November 2014 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: intrviews
by Michel Bauwens 23 Nov '14

23 Nov '14

greek interviews on p2p matters ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: George Papanikolaou <georgepapani(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 1:56 AM Subject: intrviews To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> Kathimerini http://www.kathimerini.gr/792111/article/proswpa/synentey3eis/ekdhmokratism… Efimerida ton sintakton http://www.efsyn.gr/arthro/i-theoria-ton-omotimon-diktyon-einai-neo-montelo… Avgi http://www.avgi.gr/article/4863155/misel-mpaouens-anoixtoi-sunetairismoi-gi… George -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy-Announcement
by Michel Bauwens 23 Nov '14

23 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ciriec - Christine Dussart <apce.ciriec(a)guest.ulg.ac.be> Date: Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 11:26 PM Subject: 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy-Announcement To: [image: cid:[email protected]] Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce the launch of the website and the call for papers of the 5th International Research Conference on Social Economy co-organized by CIRIEC-Portugal and CIRIEC International (July 15-18, 2015) on the topic "Social economy in a globalized world”. After the huge success of the first editions of these conferences, we once more rely on your contribution. All information can be found on the conference website: www.ciriec2015.com. The call is available here: www.mundiconvenius.pt/eventos/2015/ciriec2015/themes.htm. Submission is online only ( www.mundiconvenius.pt/eventos/2015/ciriec2015/submission.htm) before deadline December, 20. Thanks for disseminating this call among your own circles. Best regards. CIRIEC Portugal and CIRIEC International *CIRIEC* Université de Liège au Sart-Tilman, Bât B33, bte6 - B-4000 Liège - Belgium tél: 0032-4-366-27-82 ; fax: 0032-4-366-29-58 *www.ciriec.ulg.ac.be* <http://www.ciriec.ulg.ac.be/> -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: [Networkedlabour] New article by Paolo Gerbaudo on the political revolt in Europe
by Michel Bauwens 23 Nov '14

23 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Orsan Senalp <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 2:51 PM Subject: [Networkedlabour] New article by Paolo Gerbaudo on the political revolt in Europe To: networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org, squares < squares(a)lists.takethesquare.net> ... Amid a worsening economic crisis, a look at the protest movements that are struggling against austerity could be described as a two-speed.Europe An expression abused by economists and political scientists talking about the different levels of economic productivity and political integration of European countries, it also captures well the distance between countries where protest movements have won the approval of a majority of the population, and others where they continue to be in the minority. On the one hand there are Spain and Greece, which since 2011 have seen an impressive citizen mobilization and in which the force of the movement is blowing wind in the sails of Left parties, like the new-born Podemos in Spain and the remodeled SYRIZA in Greece, which are now in for a chance of government. On the other hand there are a number of countries such as Italy, Germany, France and Great Britain, where the protests against austerity are far from representing the majority support that has been secured by the*indignados* in Spain and the *aganaktismenoi* in Greece. Spain has undoubtedly been leading Europe in the social movements stakes in recent years. Since the birth of the *indignados* in May 2011, the country has experienced a high level of protests. From the “citizen tides” against government cuts to the campaigns against housing evictions, to a flourishing of associations, alternative media and grassroots legal campaigns against corrupt politicians. It is in this context of the awesome strength of social movements that we have to read the spectacular growth of Podemos, now the no. 1 party according to the opinion polls, as well as the development of local initiatives such as Ganemos in Madrid, Guanyem in Barcelona, participatory civic lists, through which movements directly seek local government power, without the mediation of any party. Greece follows close behind. After the occupations by the aganaktismenoi (“outraged” in Greek), the country has seen the emergence of various protest actions against cuts to public spending, new forms of local associations, campaigns of solidarity with migrants and factory occupations. The relationship of the movement with SYRIZA is more problematic than that of the indignados with Podemos, as SYRIZA is more classic party, more bureaucratic. But even in this case the reason for the electoral growth of Alexis Tsipras’ party, likely to win early elections in 2015, is the result of broad consensus that the movements have been able to create in a country massacred by austerity policies. Far behind are all other European countries, where the “movement of the squares” were killed in the cradle, as happened in Italy with the debacle of October 15, 2011 <http://strugglesinitaly.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/occupy-rome-the-day-after/,> or have made little impact, as in Great Britain, where the Occupy movement was much weaker than the US cousin. To be sure, signs of activity in these countries are not lacking. In Italy, the strength of the movement for housing, the large turnout for in the the CGIL protest on 25 October and in the strike on November 14, offer some hope. In Germany, Blockupy, a group that has launched several protests against the European Central Bank promises to spoil the party for the opening of the new headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. In Britain, the People’s Assembly in recent years has reconstructed the left front against austerity. In France, the “classic country of the class struggle,” according to Marx, has in recent years witnessed major protests like the one in 2006 against the European Constitution, but the movement against the economic crisis has proved to be surprisingly weak, although in recent days we have seen union mobilization targeted against budget cuts ordered by a deeply disappointing Socialist President Francois Hollande. What is still missing in these countries, even in those where the protest movements seem to be more active, is the spirit of the people, in a positive populist meaning, something which allowed the movements in Spain and Greece to win the approval of a majority of the population and create the basis for a conquest of state power. Instead of innovating practice and language in order to capitalize on the growing dissent of large segments of the population, we continue to cling to tradition, as if 2011 and the Occupy movement never happened. Or we resort to the antagonist political tactics adopted by the anti-globalization movement or we stick to the traditional union procession. Practices that mobilize different sectors of the organized left, be it independent or institutional, but that are unable to reach mass of unorganized and unrepresented, the impoverished middle and working class, the new poor that dot the landscape of the great recession, and could become the basis of consensus for the Right. The reasons for this movement in Europe of two speeds are varied. Spain and Greece, the leading countries for the anti-austerity movement, are not surprisingly also the the ones where the social effects of the crisis have been felt more explosively, with a quarter of the population and half of young people out of work. In other countries, the effects of the crisis have been experienced in more slowly and moderately, either because the impact has been cushioned by a more generous welfare state like France and Britain, or due to a better economic situation such as in Germany, or because household savings have been used to temporarily limit social problems, such as Italy. However, the gap between Spain and Greece and the rest also has to do with political and cultural issues. In Italy the burdensome presence of groups inherited from the anti-globalization movement is one of the factors has hindered the emergence of a indignados-style movement. But to move from a defensive attitude to ambitious majority, in Italy as in other countries, there lacked a resource that is at the basis of the birth of the i *ndignados* in Spain and in the *aganaktismenoi* in Greece. It’s one thing summed up the ambivalent Spanish word ‘ilusion’, often used by Iberian activists to explain the spirit of the recent protests; it means at the same time “illusion” and “enthusiasm” for the things to come. It is this that we need to defeat the resignation and invent new forms of protest at times of economic and social hardship. Il Manifesto <http://ilmanifesto.info/indignados-continentali-a-doppia-velocita/> _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: Invitación - Presentación del libro de Carlos Hoevel: "La Economía del Reconocimiento"
by Michel Bauwens 22 Nov '14

22 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Carolina Szmidt <carolina_szmidt(a)uca.edu.ar> Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 3:07 AM Subject: Invitación - Presentación del libro de Carlos Hoevel: "La Economía del Reconocimiento" To: -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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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Call: 5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory.
