labour are involved in the global value chain of digital media, how do they differ from each other and how are they related (e.g. mining, hardware assemblage, call centre work, software engineering, transport labour, prosumer labour, e-waste labour etc)? 3) Transformations of Labour * How can blurring boundaries between toil and play, labour and leisure time, the factory and society, production and consumption, public and private, the sphere of production and reproduction, economic value and social wealth in the realm of digital media be conceptualized? * What is the relationship between creativity, participation, do-it-yourself culture on the one hand and exploitation, alienation and/or emancipation on the other hand? * What is the role of the concepts of the working class and the proletariat for theorizing digital labour? * How would the concepts of digital work and digital labour look like in a post-capitalist society? Does the post-capitalist end of the working class also mean the end of and abolition of digital work? Or just the end of digital labour? What are the anthropologically constant and the historically variable dimensions of productive human activities? How should they be conceptualized and named? How are they related to the realm of digital media? Do concepts such as anti-work, zerowork, the abolition of work, post-work and the right to be lazy take the anthropological, creative and productive aspects of human life that are expressed on digital media into account? What are the elements of digital media activities that will continue to exist in a post-capitalist society? What are the historically continuous and discontinuous elements of digital labour? * What has historically been the role of communications – including digital communications – in labour transformations and in the construction of global labour chains (e.g. global division of labour and social interdependencies; the concept of collective worker / Gesamtarbeiter; socialization of labour etc.)? Deadlines: Abstract submission: July 31, 2013 All abstracts will be reviewed and decisions on acceptance/rejection will be communicated to the authors at the latest by the end of summer 2013. Full paper submission: January 15, 2014 Please submit article titles, author names and contact data and abstracts of 200-400 words to: Marisol Sandoval, marisol.sandoval(a)uti.at Marx, Karl. 1845. Theses on Feuerbach. In The German ideology, including Theses on Feuerbach and Introduction to the critique of political economy, 569-571. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. About the Editors Marisol Sandoval is Lecturer in Culture, Policy & Management at City University London. Christian Fuchs is Professor of Social Media at the University of Westminster and editor of tripleC. Jernej Amon Prodnik is PhD candidate at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Social Sciences. Sebastian Sevignani is PhD candidate at the University of Salzburg's Faculty of Cultural & Social Sciences and a research associate in the Unified Theory of Information Research Group (UTI). Website: http://sevignani.uti.at Thomas Allmer is PhD candidate at the University of Salzburg and member of the Unified Theory of Information Research Group. Website: http://allmer.uti.at About the Journal: tripleC Editor: Christian Fuchs, University of Westminster tripleC (http://www.triple-c.at) Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society focuses on information society studies and studies of media, digital media, information and communication in society with a special interest in critical studies in these thematic areas. The journal has a special interest in disseminating articles that focus on the role of information (cognition/knowledge, communication, cooperation) in contemporary capitalist societies. For this task, articles should employ critical theories and/or empirical research inspired by critical theories and/or philosophy and ethics guided by critical thinking as well as relate the analysis to power structures and inequalities of capitalism, especially forms of stratification such as class, racist and other ideologies and capitalist patriarchy. tripleC is a transdisciplinary journal that is open to contributions from all disciplines and approaches that critically and with a focus on power structures analyze the role of cognition, communication, cooperation, information, media, digital media and communication in the information society. tripleC is indexed in the databases Communication and Mass Media Complete and Scopus. Its application for inclusion in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) is under review/observation by ISI Thomson.