by Christian Fuchs 21 Nov '14

21 Nov '14

5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory. http://icts-and-society.net/events/5th-icts-and-society-conference/ Part of the ISIS Summit Vienna 2015: Information Society at the Crossroads: Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information. Vienna University of Technology. Vienna, Austria June 3-7, 2015. The information society has come with the promise to restore information as a commons. The promise has not yet proven true. Instead, we face trends towards the commercialisation and commoditisation of all information; towards the totalisation of surveillance and the extension of the battlefield to civil society through information warfare; towards disinfotainment overflow; towards a collapse of the technological civilisation itself. The Vienna Summit is a multi-conference and is at the same time the 5th ICTs and Society-Conference: The Internet and Social Media at a Crossroads: Capitalism or Commonism? Perspectives for Critical Political Economy and Critical Theory. Given that the information society and the study of information face a world of crisis today and are at a crossroads, also the future of the Internet and social media are in question. The 5th ICTs and Society Conference therefore wants to focus on the questions: What are the main challenges that the Internet and social media are facing in capitalism today? What potentials for an alternative, commonist Internet are there? What are existing hindrances for such an Internet? What is the relationship of power structures, protest movements, societal developments, struggles, radical reforms, etc. to the Internet? How can critical political economy and critical theory best study the Internet and social media today? Presentations and submissions are organised in the form of 23 panel topics (ICT&S1-ICT&S23; please indicate the panel identification number to which you submit in your submisison): * ICT&S1 The Internet and Critical Theory: What does it mean to study the Internet, social media and society today in a critical way? What are Critical Internet Studies, Critical Political Economy and Critical Theories of Social Media? * ICT&S2 The Internet, Karl Marx, and Marxist Theory: How can classical forms of critical theory and critical political economy – e.g. the works of e.g. Karl Marx, the Frankfurt School, Critical Political Economy of the Media and Communication, Critical and Marxist Cultural Studies, Socialist Feminism, Theories of Imperialism, Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism, etc – be used for understanding the Internet and social media today? * ICT&S3 The Internet, Commodities and Capitalism: What is the role of the Internet and social media in the context of the commodity logic in contemporary capitalism? * ICT&S4 The Political Economy of Online Advertising How can we best critically understand, analyse and combat the role of advertising on the Internet and the role of online advertising in capitalism? What are the problems of online advertising culture? How would a world without advertising and an advertising-free Internet look like? * ICT&S5 The Internet and Power: How do power structures, exploitation, domination, class, digital labour, commodification of the communication commons, ideology, and audience/user commodification, and surveillance shape the Internet and social media? What is the relationship of exploitation and domination on the Internet? * ICT&S6 Raymond Williams’ Cultural Materialism and the Internet: How can we use theoretical insights from Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism for critically understanding the Internet and social media today? * ICT&S7 Dallas Smythe and the Internet: How can we use insights from Dallas Smythe’s political economy of communication for critically understanding the Internet and social media today? * ICT&S8 Critical Cultural Studies Today: Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart and the Internet: What is the legacy of Stuart Hall and Richard Hoggart’s versions of cultural studies for critically understanding the Internet? What kind of cultural studies do we need in the 21st century? And what is in this context the relationship of culture and capitalism and the relationship of critical cultural studies to Marxist theory? * ICT&S9 The Frankfurt School and the Internet: How can insights of various generations of the Frankfurt School be used for critically theorising the Internet? What are commonalities and differences between a Frankfurt School approach and other forms of critical theory for understanding the Internet? * ICT&S10 Marxist Semiotics, Marxist Linguistics, Critical Psychology, Marxism and the Internet: How can Marxist semiotics and Marxist theories of language, information, psychology and communication (e.g. Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Valentin Voloshinov, Klaus Holzkamp, Georg Klaus, Lev Vygotsky, Aleksei Leontiev, Mikhail Bakhtin, etc.) be used today for critically understanding the Internet? * ICT&S11 The Internet and Global Capitalism: What is the role of the Internet and social media in contemporary global capitalism? What is the role of developing countries, especially Africa, and emerging economies such as China and India in the world of the Internet and social media? * ICT&S12 The Internet and Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics: Chinese WWW platforms such as Baidu, Taobao, Qq, Sina, Weibo, etc. are besides Californian platforms the most prominent ones on the web. What is the role of social media in Chinese capitalism? What is the role of the Internet in networked working class struggles in China? * ICT&S13 The Political Economy of Digital Labour: What is digital labour and how do exploitation and surplus-value generation work on the Internet? Which forms of exploitation and class structuration do we find on the Internet, how do they work, what are their commonalities and differences? How does the relation between toil and play change in a digital world? How do classes and class struggles look like in 21st century informational capitalism? * ICT&S14 The Political Economy of the Internet and the Capitalist State Today: How does the relationship of capitalism, state power, and the Internet look like today? What is the role of state surveillance and surveillance ideologies in policing the crisis of capitalism? How does the relationship of the Internet and state power’s various forms of regulation, control, repression, violence and surveillance look like and what is the influence of capitalism on state power and vice versa in the context of the Internet? * ICT&S15 Ideology Critique 2.0: Ideologies of and on the Internet: What are ideologies of and on the Internet, web 2.0, and social media, how do they work, and how can they be deconstructed and criticised? * ICT&S16 Hegel 2.0: Dialectical Philosophy and the Internet: What contradictions, conflicts, ambiguities, and dialectics shape 21st century information society and social media? How can we use Hegel and Marxist interpretations of Hegel for critically understanding Internet dialectics? * ICT&S17 Capitalism and Open Access Publishing: What changes has academic publishing been undergoing in contemporary capitalism? What are the potentials of academic open access publishing for the re-organisation of the publishing world ? What problems do non-commercial open access publishing face in capitalism and capitalist academia? How can these problems be overcome? What are the problems of capitalist forms of open access publishing? What progressive political measures and demands should be made in order to foster non-commercial open access publishing? * ICT&S18 Class Struggles, Social Struggles and the Internet: What is the role of counter-power, resistance, struggles, social movements, civil society, rebellions, uproars, riots, revolutions, and political transformations in 21st century information society and how (if at all) are they connected to social media? What struggles are needed in order to establish a commonist Internet and a 21st century democratic-commonist society? How can we use critical theory for interpreting phenomena such as online leaking, Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks, Wikipedia, federated social networks, Anonymous, hacktivism, Pirate Parties, privacy advocates, the free/libre/open source (FLOSS) movement, the open source, open hardware and open content movement, etc., and what is the relationships of such political expressions to capitalism, anti-capitalism, liberalism, and socialism? * ICT&S19 Critical/Radical Internet Studies, the University and Academia Today: What are the challenges and problems for teaching and conducting research about the Internet a critical and radical perspective? What can be done to overcome existing limits and problems? * ICT&S20 The Internet and the Left: How could a 21st century Left best look like and what is the role of the Internet for such a Left? What is the historical, contemporary, and possible future relationship of Critical Internet Studies and the Left? What is the role of the Internet in left-wing movements? What problems do such movements face in relation to the media, communications, the Internet, and social media? * ICT&S21 Anti-Capitalist Feminism and the Internet Today: What is the role of and relationship of identity politics and anti-capitalism for feminist studies of the Internet today? How can we best study capitalist patriarchy in the context of the Internet and social media? * ICT&S22 The Internet, Right-Wing Extremism and Fascism Today: How do far-right movements and parties use the Internet and social media? How should a left-wing anti-fascist strategy that combats online right-wing extremism look like? * ICT&S23 An Alternative Internet: What is a commonist/communist Internet? What is an alternative Internet? What are alternative social media? How do they relate to the commons and commonism as a 21st century form of communism? Which problems do alternative Internet platforms face? What needs to be done in order to overcome these problems? Online SUBMISSION: http://sciforum.net/conference/isis-summit-vienna-2015/icts http://sciforum.net/conference/isis-summit-vienna-2015/page/instructions Please submit an extended abstract of 750-2000 words: First register and then select the conference “ISIS Summit Vienna 2015” and the conference stream “ICTS 2015” Only one submission per person will be considered Please indicate the number/ID of the panel to which you are submitting at the start of your abstract (ICTSxx). Submissions without panel identifier or that fall outside the topics covered by the 23 panels will not be further considered. Submission deadline: February 27, 2015 Registration Fee: 120 Euros (early bird registration in the ICTs and Society conference stream, registration no later than April 3, 2015)

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Fwd: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: <nettime> The Creative Question--Nine Theses
by Michel Bauwens 21 Nov '14

21 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Orsan <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 5:27 AM Subject: [Networkedlabour] Fwd: <nettime> The Creative Question--Nine Theses To: "<networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org>" < networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org> Apologies if sent it before! Begin forwarded message: *Resent-From:* nettime(a)kein.org *From:* Geert Lovink <geert(a)xs4all.nl> *Date:* 20 november 2014 07:46:28 CET *Resent-To:* Nettime <nettime-l(a)kein.org> *To:* nettime-l(a)kein.org *Subject:* *<nettime> The Creative Question--Nine Theses* On the Creative Question ??? Nine Theses By Geert Lovink, Sebastian Olma and Ned Rossiter (written for the #2 MyCreativity Sweatshop conference, organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, November 20-21, 2014: http://networkcultures.org/mycreativity/2-mycreativity/) ???Culture attracts the worst impulses of the moneyed, it has no honor, it begs to be suburbanized and corrupted???. ??? Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge ???We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars???. ??? Oscar Wilde 1. Goodbye to Creative Industries A creepy discourse on creativity has captured cultural and economic policy. Creativity invokes a certain pharmacological numbness among its spruikers ??? a special sub-species entirely unaware of how far removed their version of creativity is from radical invention and social transformation. Their claims around the science of economy are little more than a shoddy con. While ???creativity??? is increasingly seen as a main driver of economic development, the permanent reference to creative classes, creative cities, creative industries, creative innovations and so on has rendered the notion all but meaningless. Degraded to a commercial and political marketing tool, the semantic content of creativity has been reduced to an insipid spread of happy homogeneity ??? including the right amount of TED-styled fringe misfits and subcultures ??? that can be bureaucratically regulated and ???valorized???. To this rhetoric corresponds a catalogue of ???sectors??? and ???clusters??? labelled as crea tive industries: a radically disciplined and ordered subdomain of the economy, a domesticated creative commons where ???innovators??? and ???creatives??? harmoniously co-mingle and develop their auto-predictive ???disruptions??? of self-quantification, sharing and gamification. Conflict is anathema to the delicate sensibilities of personas trading in creative consultancy. 2. Welcome to the Creative Question The creative question has replaced the social question. In the 20th century the consequences and problems of industrial capitalism found a temporary solution in the class compromise of the welfare state. In digital capitalism we have to address the social question in terms of the creative question: what is today???s source of value and who owns it? We need to turn the pompous, meaningless chatter on creativity into a debate on how to come out on the positive side of the digital pharmakon (the nuanced combination of all things good and evil). To those who tell you ???how we are going to live twenty years from now???, shout them down with ideas of how you want to live in twenty years! 3. Creativity without Abundance We hear so much about the supposed ???economy of abundance??? in the age of its digital reproducibility. Yet such abundance remains a phantom as long as it is a surplus for the final few. We need to talk about the redistribution of abundance. Piketty has to be updated for the internet age. We urgently need to get a better understanding of how ???extreme inequality??? translates into digital culture. The question here is no one of ???selling out???. The new cultures of decentralized networks have turned into an Bataillian orgy of generosity: a ???sharing-by-default-economy??? where the gift has lost its power of social reciprocity. Today, the economy is no longer based on abundance or redistribution of (common) wealth. Instead, there is a ???winner takes all??? logic exacerbated by the speed of implementation and scaling. 4. Industry without Investment Overall, capital has withdrawn from the creative sectors. This, despite the predominance of the economy within the work of creativity. Creative industries were all set to enter an economy of indistinction: the arts were supposed to be no different from mining, agriculture or car manufacturing. Except this didn???t happen. Though the factory did, and so the cognitariat march on. With the withdrawal of public money the sector suffered from overall disinvestment. Investments were never made, and perhaps never will be due to the prevailing Ideology of the Free. But what???s our critique beyond this banal observation of increasingly shrinking opportunities? Gentrification? We know that???s a key part of the story. Pumping bucks into infrastructure to support innovation? That still goes on in the IT sector. But artists aren???t part of that world. Instead they migrate to ???maker culture??? ??? an economy entirely hooked into ???supply chain capitalism??? (Tsing), as much as hipsters prefe r the axiom of ???authenticity???. It is the old undercover story: artists can only participate if they reinvent themselves and morph into another role. 5. There is no Creative Ecology Creative industries policy started with the ambition of setting up creative ecologies where ideas and innovation can be born, mature and thrive. However, these creative ecologies rarely materialize beyond the one-off success story. The massive invention of new business models for artists and cultural producers has not yet happened. As soon as original concepts were ???hatched???, these creative ideas took flight to the highest bidder. In the digital real-time economy, prototype practices are left naked and abandoned, without the means to develop an auto-immune system to protect against the predatory speed of vulture capitalism. How, then, to proliferate the concept so that it holds a transformative effect in ways that refuse accountability? Memes, remixes and viral culture are now so well established within the repertoire of dispersal that they???ve become mainstreamed into oblivion. Shadow worlds without PRISM staring down your most radical gesture are now on the agenda. Invert the Right to Forget and we get a memory that cannot be contained. Storage without a trace is a key strategy for practices of anonymity and a commons beyond expropriation. USB libraries, blue-tooth networks, off-the-grid computing ??? these are just some of the options that register radical practice outside the stack. 