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Obama
by joseph orlando 06 Jun '13

06 Jun '13

Time for Obama to resign ASAP

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Fwd: Abundance is Possible, Don't Miss Out
by Michel Bauwens 06 Jun '13

06 Jun '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Robb (Resilient Communities) <admin(a)resilientcommunities.com> Date: Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:32 PM Subject: Abundance is Possible, Don't Miss Out To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com Having problems viewing this email? View this post on our website<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/5811/489c0db804d67f69/2425054/…> . [image: printlogo-1329425488189.jpeg] Abundance is Possible, Don't Miss Out By John Robb When I started to work on resilience, I focused on relearning age-old lessons of self-reliance. My goal was to find useful traditional methods for producing everything locally, so I could stitch them together into a useful resilient strategy. However, as I dove into the topic, I found something completely unexpected. All of those lessons on how to produce at the local level were rapidly changing. Innovation was *everywhere*. New methods and techniques. Better technology. Deeper knowledge and insight. More science. This is *useful*, tangible innovation. Innovation that meant it was now* *possible for people to produce *more* at the household and community level than *ever before*. *Advancing technology* For example, today’s Resilient Roundtable<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/9712/1496cc43b07413a0/2425054/…>conference call was with an open source company doing work on producing electricity from a process called wood gasification. Wood gasification is an old technology that was used extensively in the last century (mostly during the oil shortages of WW2) to burn wood in a way that powers a combustion engine. Used correctly, it’s a wonderful technology. It not only allows people to locally produce electricity from inexpensive biomass, it’s very good for the environment. Unfortunately, until recently, this technology was notoriously finicky and required constant supervision to work correctly. That’s completely changed. With recent innovations, it’s now possible to run a wood gas engine at peak efficiency for *days* without any oversight. That’s a BIG deal. So big that I suspect we’ll see hundreds of millions of people burning wood for electricity within the next twenty years. So, what does this mean in the big picture? I can only conclude one thing. Abundance is possible *everywhere*! Producing more locally isn’t just a survival strategy anymore, or a way to get by in an increasingly unstable world. No, producing more locally using these new methods is *fundamental shift.* A way of living that could change the world if people voted in their billions with feet, minds, hands to adopt this successful approach to life. It is a way to *thrive*. [image: swisschard]<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/9714/54a0391e8da67501/2425054/…> (This fabulous photo is via Fat Toad Farm<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/9716/e9d5efe4188a242b/2425054/…> ) *Get on board* Take the baby steps with me to reclaim this world, one home and community at a time. Join people like Vicki, a member of our community that sent me this lovely note: *John, I love reading your resilient communities newsletters and finally last week I started my first raised garden bed. Two tiers to start with and I can already see that I need a third one right away. I’m taking an Urban Farming workshop all summer long and have learned alot from your website so don’t feel like an absolute newbie (even though I am). I’ve added two trees to my sub-tropical garden this summer, a papaya and dwarf orange tree. These will yield a lot of fruit for my family without taking up much room. You’ve taught me to take what I have and make it work for me. Next up, a rain barrel. Baby steps. No more stocking up crap food in the pantry I’ll never eat!* Sincerely, JOHN ROBB [image: JR Small]<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/9718/b177abeeec67258f/2425054/…> For your convenience, John Robb will deliver his articles straight to your inbox each time a post is made! I look forward to the ongoing conversation and you're always welcome to post your comments at www.resilientcommunities.com<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/linkClick/5813/031e0b62f30ad32c/2425054/…>. If you no longer wish to receive our emails, click the link below: Unsubscribe<https://cs962.infusionsoft.com/app/optOut/8/50f35d64da011d70/2425054/f73c46…> Resilient Community, LLC 14405 W Colfax Ave #309 Lakewood, Colorado 80401 United States <https://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/infs/jschneider/html> -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: #occupyGezi
by Michel Bauwens 06 Jun '13

06 Jun '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 12:06 PM Subject: Fwd: #occupyGezi To: econowmix(a)googlegroups.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erich Date: Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 3:59 PM Subject: Re: <nettime> #occupyGezi To: nettime-l(a)mail.kein.org On 06/05/2013 10:41 AM, Felix Stalder wrote: > Like many people, I've been following the news re: #occupyGezi, but I > still feel I don't really understand what's happening there. It would be > great if someone could provide an first-hand, on-the-ground report > rather than just some second-hand theory based on media accounts. Felix and all, Her is some first hand report that came in on another list, source should be trusted, as the sender cooperates with EDRi Gruesse Erich A Report on the Situation in Turkey Irfan Erdogan, erdogan.irfan(a)gmail.com, http://irfanerdogan.com/ I am writing this to inform you that people in over 65 cities of 81 in Turkey are demonstrating against the reactionary and oppressive regime of Tayyip Erdogan and his party. We have demonstrations even in the most reactionary cities in Turkey. People in every neighborhood in the cities are on the street. Police throw gas bombs at demonstrators, beat and arrest people. It is not like in the late 1960s, because people did not care about us much then. We students were demonstrating for independence and socialism then. Now everybody is on the street. Nobody cheered when we were demonstrating in the late 60s in Turkey. Now people are cheering and supporting the demonstrators. Today we have more people on the street in my neighborhood in Ankara than yesterday. Police are shooting gas bombs inside the houses because people are providing shelter for demonstrators who are escaping from gas and police beatings. Youngsters and people from every walk of life are on the street and want the Erdogan government to resign. Erdogan uses the classic rhetoric about demonstrators and he threatens them by saying that he can send one million supporters to the street (he means, to smash the demonstrations). He says: "I keep 50 percent of the population at home" (he means that he can use 50 percent of people who support him against the other people). His mindset and approach reminds me of Jay Gould who said once that he is not worried about demonstrations and labor strikes, because he can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half. For a lot of people, Erdogan is a reactionary dictator. In Turkey people are scared to say something against Erdogan. Television did not provide any news about the demonstrations except the television stations of the major opposition party and Turkish Labor party television, because mainstream media either support the administration or are scared of Erdogan’s rage/wrath. People in Istanbul walked in front of the major television stations and announced that if they do not feature them in the news they will occupy the TV station. Then, TV stations started reporting, but in a highly distorted manner. After this incident, very few media personnel resigned from their posts in the TV channel. Erdogan scolded the Reuters journalist who dared to ask him a question that he did not like. The Internet is used for the most effective channel of communication and organization of the protests by everybody. Erdogan expressed his utmost anger against Twitter and social media. Everybody uses their mobile phone for communication and recording the events and putting/disseminating them on the Internet. Mainstream media started lying as usual. Two main labor unions in Turkey run by those who ask some meaningless concessions from the government try to stop workers to demonstrate, but workers are on the street, too. Demonstrations are rapidly spreading all over the country. Soon, I know, religious reactionaries (not all religious people are reactionary) will attack demonstrators. There is a high probability that we will witness a domestic/civil war in Turkey. I was at the center of the demonstrations in Ankara yesterday and the day before. Demonstrators do not do anything wrong, but police continuously shoot pressured water, gas and noise bombs at them and attack demonstrators. Police behave like they are fighting an enemy. They curse at and threaten people by e.g. saying: "get lost otherwise we arrest you and you know what we do when we arrest you." We know there are some progressive and conscientious people in the police force, but they are also under the threat of the empire of fear. But we will see a differing police behavior as the time goes by in the process. Now, there is an indiscriminate uss of gas bombs (CS gas). Your eyes get severely burned and you cannot breathe, you start coughing, and you feel dizzy if you are close to the fume. Also when it hits you or blows up beside you, you get shocked (I saw it). So far we have four killings and many wounded. As usual, they claim that demonstrators/provocateurs destroy and vandalize everything around. Yes we see a lot of destruction; in fact, it is started and done by plain-cloth police. How do I know: (1) this is a historical fact. (2) I know from the late 60s, because we could recognize the police then, but it is difficult to recognize them now. (3) How come there is no vandalism, destruction and terror where there is no police around? Here are few examples: I attend demonstrations at the center of the city where