6. Shadow and Time We suggest two principles here: shadow and time. Shadow is an unintended consequence, an event vacuum, which remains invisible for passers-by. It does not register on the development maps of the managerial class. Time is needed in order for the substantially different to grow. Maturation, which is creative growth, requires time. Don???t be afraid of the cycle. Who???s afraid of the longue dur??e? The time of creativity is that of idleness and procrastination, indeed otium. This turns out to be the opposite of frantic entrepreneurship and instant valorization. This is why creative industries policy can only propose fixed formats and known concepts: template capitalism. Maker labs, with their standard 3D printers and software, can only produce more of the same. Open source is not the solution to this problem. Neither is it sufficient to place the wild, weird boh??me at the helm. 7. Sharing without Caring Right now there is a structural dissonance between the wonderful ideas of our creatives and their social and economic efficacy. The lack of creative ecology means that today???s great idea for a better society turns into tomorrow???s unemployed taxi drivers and homeless city dwellers. Welcome to platform monopoly capitalism. Groupon, AirBNB, Uber, MyWheels and countless others. Here, we do not witness so much a gross violation of the rules of appropriation as an attempt to reshape existing economic activities and drive labour to its bones: a disruption without a cause. Let???s not delude ourselves: we are not sharing anything when we rate the last wretched soul who gave us a cheap lift with his Uber cab. We do not share anything when we drive a Hertz or Avis rental car (except our likes). Sharing only happens in the absence of market transactions. And it doesn???t have to ???scale???. This begs the question: can we still speak of creative industries, which in Europe???s policy world (and beyond) rests on the economization of culture? Everyone is keenly aware of the fact that Creative Industries as a policy meme has passed its use-by date. This is why we need to warn ourselves: changing labels will not help us much. This makes deconstruction of the term by itself into such an impotent gesture. The problem of economy, of life, of invention persist no matter what the paradigm. 8. Save Our Social Innovation ???Social innovation??? is a great buzzword in the global consultancy class. In spite of its rhetoric, it means imposing innovation through market and semi-marketization mechanisms. Design thinking is hauled in to solve problems that the existing political class is unable to deal with. Concept maps are drawn, emptied of aesthetics. Social innovation is not so much a class war instrument to destroy rebellious militants but rather a smoke screen, a theatre play. It amounts to ???social solutionism??? ??? a Baudrillardian performance in which the signifiers are no longer autonomous, living entities but have progressed into diligent workers exhausting themselves in fervent gymnastics of simulated salvation. We should not think of Artaud or Beckett, but rather of a bureaucratic variation of a reality TV show featuring best practice examples as positive change heroes. Instead of this performative project focus on processual management we should celebrate the mystery of the social as event. 9. Creative Political Recovery Let???s conclude that the market cannot respond effectively to the challenges presented by the Creative Question. Substituting democratic politics with collaborative design solutions exacerbates the problems. Taking ???social innovation??? seriously means to think about the design of non-scalable communities, creative save-havens and post-digital makers. These are emphatically political challenges. Circumventing politics by way of social design is a dead-end. It repeats the technocratic mistakes that have lead to the incapacitation of politics in the first place. To regain efficacy requires a shift into high risk politics, a politics that has the guts to take decisions about our injured future. No more matching. No more outsourcing of liabilities to third parties. We need a creative political recovery that dreams up new organizational forms able to confront the Creative Question. # 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 _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: [Networkedlabour] PRISON WRITINGS I The Roots of Civilisation Abdullah Ocalan
by Michel Bauwens 21 Nov '14

21 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Orsan <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 5:32 PM Subject: [Networkedlabour] PRISON WRITINGS I The Roots of Civilisation Abdullah Ocalan To: "<networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org>" < networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org> PRISON WRITINGS I The Roots of Civilisation Abdullah Ocalan, translated by Klaus Happel *PLUTO PRESS* <http://www.plutobooks.com/cgi-local/nplutobrows.pl?chkisbn=0745326153A&main…> ISBN: 9780745326160 Hardcover Price: £25.00 / $40.00 / €37.00 Publication Date: January 2007 Pages: 320pp Size: ROYAL (230x150mm) buy at *amazon.co.uk* <http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Writings-Civilisation-Abdullah-Ocalan/dp/074…> - *amazon.com* <http://www.amazon.com/Prison-Writings-Civilisation-Abdullah-Ocalan/dp/07453…> *Reviews <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#reviews>* *Extracts <http://ocalan-books.com/english/extracts.html>* *Author Details <http://ocalan-books.com/english/author.html>* *Deutsche Bücher <http://ocalan-books.com/english/deutsch/index.html>* [image: Prison Writings I: The Roots of Civilisation] <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html> [image: Prison Writings II: The PKK and the Kurdish Question in the 21st Century] <http://ocalan-books.com/english/pkk-and-the-kurdish-question.html> [image: Prison Writings III: The Road Map to Negotiations] <http://ocalan-books.com/english/road-map-to-negotiations.html> *Description* Abdullah Ocalan was the most wanted man in Turkey for almost two decades until his kidnapping and arrest in 1999. He has been in prison ever since. He is the founder of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). From 1984, under his leadership, the PKK fought for an independent Kurdish state in the south east of Turkey. In a sustained popular uprising, tens of thousands of PKK guerrillas took on the second largest army in NATO. Since his imprisonment, Ocalan has written extensively on Kurdish history. This book brings together his writings for the first time. Breathtaking in scope, it provides a broad Marxist perspective on ancient Middle Eastern history, incorporating the rise of the major religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism), and defining the Kurdish position within this, from the ancient Sumerian civilization through the feudal age, the birth of capitalism and beyond. *Reviews and opinions* 'Very readable. It is a tour-de-force.' *Ghada Talhami, D.K. Pearsons Professor of Politics, Lake Forest College, Illinois* ------------------------------ 'We would expect Abdullah Öcalan to write a political treatise. Instead, he has penned a monumental history of the ancient Near East that offers a grand vision. His well-informed and highly original synthesis has the additional advantage of transcending academic fields. This is the first truly postcolonial history of Mesopotamia.' *Randall H. McGuire, Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University, New York* ------------------------------ 'Abdullah Ocalan has written an extremely important book which everyone concerned with the politics of the Middle East, the Kurdish question, ancient history or socialist ideas should read and digest. Whatever the view taken of his previous stance as a guerrilla leader, his erudite and thought-provoking thesis is of outstanding interest and I recommend it without reservation.'* (Full review...)* <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#newens> *Stan Newens, former MP and MEP, United Kingdom.* ------------------------------ 'It can be read with profit by anyone who seeks to forge a modern secular future of peace and progress for the Middle East built upon the best offered by previous world civilizations.' *(Full review...)* <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#gunther> *Michael M. Gunther, Professor of political science, Tennessee Technological University, USA* ------------------------------ 'While it is about terrorism or global violence more broadly, it is a radical departure from most interpretations on the subject because of its attention to the long-term, cultural and material roots of the problem in a Gramscian mould. The book will be indispensable for educators and concerned citizens attempting to understand political violence.' *(Full review...)* <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#baron> *Tamir Bar-On, Professor of Humanities and International Relations, Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Mexico* ------------------------------ *Stan Newens* Abdullah Ocalan was the leader of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which conducted a guerrilla war from 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent Kurdish state in south-east Turkey. In February 1999, he was kidnapped on the way to Nairobi airport and taken back to Turkey, where he was tried and sentenced to death, although the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In prison on the Turkish island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara, he has produced, as part of a submission to the European Court of Human Rights, a volume which is an analysis of the history of civilisation centred, in particular, on the Middle East. Although his approach is essentially Marxist, he rejects economic determinism as the basis for his interpretation of history and places great importance on ideology. This is reminiscent of the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci, who also produced important theoretical work while in prison. Ocalan regards the palaeolithic period of history, which covered 98 per cent of humanity's existence on earth, as having been brought to an end by the neolithic revolution, based upon better tools, the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. The essential counterpart to these technological changes was the development of primitive patterns of social behaviour such as fetishism, animism, totemism, matrilineal kinship, patriarchy, and so on. The next technological revolution led to an oriental slave society. This was based on the use of bronze and the building of settlements which eventually became cities, initially on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, before 3000 BC; in ancient Sumer. A vital feature of this revolution was the development by priests of a new ideology comprising a new religion and a new mythology. This was required to transform the mental outlook of the new settlers from one based on kinship and tribal freedoms to a submissive mindset in which slavery and inferiority were accepted. Citizens of Sumer were persuaded to accept subordination to a 'divine order' which reflected and demanded obedience to gods who, in effect, decreed a slave society. The priests established an ideological hegemony over the new urban settlements by this means. Any challenge to this took a religious form. It was the will of alternative gods, monotheism or the advent of a messiah or redeemer which provided an ideological cover for a revolt, or even an invasion, from outside to overthrow a ruling élite. Slave society with specific local features also developed in Egypt and the Indus Valley in the Indian sub-continent, and religious rituals and beliefs came into existence to create an acceptance of their structures. Elsewhere, other less advanced peoples went through the neolithic revolution before developing their own slave societies which were different in form though they embodied the same fundamentals as those to be found in Sumer. Greco-Roman societies did not have as rigid a religious structure as Mesopotamia or Egypt and, here, philosophical ideologies emerged. Christianity and Islam both challenged slave society and provided the ideological counterpart to changes in the mode of production which led to the emergence of feudalism. Feudal society was basically concerned with land and land holdings, but it was dominated by religion. Capitalism in its turn emerged through the introduction of new technologies and the scientific method, but it was accompanied by a successful ideological challenge to feudal religious dogma. In Europe this took shape as the Renaissance, followed by the Reformation, which led on to humanism, the enlightenment, individualism and secularisation. Ocalan's view is that the Middle East failed to undergo an equivalent change. He believes it is in desperate need of its own Renaissance or Reformation, leading to the adoption of individual rights, secularisation, women's rights, pluralism and democracy. Only then can it advance. He is committed to a socialist transition of society worldwide, but argues that this cannot be achieved by means of revolutionary violence or the establishment of a totalitarian state. He regards the Soviet Union as a failure in its overall efficiency, its excessive bureaucracy, and its denial of its peoples' rights. He further declares that traditional violent methods of achieving change have done extreme harm to the Arabs, the peoples of Israel, Iran and Iraq, and the Kurds. He now argues that socialism can only be achieved through a wide-ranging democratisation and the achievement of a form of democracy which is superior to current Western democracies. He demands pluralist structures, participation of all in decision-making, women's rights, and peace. 'In my opinion', he says, 'one of the fundamental criteria characterising a socialist regime must be the level of democracy which it enables'. [p. 37] Ocalan's treatise is based upon a profound study of the history of the ancient Middle East and the world in general. During the First World War a Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne, wrote a History of Europe to 1550 without access to sources, while he was interned by the German authorities. Ocalan's achievement in prison conditions, with limited access to books, calls this to mind, although he does provide a bibliography and, presumably, consulted the items listed. Ocalan might have made some reference to the controversy about the existence of a specifically Asiatic hydraulic form of society, which Marx and Engels accepted, but which was rejected in the former Soviet Union. He might have referred to the theory of the former Iranian Kurdish leader, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, that the Kurds are the descendants of the Medes. There are numerous other aspects of his book that raise key issues for further discussion and debate. Some of his contentions are controversial. Notwithstanding this, Abdullah Ocalan has produced a brilliant theoretical study of the origins and development of civilisation which should be essential reading for all historians interested in a scientific approach to our knowledge of the past. It is a fascinating work which is likely to be of permanent interest. The final conclusion that democratisation, not Islamic fundamentalism or the armed struggle (apart from self-defence), is the way forward in the Middle East and elsewhere is not the message one would expect to receive from the leader of a group that conducted a guerrilla struggle in Turkey for nearly a generation. Left-wing socialists and all who oppose imperialist attempts to dominate the world should consider very carefully the arguments which he advances to justify this thesis. As for the Kurds, he suggests that being divided between several nations (i.e. Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) gives them a key advantage in contributing to change in the Middle East by democratising themselves. 'No longer will the fate of the Kurds be ignorance, war, rebellion and destruction but a democratic and developed civil society and unity in freedom,' he declares. [p. 297] Abdullah Ocalan has written an extremely important book which everyone concerned with the politics of the Middle East, the Kurdish question, ancient history or socialist ideas should read and digest. Whatever the view taken of his previous stance as a guerrilla leader, his erudite and thought-provoking thesis is of outstanding interest and I recommend it without reservation. *Stan Newens, former MP and MEP, United Kingdom. This review has been published in The Spokesman No. 95 <http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/Spokesman/pdf/95Stan%20Newens%20rev.pdf>, Journal of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (Original review...) <http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/Spokesman/pdf/95Stan%20Newens%20rev.pdf>* ------------------------------ *Michael M. Gunter* For almost a quarter century, Abdullah (Apo) Ocalan led the Kurdistan Workers party (known universally by its Kurdish initials, PKK) and its predecessors in a guerrilla war against Turkey that resulted in some 37,000 deaths (the great majority being Kurdish), 3 million displaced persons, and 3,000 destroyed villages. He eventually lost the military struggle and was captured after escaping to Europe, where he tried unsuccessfully to begin negotiations for peace. He was condemned to death by a Turkish court, which later commuted the sentence to life imprisonment as part of Turkey’s EU candidacy. Given the new-found pride and determination of many ethnic Kurds in Turkey, however, Ocalan and his call for democratization to solve the Kurdish problem may yet win the final political victory. The present volume follows upon an earlier one (Declaration on the Democratic Solution of the Kurdish Question) written during his original trial in 