police provokes, attacks and where plain cloth police destroys everything aroun,d provoking some young people to do the same. My daughter and my wife and neighbors attend huge demonstrations in our neighborhood where there is no police presence yet: You can see no violence, no destruction and no vandalism in these demonstrations. Yesterday, I had to come back home early at night because I almost fainted three times because of the police gas. Later, I attended two neighborhood demonstrations and there were no destruction and violence. Last year, I attended two demonstrations in Athens, Greece. There was no police presence and there was no violence and destruction. Athens was burning when there was police presence. When police was involved, Athens was like a war zone, like in Ankara and Istanbul. Those who rule the police force organize and run the show of violence and destruction as usual. People are against "Erdogan’s empire" that is misrepresented in Europe and elsewhere. This reactionary party clearly stated that they "use the democracy train until they get the power and reach their destination." They are misperceived by Europeans who think that this government is anti-racist and democratic. They are not racist because their political view belongs to the middle ages of Islamic rule: They think that all Muslims are the people of God and those who are not Muslim are condemned by God and will all go to hell. That is why Erdogan is against nationalism, but his/their nationalism is based "ummad/ümmed" that means the collective community/nation/commonwealth/empire of Islamic peoples. Their nationalism is based on a different logic, the logic of Muslim statehood. A statehood where a prime minister considers himself king and tells people that he does anything he wants, he builds a mosque there if he wants (“there” refers to the park where people do not want the government to cut the trees down). Before the uprising, demonstrators were sleeping in the park and police attacked them at dawn. The government uses the known tactics of Hitler: The police invades people's (e.g., journalists, academicians, army commanders) houses and arrests them very late at night, especially at dawn. They call it “dawn operation”. They arrest young people for demonstrating or saying something against the administration. Students at school cannot wear a T-shirt with any message that can be considered “political expression”. Now, there are journalists, academics, politicians, army commanders, students and other political prisoners who have been in jail for more than 5 years WAITING FOR TRIAL OR TRIAL IN PROGRESS. Their rule is based on material plunder and ignorance that is fed by multi-channeled mis-information, education and re-education. Their current rule is historically comparable to extensive degrees of material plunder: They (party leaders and business owners) allocate material riches to themselves and immaterial values to the true and fake believers who generally are ready for slaughter while chanting “God is great” regardless if opponents are Muslims or not - like crusaders in the middle age who conducted killings in the name of Jesus despite the fact that Jesus is completely against oppression and killings. We hear this chanting on TV news when Syrian opposite forces fire guns and kill people. This also reminds me not only od the War Prayer of Mark Twain but also the pressure he got from his publisher and family against publishing it. The policies of the ruling party in Turkey are also supported by some old so called Marxists and/or, Maoists, “leftists” and their sons/daughters who mostly reside in Istanbul and live a posh life (some work for media corporations with 20-30 thousand dollars salaries a month and/or get paid by the media for their appearances in discussion shows or get benefits in different ways). The widespread fear in Turkey is also fed by private enterprises: Once there was state censorship (it still prevails), now we have censorship by the rule of private enterprises, so-called auto-censorship (self-censorship) which is buttressed by organizational and peer oppression in media and academia. I wrote a book for a university last year and I had to revise it many times because they are scared of law suits from private enterprises (especially by the media). You can not mention a corporation’s name, you cannot criticize a corporation by providing its name. I sometimes watch the Tonight Show and similar US shows in English in Turkey and Turkish subtitles do not give any names of any corporation that is mentioned in the show. I was sued by the show producer last month for 20.000 dollars for criticizing one of the most popular TV sitcoms in a meeting (I make about 2000 dollars a month). Freedom of thought and expression is suppressed not only by the ruling administration but also by the corporations and those who are scared of being a target of revenge. Freedom is a right and privilege of the ruling and powerful forces who can also manipulate and abuse the law for their own interests. Copyright freedom is not a freedom of the writers, it rather protects (or turned to be) the property right of the enterprises. This is the first