1999; surprisingly, it contains little on the Kurds. However, it does contain much Marxist analysis on political, social, economic and religious developments in the Middle East from ancient Sumerian times to the present. A projected second volume will follow and deal more specifically with the Kurds. The book is divided into five parts, the first of which surveys ancient body politics from Sumer to Rome. Ocalan states that “the earliest state-based society and the oldest written sources of human history can be found in Lower Mesopotamia and can be accredited to the Sumerians” (p. 5). He also argues that “the mythological fabrications of the Sumerians, their rituals and practices of worship, constituted the oil that fuelled and kept the machinery of social institutions, both in sub- and super-structure, running smoothly” (p. 15). This pattern largely replicates itself in the base and super-structure of all subsequent polities and illustrates the importance of the institutionalization of religion in creating a patriarchal political order to which the individual was completely subordinated. In his second part, Ocalan examines medieval Europe and the Middle East as well as the impact of Christianity and Islam. He concludes that the former has been more supportive of progress and modernity: “The Christian religion … played quite a positive role in the intellectual and structural development of the European nations” (p. 172). Although Islam at first opened with an era of progressive achievements, dogmatism and fatalism stifled further development. This, of course, was not an uncommon view of many modernist leaders in the Middle East including Kemal Ataturk and Gamal Abdul Nasser. The Ottoman Empire “only had to guard the cultural graveyard” (p. 174) — in other words, the Middle East already was declining relative to the West during Ottoman times. In contrast, the European Renaissance and the development of capitalism propelled the West forward by emphasizing the importance of the individual, secular thought, new modes of production, scientific progress, and new forms of political organization such as democracy and the nation-state. “The East, in particular the Middle East, has been in a defensive position ever since” (p. 110). Ocalan deals with these developments in the third part of the book. He also points out more negative traits of the West such as the continuance of state-based male domination as well as the imperialist grafting of European traits onto the rest of the world. The original promise of “unsuccessful real socialism [communism]” (p. 286) failed to provide a solution to these problems, and with its collapse democracy became the main form of government because it enabled individuals to seek freedom nonviolently. In part four, Ocalan contemplates the contemporary international situation and its future, arguing that the Middle East should adopt such modern European achievements as individual rights, secular thought and politics, and pluralism. However, the Middle East remains the principal region that dogmatically resists assimilating Western civilization. This situation makes the Middle East ripe for its own renaissance based on its own cultural past. Democratization is the means to achieve this renaissance, and it constitutes the fifth and final part of Ocalan’s book. Female and minority rights can help establish pluralistic, federal body politics, which can offer mechanisms for resolving existing social, religious and ethnic conflicts. Globalization also plays a role in dissolving despotism. Decentralized federations can merge into a democratic Middle East Federation: “Geographic and cultural similarities throughout the region, and shared economic needs and water resources, might form the basis for a democratic federation of the entire region” (p. 287). Civil society is the primary means of furthering these changes. Armed struggle only results in weak, reactionary and autocratic regimes. Organized armed defense, however, is legitimate. The Kurdish question links Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, four of the main states in the Middle East. Ocalan is long on theory but short on specifics for implementation. Nevertheless, his vision of a modern, democratic, and federal Middle East freed from its reactionary past inspires new hope for a better future. Thus, Ocalan’s treatise is impressive not so much for the philosophy of history it espouses, but for the glimpse it conveys of the author: a man stamped as nothing more than a terrorist by Turkey, the United States and the EU and, therefore, unworthy of serious engagement, but who nevertheless is revered by millions to whom he gave a new sense of dignity. It can be read with profit by anyone who seeks to forge a modern secular future of peace and progress for the Middle East built upon the best offered by previous world civilizations. As Ocalan himself writes: “There is no need for a war of civilisations. … People in the Middle East should make their barren ground a holy land again and boldly and generously open their hearts to all that exists” (p. 175). Democratization is the means to achieve this renaissance, and it constitutes the fifth and final part of Ocalan’s book. Female and minority rights can help establish pluralistic, federal body politics, which can offer mechanisms for resolving existing social, religious and ethnic conflicts. Globalization also plays a role in dissolving despotism. Decentralized federations can merge into a democratic Middle East Federation: “Geographic and cultural similarities throughout the region, and shared economic needs and water resources, might form the basis for a democratic federation of the entire region” (p. 287). Civil society is the primary means of furthering these changes. Armed struggle only results in weak, reactionary and autocratic regimes. Organized armed defense, however, is legitimate. The Kurdish question links Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, four of the main states in the Middle East. The manner in which Ocalan’s treatise was compiled is noteworthy. Apparently, he simply gave handwritten pages to his lawyers or relatives infrequently visiting his cell in the island prison of Imrali. On other occasions, he dictated to the lawyers or had them take notes while he spoke. He had no access to sources and no one with whom to discuss matters. One wonders to what extent the Turkish authorities were aware of what he was doing and permitted it. The translator and editorial team are to be commended for having produced a readable and interesting manuscript. Their joint project ends with more than 10 pages of notes, a short bibliography, and useful index. *Michael M. Gunther is professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University. This review has been published in Middle East Policy 14 (Fall 2007), pp. 166-167. (Original review...) <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118000378/abstract>* ------------------------------ *Tamir Bar-On* In the post-9-11 climate, a veritable cottage industry of books on the subject of terrorism have inundated the public. They range from "no-nonsense" guides to conspiracy and anti-conspiracy theories to case studies of suicide terrorism.1 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn001f> The work in question, however, cannot be neatly lumped into any of these categories. While it is about terrorism or global violence more broadly, it is a radical departure from most interpretations on the subject because of its attention to the long-term, cultural and material roots of the problem in a Gramscian mould. The book will be indispensable for educators and concerned citizens attempting to understand political violence. Ocalan is the leader of the militant Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). A former practitioner of terrorism, Ocalan reflects on his organization's changing fortunes after his arrest by the Turkish state. He makes a turn from the lionized leader of the PKK to an intellectual who largely eschews the violence of his past. The transition is remarkable, as Ocalan was enemy number one in Turkey from 1984, the year he began the PKK's violent uprising, until his spectacular kidnapping in Nairobi and subsequent arrest by Turkish authorities in 1999. Ocalan currently resides in the Turkish prison of Imrali, where he penned his Prison Writings. For a man that lived by the gun, Ocalan devotes very few pages to terrorism. In Parts 4 and 5, which includes "A New Programme for the Kurdish Movement," Ocalan favours "contemporary democracy" and federalist principles,2 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn002f> while longing for a new historical synthesis of world civilisations. A new "democracy of the people," argues Ocalan, will fail outside Euro-American societies if it is not "superior" to Western democracy.3 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn003f> This bold