time I am witnessing a public uprising. It is different than the one we had in the late 60s. People all over the world should know. Yet, unfortunately, the “whole world is watching” carefully packaged factoids. In Turkey, the media was not proving any news on the uprisings until yesterday, and they were broadcasting usual series, soap operas, sitcoms, competition programs and films instead. Now they cannot hide anymore, thus they started their usual mind management business in the news. To a varying extent, similar evaluations can be reached about the coverage on international news channels such as BBC, Al Jazeera, The Press TV and RTV that I watch often. -- http://moechel.com/kontakt.html PGP KEY 0xEA7DC174 fingerprint 02AA B2E7 C609 307D 34FE 4B5C ACC6 A796 EA7D C174 --... ...-- -.. . . .-. .. -.-. .... --- . ...-- . -- -... # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime(a)kein.org -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Re: [P2P-F] Third Industrial Revoution
by Michel Bauwens 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

will do Anna!! thanks for the info, Michel On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Anna Harris <anna(a)shsh.co.uk> wrote: > The Third Industrial Revolution: How the Internet, Green Electricity, and > 3-D Printing are Ushering in a Sustainable Era of Distributed Capitalism > http://www.worldfinancialreview.com/?p=1547 > > > Jeremy Rifkin<http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/jeremy-rifkin-on-clean-energ…>speaking at the Global Clean Energy forum, Oct > 3 2012 > -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Call for solidarity and support Teatro Valle occupato (Roma)
by Michel Bauwens 05 Jun '13

05 Jun '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: PERFmts <info(a)perfmts.net> Date: Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 2:00 PM Subject: Call for solidarity and support Teatro Valle occupato (Roma) To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com ** <http://www.perfmts.net/index.asp> 05.06.13 Teatro Valle Occupato (Roma) Call for solidarity and support Teatro Valle Occupato Via del Teatro Valle 23 00186 Roma - Italy Sustain the foundation<http://3an.r.mailjet.com/redirect/70bjhsymhvnqpvgn2fw5d3/sostieni.teatroval…> mari.crescenzi(a)gmail.com benedettacappon(a)gmail.com www.teatrovalleoccupato.it<http://3an.r.mailjet.com/redirect/9m91h82xrcbm1zgwxsxbv9/www.teatrovalleocc…> Everywhere in southern Europe theaters are occupied. In Greece, in Spain and in Italy. The northern european countries put austerity measures on these countries. PERFmts will regularly report about these occupations. These theaters need the support of their colleagues and fellow institutions. Please contact them that they can build up a database for international support when urgently needed. You find their coordinates next to the picture. After the occupations of Cinema Palazzo and the Teatro Valle, the occupy culture movement increased and became contagious, il Teatro Marinoni, the Coppola Theatre of Catania, the Garibaldi Theatre, the collective of the Balena of Naples with the Asilo della creatività e della conoscenza. Macao in Milan and the already existing S.A.L.E. Docks in Venice, are all experimenting innovative models of daily bottom up productions. *WHAT WAS GOING ON AROUND THE WORLD* Spring 2011: Europe and the whole mediterranean area are in turmoil. The act of occupying travels from the northafrican cities to the spanish squares of the Indignados through the neighbourhoods in flames in Athens up to the USA’s #occupy movements. These bodies don’t get in contact, but breathe and live the same pure vibration. Different contexts, different goals and attitudes, activated, almost at the same time, similar practices. All these global movements reaffirm the occupying act giving to it a new meaning: they override the purely negative protest and unfurl the power of constituent practices claiming for sovereignty. *HERE: ITALY, ROME* Empty and useless theatres, divided by labels, categories, and targets of audiences. Festivals in agony, awful redistribution of public funds, suspension of useless organisms (ETI), strikes on Monday (the day off for most part of the workers of art and entertainment), excise duties on petrol (apparently to increase culture, in reality to enhance war investments). Actors without allowances and unemployment benefits, stable theatres with budget shortfalls, directors chosen because they are appreciated by the mother of the mayor (as in our case in Rome!). A lot of respect for the copyright protection (in Italy we have the only monopole in all Europe for that: the SIAE), but no respect for knowledge, for the workers, for the intelligence of the audience. Bureaucrats firmly there, stuck in their places, artists without money. Politics of the Great Event, Theatre of Misery. There’s no epic, no cruelty, there’s no Dionysus. [image: théâtre] *WHAT* And so, once upon a time, one day, a theatre born in 1727 was occupied to implement a “cultural revolt”. On June 14th, the day after Italian citizens, voting in a referendum, said a decisive no to water privatisation, nuclear development and legal immunity for acting government officials, a wide group of protestors seized the *Teatro Valle (www.teatrovalleoccupato.it<http://3an.r.mailjet.com/redirect/f64bhd9bq5wm1kv04pgnql/www.teatrovalleocc…> )*, which could have been turned over to be privatized. Rome’s oldest theatre, one of many cultural institutions facing difficulties. The day after the victory of the referendum for water as a common good, voted by 27 millions of italians, on the ancient façade of the theatre designed by Valadier, appeared a long piece of cloth with written on: *LIKE WATER, LIKE AIR, LET’S RECLAIM CULTURE!