assertion reinforces the Hegelian idea that history unfolds towards universal, civilisational progress and that "contemporary democracy" is for now the highest expression of this progress. It is also intended to counter what Ocalan views as the tendency of authoritarian states in the Middle East to rhetorically wave the banner of popular representation, while eroding democratic practices. If a new civilisational synthesis emerges, argues Ocalan, it will need to build on the real historical progress made as a consequence of the emergence of "democratic civilisation": individualism, the rule of law, rule by the people, secularism, women’s rights. The first three parts of Prison Writings are devoted to the history and "ideological identities" of three major civilisations: ancient Sumer, the age of feudalism, and the birth of capitalism and the development of democratic civilisation in Europe. Ocalan’s novelty is in linking a Gramscian project to the history of Middle Eastern civilisations. His central theoretical influence is the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, who wrote his own prison writings while in a Fascist jail and died in a government-controlled clinic in 1937.4 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn004f> Yet, democratic theory, ecological anarchist Murray Bookchin, the New Left, feminist theory, Marx, and Hegel also figure as influences in Ocalan's book. His goal is a new civilisational model in which "democratic civilisation" will be merely one component of a still emerging global, civilisational synthesis. The new synthesis will need to answer two central questions: "how a person ought to live?" and "how a person becomes a person?"5 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn005f> The accumulation of cultural knowledge in the Middle East and the claim that slave-holding Sumer was "the blueprint for all that followed" (p. 249) leads Ocalan to the conclusion that the region deeply influenced European civilisation and the cultural memory exists to provide the synthesis of the future. For now, insists Ocalan, the Middle East remains the most resistant world region to the spread of "democratic civilisation."6 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn006f> How will the new civilisation emerge? Given the proclivity of contemporary Middle East states for violence, as well as the tendency of many states in the area to mimic the style of leadership inherited from Sumer based on "the deification of human beings in the person of the king," (p. 98) the new civilisation will not emerge from conservative state structures. Rather, Ocalan argues the "third sphere" of civil society "comprises the tool of democratic possibilities - that opens the door to developments hitherto impossible." (p. 227) Gramsci insisted that in any society intellectuals are the critical group in determining social stability and change. Ocalan continues a Gramscian tradition in which intellectuals are entrusted with the elitist task of rescuing us from the current age of Middle East violence and authoritarianism, environmental catastrophe, the breathtaking pace of scientific-technological civilisation, and poverty and hunger. The task is to create counter-hegemonic discourses in the cultural terrain outside the state (e.g., sufi orders, dissident religious thinkers, legal networks), which will act as vehicles to change modes of thinking in the masses and eventually dislodge antiquated political structures. Intellectuals in the region, Ocalan asserts, need to break with nationalist, socialist, or Islamist "dogmas" of the past, create a new "antithesis" to democratic civilisation, and drive humanity forward.7 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn007f> Rejecting the the nationalist "poison" the PKK swallowed,8 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn008f> Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria can be the guiding inspiration for the implantation of this peaceful, "third sphere" throughout the Middle East.9 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn009f> All Middle East conflicts from the Arab-Israeli wars to the current quagmire in Iraq are interrelated and require the resurgence of the "third sphere" to unlock the region from nationalist or religious cycles of violence, deep-seated authoritarianism, and sectarian violence.10 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn010f> While some might question Ocalan's sincerity based on the ambiguity of Gramsci’s notion of a “war of position,” his purported aim is to unravel the historical, economic, and psychological roots of human violence. Yet, how will we get to the democratic "world federation"11 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn011f> Ocalan craves? Will intellectuals be the Leninist vanguard minus the exhortations to violence? If so, what does this say about a genuine participatory democracy? Women will have a greater role in the new civilisation, insists Ocalan, but how does one resist those powerful state structures and fears of a "world constitution" and "uniform global economy"?12 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn012f> Divergent groups outside the state in Israel, Palestine, Iran, and Turkey need to desperately revive civil society to help forge a new civilisational synthesis. However, a weakness of Ocalan's treatise is that it does not consider the variations of autonomous, civil society in different Middle East countries. He undermines the role that Israel or Western-style institutions in Turkey can play in the civilisational synthesis of the future by insisting the the former is an "alien body,"13 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn013f> which was imported from outside the Middle East. This contradicts Ocalan's earlier account for the history of civilisations in which he correctly points out that Judaism is indigenous to the region and plays a major evolutionary role in the spread of "democratic civilisation." What Ocalan is really searching for is a Middle Eastern "enlightenment" for the Islamic societies. Like Gramsci before him, Ocalan is convinced that we progressively evolve as human civilisations. Traditional conservatives will not be persuaded, while the events of the new millennium will surely spring new hopes and disappointments. 1 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn001t> Examples of each genre include: Jonathan Barker, *The No-Nonsense Guide to Terrorism* (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002); Ami Pedahzur, *Suicide Terrorism*(London: Blackwell, 2005); Eric Laurent, *La face cachée du 11 septembre* (Paris: Plon, 2004); and David Ray Griffin, *Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory*(Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2007). 2 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn002t> Abdullah Ocalan, *Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisatio*n, 255-6. 3 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn003t> *Ibid.*, 237. 4 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn004t> See Antonio Gramsci, *Selections from the Prison Notebooks* (translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith) (New York: International Publishers, 1971). Also see *Prison Notebooks*, volumes 1-3 (translated by Joseph A. Buttigieg) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992; 1996; 2007). 5 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn005t> Abdullah Ocalan, *Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisation*, 285. 6 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn006t> *Ibid.*, 277-82. 7 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn007t> Abdullah Ocalan, *Prison Writings: The Roots of Civilisation*, 285 8 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn008t> *Ibid.*, 296. 9 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn009t> *Ibid.*, 296-7. 10 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn010t> *Ibid.*, 289. 11 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn011t> *Ibid.*, 264. 12 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn012t> *Ibid.*, 282. 13 <http://ocalan-books.com/english/roots-of-civilisation.html#fn013t> *Ibid.*, 280. *Tamir Bar-On is professor for Humanities and International Relations at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), Campus Queretaro, Mexico. This review has been published in Millennium - Journal of International Studies Vol. 37, No. 2, 511-513, September 2008. (Original review...) <http://mil.sagepub.com/cgi/content/citation/37/2/511>* _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy-Announcement