* The invasion of the Valley becomes a device with art and politics, poetics and different urgencies gathered around the Rome's oldest theatre still operating: the theater of Mozart and Rossini, the first of "Six Characters" by Pirandello. Structure that was intended to have an uncertain future and risked to be become private. So a community gives life to a space by creating a constituent power through the vehicle of a Foundation, a non hierarchical but as usual horizontal rhizome. Where to take the decisions are the assemblies and institutionalize the link between culture, art and political practices. Reigns grassroots participation. The valley becomes a model, arise in other cities of similar experiences in Italy. *WHO* After six months practicing in the fight, with raid in theaters and symbolic occupations, the workers in the arts and culture occupied Teatro Valle. Workers in Film production, theater, dance, technicians, operators, employers, precarious and intermittent for several months waged a direct and self-organized fight for their rights and against the cuts. They have occupied the Teatro Valle to save it from an uncertain future. The occupiers have issued *an appeal signed by over 8000 people*. Citizens, artists, professionals, workers, people of Italian and international culture, gave life to the *Teatro Valle*, that has emerged as a venue with a strong symbolic value at a national level, a place to share ideas and experiences, a place to elaborate together a political and critical thought, according to a choice of active citizenship. They/We are interested in commons, mutualism, co-working and we would like to base all our actions on the quality of relationships. We believe in a world built on bottom up quality processes and we are very interested at international collaborations. *MISSION AND VISION* [image: théâtre] Our goal is to transform the Teatro Valle in a Foundation of commons. The Foundation Teatro Valle Commons is an economic and juridic alternative model based on the selfgovernment of workers of art and culture and citizens and on a direct democratic system. The principal vocation of the theatre is to be always open and alive and to offer a wide permanent education for professionals and for the citizens as a contemporary *agora*. Regarding the artistic vocation of Teatro Valle we think it should be a center devoted to the italian contemporary playwrighting and stage writings. After the 14th of june the defensive attitude transformed itself in a performative constituent act: public assemblies, self education processes, a multidisciplinary approach. Internationally known and appreciated jurists as Ugo Mattei and Stefano Rodotà contributed to write the Statute of the Fondazione Teatro Valle Bene Comune. The occupants are aware of the present economical and financial difficulties of the country and, precisely for this reason, they believe that the situation should be faced not with a blind policy of cuts, but with *forward-looking projects aiming to reduce waste and to enhance the artistic talents* which are a key resource for the country. A renewed future for *Teatro Valle* would be a major starting point for everybody, ushering *a new season of Italian cultural policy* resetting art, knowledge and creativity as center of the social system. Radical reforms capable of ensuring efficiency and autonomy in the public management, would allow virtuous actions of the privates and would restore dignity to the professionals of this industry with specific laws recognising their rights. We are imagining and practicing new forms of ethical management able to provide the possibility of *a plural artistic direction with the guarantee of a turn-over*; an “ecological” principle ensuring a balanced distribution of resources between small and large productions, for training and hospitality; *fairness in pay* - reduction of the gap between the minimum and maximum-, a *price policy* accessible and progressive; *boards for independent monitoring*, transparency and readability of financial statements published on the web, *developing a code of ethics*, as model for all theaters and companies. [image: théâtre] *WHAT DO WE DO and done:* We have set up artistic residencies in which we asked the artists to invent new forms of education, to open up for the audiences the creative processes, inviting other artists, contaminating languages. The theatre promotes forms of encounter between the arts and creates opportunities for interdisciplinary ensembles through assemblies, informal meetings and through the international networks built in these recent months of activity. We organize: plays and performances, festivals of independent theatre in and outside the theatre, children workshops, we reflect together on the cultural politics, projections of independent movie which otherwise wouldn’t find any distribution. Every day from the 14th of June 2011 we kept the theatre open, organized the cultural program, promoted meetings and co working sessions with many theatrical, academic and scientific institutions on a national and international level, supported and enhanced the fights for commons on a national spread level. *NATIONAL RELATIONS: THE NETWORK* After the Cinema Palazzo and the Valle, the occupy culture movement increased and became contagious, il Teatro Marinoni, the Coppola Theatre of Catania, the Garibaldi Theatre, the collective of the Balena of Naples with the Asilo della creatività e della conoscenza. Macao in Milan and the already existing S.A.L.E. Docks in Venice, are all experimenting innovative models of daily bottom up productions. *INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS* We had the support of prestigious European institutions such as the union of the Greek artists, the Schaubühne Berlin, the Royal Court in London, the Theatre du Soleil Arianne Mnouchkine, the Theatres of Europe, the Berlin Biennale. We are working continuously with cultural institutes in Italy such as the French Academy of Villa Medici and the Swiss Institute of Culture, we are collaborating with, among the others, with the Goethe Institut and we are part of international networks such as European Alternatives. [image: perfMTS] 15 Rue Haute 02820 St. Erme Outre et Ramecourt France Subscribe <http://www.perfmts.net/subscribe.asp> Unsubscribe<http://3an.r.mailjet.com/unsub?hl=en&a=3Bkg2i&b=1f3ca5bb&email=michelsub200…> Contact us <http://www.perfmts.net/contact.asp> -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [gtm] Solvabilité réelle des banques systémiques mondiales
by Michel Bauwens 04 Jun '13

04 Jun '13

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: 2013/6/4 Subject: Fwd: [gtm] Solvabilité réelle des banques systémiques mondiales To: econowmix(a)googlegroups.com in french : http://www.les-crises.fr/solvabilite-banques-systemiques/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Houben P Date: 2013/6/4 Subject: [gtm] Solvabilité réelle des banques systémiques mondiales To: GT MONNAIE <gtmonnaie(a)lists.cassiopea.org> Bonjour, Je ne sais s'il existe encore du monde sur cette liste. Dans le doute voici un article très intéressant issu de l'excellent site http://www.les-crises.fr/ Bonne lecture Patrick Solvabilité réelle des banques systémiques mondiales Suite de notre série sur les banques, après le billet sur la pondération des actifs <http://www.les-crises.fr/ponderation-actifs-bancaires/> que je vous recommande de lire avant celui-ci. Les banques systémiques Le G20 a dressé en 2011 une liste des banques<http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/publications/r_111104bb.pdf>qu’il considérait comme systémiques – à savoir des banques dont la faillite pouvait causer d’énormes dommages au système bancaire mondial : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/01-si…> Avec BNP, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole et BPCE + Dexia, la France était bien représentée… En 2012, la liste a été remise à jour<http://www.financialstabilityboard.org/publications/r_121031ac.pdf>, avec un classement des banques les plus problématiques : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/02-si…> Nous allons ici les étudier plus en détail. Les normes comptables Quelques sites internet réalisent périodiquement un classement de ces banques par taille de bilan ou par solvabilité. Ils montrent souvent que les banques américaines sont bien plus solvables que les autres. C’est en fait totalement erroné. *En effet, il n’est pas possible de comparer directement les banques entre elle*s, car elles n’utilisent pas les mêmes normes comptables, ce qui a de lourdes conséquences, en particulier sur les produits dérivés. Simplifions un exemple pour comprendre le problème (oui, c’est fictif, c’est juste pour illustrer le principe…). Supposons qu’un trader de la Société Générale ait vendu un contrat à BPCE pour 500 €, qui consiste à ce que la Société Générale lui donne 1 000 € si le yen baisse de plus de 5 % d’ici 3 mois. Supposons qu’un autre trader de la Société Générale ait acheté un contrat au Crédit Agricole pour 505 €, qui consiste à ce que le Crédit Agricole lui donne 1 000 € si le yen monte ou baisse de moins de 5 % d’ici 3 mois. Rappelons qu’on l’espèce les 1 000 € sont le montant notionnel des contrats (la base du “pari”). Les flux sont donc de 500 et 505 €. Dans les normes européennes (et mondiales) IFRS, on va comptabiliser 505 à l’actif et 500 au passif. Dans les normes américaines, on va faire un “netting” (compensation), et ne retenir que la différence, donc compter uniquement 5 à l’actif. Si vous trouvez ça normal, demander vous ce qu’il va se passer si le yen monte de 15 % et si le Crédit Agricole fait alors faillite… Bref, les normes américaines diminuent énormément la taille de l’actif – vu que les volumes des