by Michel Bauwens 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Fiona Dove <fdove(a)tni.org> Date: Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 1:09 AM Subject: Fwd: 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy-Announcement To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net>, Hilary Wainwright < wainwright.hilary(a)googlemail.com>, "ch >> Daniel Chavez" <chavez(a)tni.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy-Announcement Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 15:59:36 +0000 From: Ciriec - Carmela De Cicco <cd.ciriec(a)ulg.ac.be> <cd.ciriec(a)ulg.ac.be> To: Ciriec <ciriec(a)ulg.ac.be> <ciriec(a)ulg.ac.be> Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce the launch of the website and the call for papers of the 5th International Research Conference on Social Economy co-organized by CIRIEC-Portugal and CIRIEC International (July 15-18, 2015) on the topic "Social economy in a globalized world”. After the huge success of the first editions of these conferences, we once more rely on your contribution. All information can be found on the conference website: www.ciriec2015.com. The call is available here: www.mundiconvenius.pt/eventos/2015/ciriec2015/themes.htm. Submission is online only ( www.mundiconvenius.pt/eventos/2015/ciriec2015/submission.htm) before deadline December, 20. Thanks for disseminating this call among your own circles. Best regards. CIRIEC Portugal and CIRIEC International International Centre of Research and Information on the Public, Social and Cooperative Economy Centre international de recherches et d'information sur l'économie publique, sociale et coopérative Internationales Forschungs- und Informationszentrum für öffentliche Wirtschaft, Sozialwirtschaft und Genossenschaftswesen Tel. +32-4-366.27.46 --- Fax +32-4-366.29.58 --- ciriec(a)ulg.ac.be --- www.ciriec.ulg.ac.be -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: [ovn infrastructure] Value Equation tutorial
by Michel Bauwens 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 7:07 PM Subject: Fwd: [ovn infrastructure] Value Equation tutorial To: Eimhin David <involuteconduit(a)gmail.com>, Dan Robles < ingenesist(a)gmail.com>, Daniel Levy <humandalayoga(a)gmail.com>, Dan Durrant < ddrrnt(a)gmail.com> excerpted from doc : *"the value network equation gives open value networks the ability to distribute income back to the contributors of the network, using a set of rules and equations that the network collectively decides on"* ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bob Haugen <bob.haugen(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 3:31 PM Subject: [ovn infrastructure] Breaking news: Value Equation tutorial To: "ovnsinfrastructure(a)googlegroups.com" < ovnsinfrastructure(a)googlegroups.com>, mikorizal-discuss(a)mikorizal.org We just published the [First draft Value Equation tutorial]( https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1h-t6p55KTK-zlXIH9gUG6TYiwj1ARk4dq0_… ). It's up and running in test mode on Sensorica's NRP site. Let us know if anybody else wants to try it and we can set you up in the test site (valdev). And please send questions, comments and suggestions for improvement. -- This discussion is OPEN to the public. This group is about "value network" infrastructure development. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Value Networks Infrastructure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to OVNsInfrastructure+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to OVNsInfrastructure(a)googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/OVNsInfrastructure. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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: end-to-end encryption for the masses
by Michel Bauwens 20 Nov '14

20 Nov '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Marco Berlinguer <marco.berlinguer(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 7:32 PM Subject: end-to-end encryption for the masses To: P2PValue Members <members(a)p2pvalue.eu> This is interesting. Something is moving out there. M. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Felix Stalder <felix(a)openflows.com> Date: 2014-11-19 17:30 GMT+01:00 Subject: <nettime> end-to-end encryption for the masses To: nettime-l(a)kein.org http://www.wired.com/2014/11/whatsapp-encrypted-messaging/ Growing up in Soviet Ukraine in the 1980s, Whatsapp founder Jan Koum learned to distrust the government and detest its surveillance. After he emigrated to the U.S. and created his ultra-popular messaging system decades later, he vowed that Whatsapp would never make eavesdropping easy for anyone. Now, Whatsapp is following through on that anti-snooping promise at an unprecedented scale. On Tuesday, Whatsapp announced that it's implementing end-to-end encryption, an upgrade to its privacy protections that makes it nearly impossible for anyone to read users' messages -- even the company itself. Whatsapp will integrate the open-source software Textsecure, created by privacy-focused non-profit Open Whisper Systems, which scrambles messages with a cryptographic key that only the user can access and never leaves his or her device. The result is practically uncrackable encryption for hundreds of millions of phones and tablets that have Whatsapp installed -- by some measures the world's largest-ever implementation of this standard of encryption in a messaging service. "Whatsapp is integrating Textsecure into the most popular messaging app in the world, where people exchange billions of messages a day," says Moxie Marlinspike, Open Whisper System's creator and a well known software developer in the cryptography community. "I do think this is the largest deployment of end-to-end encryption ever." Textsecure has actually already been quietly encrypting Whatsapp messages between Android devices for a week. The new encryption scheme means Whatsapp messages will now travel all the way to the recipients' device before being decrypted, rather than merely being encrypted between the user's device and Whatsapp's server. The change is nearly invisible, though Marlinspike says Whatsapp will soon add a feature to allow users to verify each others' identities based on their cryptographic key, a defense against man-in-the-middle attacks that intercept conversations. "Ordinary users won't know the difference," says Marlinspike. "It's totally frictionless." "This is the largest deployment of end-to-end encryption ever." In its initial phase, though, Whatsapp's messaging encryption is limited to Android, and doesn't yet apply to group messages, photos or video messages. Marlinspike says that Whatsapp plans to expand its Textsecure rollout into those other features and other platforms, including Apple's iOS, soon. He wouldn't specify an exact time frame, and Whatsapp staffers declined to comment on the new encryption features. Marlinspike says the Textsecure implementation has been in the works for six months, since shortly after Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook last February. Whatsapp's Android users alone represent a massive new user base for end-to-end encrypted messaging: Whatsapp's page in the Google Play store lists more than 500 million downloads. Textsecure had previously been installed on only around 10 million gadgets running the Cyanogen mod variant of Android and about 500,000 other devices. The only encrypted messaging system that compares in size is Apple's iMessage, which also claims to use a version of end-to-end encryption. Compared with Textsecure, however, Apple's iMessage security has some serious shortcomings. iMessage doesn't track which devices' cryptographic keys are associated with a certain user, so Apple could simply create a new key the user wasn't aware of to start intercepting his or her messages. Additionally, many users unwittingly back up their stored iMessages to Apple's iCloud, which renders any end-to-end encryption moot. Plus, unlike Textsecure, iMessage doesn't use a feature called "forward secrecy" that creates a new encryption key for each message sent. This means that anyone who collects a user's encrypted messages and successfully cracks a user's key can decrypt all their communications, not just the one message that uses that key. Whatsapp's rollout of strong encryption to hundreds of millions of users may be an unpopular move among governments around the world, whose surveillance it could make far more difficult. Whatsapp's user base is highly international, with large populations of users in Europe and India. But Whatsapp founder Jan Koum has been vocal about his opposition to cooperating with government snooping. "I grew up in a society where everything you did was eavesdropped on, recorded, snitched on," he told Wired UK earlier this year. "Nobody should have the right to eavesdrop, or you become a totalitarian state -- the kind of state I escaped as a kid to come to this country where you have democracy and freedom of speech. Our goal is to protect it." # 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 -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan 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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