produits dérivés sont très élevés. Illustration avec JP Morgan : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0153-ponderation/41-jpm-1.jpg> Le bilan indique que les produits dérivés représentent 75 Md$ sur les 2 359 Md$ de l’actif total. Ce qui semble faible – chez BNP Paribas c’est 411 Md€ sur 1 907 Md€. Mais quand on creuse, on trouve le montant avant netting : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0153-ponderation/42-jpm-2.jpg> 1 662 Md$ au lieu de 75 Md$ – une paille ! Il faut donc réintégrer 1 587 Md$ à l’actif pour pouvoir comparer avec les banques européennes… Idem pour Morgan Stanley par exemple : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0153-ponderation/45-ms-1.jpg> Les dérivés représentent *36 Md$* sur 781 Md$ en normes américaine, mais le vrai chiffre est de : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0153-ponderation/46-ms-2.jpg> 1 004 Md$ sur 1 749 Md$ (781 + 1004 – 36) – cela change un peu… Dernier exemple, Deutsche Bank, qui publie aussi ses comptes en normes américaines – et va nous renvoyer en prime sur le problème de la pondération des actifs, étudié précédemment<http://www.les-crises.fr/ponderation-actifs-bancaires/>: <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0153-ponderation/51-db-rwa-1.j…> <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0153-ponderation/52-db-rwa-2.j…> On ne rêve pas : on part d’un bilan en norme européenne de 2 012 Md€. On réalise un netting, et magie, on arrive à 1 199 Md€ de bilan en norme américaine. On pondère joyeusement ce bilan par les risques, et zou, on arrive à… 334 Md€ pour établir le ratio de liquidité. On a 56,5 Md€ de capital, dont 51 Md€ dit de “Tier 1″ (le plus solide). Et donc un ratio de solvabilité Bâle 3 de : *15,3 %*, = 51/334 ! Bon, le vrai ratio est donc plutôt de *2,5 %* = 51 / 2012, mais shuuuuuuuut… Le bilan Voici donc un travail exceptionnel (merci à Surya !) : le bilan des 28 banques systémiques mondiales, corrigé pour être proche d’un bilan en normes européennes. L’actif et les fonds propres sont également retravaillés pour ne conserver que les valeurs tangibles, les plus solides (évacuation des écarts d’amortissement / goodwills, des actifs incorporels…, pour retrouver une “valeur à la casse”) : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/06-ba…> Voici leur classement par la taille de l’actif dur, en norme IFRS reconstituée : [image: banques systemiques mondiales classement]<http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/08-ac…> Le classement en fonction de la solvabilité On peut calculer le pourcentage de couverture de l’actif par les fonds propres et son inverse, le levier. Ainsi, Crédit Agricole SA n’a que 21 Md€ de fonds propres durs pour 1 824 Md€ d’actif dur, soit* 1,2 %*. Rappelons que l’OCDE a réalisé la même recommandation que la banque centrale d’Angleterre, à savoir d’utiliser ce ratio (plutôt que le ratio pondéré), *en visant un niveau de 5 %*, comme vous avez pu le lire sur ce blog <http://www.les-crises.fr/separer-pour-renforcer/>. Voici donc le classement : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/11-cl…> Pas très glorieux… Voici la synthèse par pays : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/12-ra…> Cocorico : nous avons donc les banques les moins capitalisées du monde ! Il leur faudrait en moyenne presque doubler leurs capitaux propres pour être dans les clous de la recommandation OCDE… Voici d’ailleurs les résultats d’une étude OCDE de fin 2012, qui vise à déterminer le besoin en fonds propres pour arriver à cet objectif, exprimé en % du PIB : <http://www.les-crises.fr/images/0100-banques/0154-banques-systemiques/31-re…> Flûte, on manque la première marche du podium [image: :(] . Il ne nous manque “que” *7,4 % du PIB* pour arriver au niveau requis – soit 150 Md€ quand même… Bien évidemment, laissées à elles-mêmes, les banques ne vont pas se recapitaliser autant : elles vont plutôt tenter de diminuer leurs bilans, et donc aussi le niveau des prêts qu’elles accordent. Alors qu’il faudrait les obliger à fermer plutôt une partie du casino, qui ne sert presque à rien pour l’économie réelle (on s’en passait parfaitement il y a 15 ans !). NB : *NOS BANQUES SONT EN FAIT TRÈS ”PAUVRES”* (bien que relativement rentables). Comme elles ont très peu de capitaux propres, il est bien évident qu’elles parient très peu avec (car le volume est petit et car ce serait trop dangereux pour elles). Seuls les ignorants de ce sujet s’étonneront donc que, quand le projet de non-séparation des activités bancaires leur demande filialiser leur trading pour compte propre, les banques indiquent que cela représentent moins de 1 % de l’activité (ce qui les ferait jouer spéculer avec le tiers de leurs capitaux propres, ce qui laisse penser que le chiffre est encore bien exagéré). *Bref, le projet de loi gouvernemental est bien une escroquerie, demandant de filialiser une activité qui n’existe presque pas.* Suite dans le prochain billet<http://www.les-crises.fr/derives-banques-systemiques/> … Source : http://www.les-crises.fr/solvabilite-banques-systemiques/ -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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