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

Fw: Fw: Info
by Natalie Golovin 10 Mar '26

10 Mar '26

Mark: You and your compatriots on P2P view the world from revisionism. Go ahead and keep looking through your microscope-provided by your "teachers." Or take the time and read some very old documented evidence available at a library near you= but you may need to stay there awhile on microfiche. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Janssen Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 4:39 PM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Fw: Info On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Natalie Golovin <10natalie(a)cox.net> wrote: > The European Tribes treated the Natives no worse than they treated each > other. Whoa. You should really stop talking. You have NO idea what you're talking about. How about forced acculturation, not allowing them to speak their own language (which hold the record of their own history), confined them under threat of violent force into reservations, among other things. But, really, that's probably not even the worst of it -- the worst of it is that for reasons they couldn't ever understand is why you were doing all of these cruel things when they were willing to share it it all with you. Why, when they handed out their hand to be friends, you chopped it off. Remember, they're the ones who gave us Thanksgiving which is still "celebrated" in this nation today. Read the reports made of making first contact with the Native peoples here. You really should read up before propagating the attitudes of conquest. Sorry.... marcos _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation

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Fwd: Is there any value in New Age thinking? | openDemocracy
by Michel Bauwens 30 Aug '14

30 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Week (Assai) <dew(a)assai.com.au> Date: Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 9:33 AM Subject: Is there any value in New Age thinking? | openDemocracy To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/michel-bauwens/is-there-any-va… Good stuff. Thanks. David -- 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: Random in Vice: anonymous choice profiles burst the filter bubble
by Michel Bauwens 30 Aug '14

30 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jarno Mikael Koponen <jarno(a)futureful.com> Date: Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 9:13 PM Subject: Random in Vice: anonymous choice profiles burst the filter bubble To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> Hi Michel, What a week, I hope you've had a good one! I'm very excited to share our latest with you. Vice Motherboard just took a deep-dive with Random: *UnFacebooking, Randomizing, and Other Ways to Burst the Filter Bubble* http://motherboard.vice.com/read/unfacebooking-random-and-other-strategies-… "Random never turns into a filter bubble, because it perpetually injects the irrational into my experience… in a cocktail of relevancy and serendipity." "The unexpected can become meaningful; seemingly unrelated ideas, daisy-chained to one another in the curiosity-driven dérive of browsing, can manifest previously unseen connections." Feel free to share, interesting things coming up! Jarno M., https://twitter.com/ilparone -- 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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Unions are working in Germany
by Anna 30 Aug '14

30 Aug '14

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-end-of-poverty/why-are-bmw-and-merced…

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Re: [P2P-F] reference to barcelona fablab and more plans ?
by Michel Bauwens 29 Aug '14

29 Aug '14

thank you benjamin, I think I have seen the beginnings of that first video some time ago, I copy the p2p list, so anyone with a bit more time could look for official policy material on the grand plans of barcelona, Michel On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Benjamin Tincq <benjamin(a)ouishare.net> wrote: > Hi Michel, > > Here is a recent talk of Vicente Guallart (chief architect city of > barcelona) at FaB10 > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bko43fBOnDo > > There was also a talk from the mayor but I can't find the video > > Check also this piece from El Mundo: > http://www.elmundo.es/economia/2013/11/24/5291208463fd3da55a8b457d.html > > And this : > http://www.open-electronics.org/global-transitions-fab-labs-and-fab-cities-… > The project was announced at Fab7 in Lima, Peru in 2011 and they made > significant progress, opening 4 additional labs (the first one was Fab Lab > Barcelona) including a "self-sufficient lab" http://www.valldaura.net/ > > > -- > *Benjamin Tincq *| @btincq <http://twitter.com/btincq> > OuiShare | co-founder | global connector > http://ouishare.net | http://ouisharefest.com > mob: +33 (0)6 81 09 87 62 > > > > On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net > > wrote: > >> hi benjamin, >> >> do you have any link to what we discussed this morning, >> >> I have info on the fablabs etc .. but not the overall policy announcement >> , >> >> Michel >> >> -- >> 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/ >> > > -- 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] South Africa: Decline of the Old Unionism (Part 1), Rise of the New (Part 2)
by Michel Bauwens 27 Aug '14

27 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: peter waterman <peterwaterman1936(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:54 PM Subject: [Networkedlabour] South Africa: Decline of the Old Unionism (Part 1), Rise of the New (Part 2) To: "CRITICAL-LABOUR-STUDIES(a)jiscmail.ac.uk" < CRITICAL-LABOUR-STUDIES(a)jiscmail.ac.uk>, networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org *Peter sez:* *A* * thorough* * analysis of a South African process, reproduced in the West (historically) and in much of the Rest (more recently and rapidly). I can't wait for what is likely to be the more problematic Part 2!* *Now click on...* South Africa and the Changing Politics of LabourPart 1: The Demise of COSATU Leonard Gentle http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/1027.php#continue ...So this article will claim that understanding the changing politics of labour requires us to step *outside* the confines of the trade unions and not even to take the trade unions as a point of departure, let alone a lens for viewing the developments within the trade unions. Instead it will privilege the changing make-up of the working-class and the changing political consciousness of a new movement of class struggle emerging today and assess events such as the NUMSA moment, the COSATU internal crisis, the emergence of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Mineworkers_and_Construction_Un…> (AMCU) and the changing national political landscape against these yardsticks.-- 1. *EBook, November 2012: Recovering Internationalism <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/recovering_internationalism/>. [A compilation of papers from the new millenium. Now free in two download formats] <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/> <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/>* 2. *EBook (co-editor), February 2013: World Social Forum: Critical Explorations http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/ <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/world_social_forum/> * 3. *Interface Journal Special (co-editor), November 2012: For the Global Emancipation of Labour <http://www.interfacejournal.net/current/>* 4. *Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman. <http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman.> * 5. *Interface Journal Special (Co-Editor) Social Movement Internationalisms. See Call for Papers <http://www.interfacejournal.net/>, (Deadline: May 1, 2014). * 6. *Needed: a Global Labour Charter Movement (2005-Now!) <http://interfacejournal.nuim.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Interf…>* 7. *Under, Against, Beyond: Labour and Social Movements Confront a Globalised, Informatised Capitalism <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/>(2011) Almost 1,000 pages of Working Papers, free, from the 1980 <1980>'s-90's.* 8. *Google Scholar Citation Index:* *http://scholar.google.com.pe/citations?user=e0e6Qa4AAAAJ <http://scholar.google.com.pe/citations?user=e0e6Qa4AAAAJ> * - _______________________________________________ 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] Capturing human labour in its entirety or modularly before embedding it into automated systems vs. real global emancipation
by Michel Bauwens 27 Aug '14

27 Aug '14

interesting from orsan senalp: As it is clear from her bio, she turned the excluded workers' precarity into a capital, by monetising the vulnerability, branding a company as a union, and precarious people into 'independant workers'. This represent a good example of how one can hack a 'union form' turn it into a private insurance company. This is of course a reinvention of the western business unionism form and adopting it to the re-workerized middle classes. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Örsan Şenalp <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 5:28 PM Subject: [Networkedlabour] Capturing human labour in its entirety or modularly before embedding it into automated systems vs. real global emancipation To: "networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org" <networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org > "Rapacious financialisation risks turning everything we are and have into a productive asset. And the foremost asset is our personal data, mined by digitalised technology." Says Evgeny Morozov in his recent What you whistle in the shower - How much for your data? [From Le Monde Diplomatique English Edition, August 2014]: http://cryptome.org/2014/08/morosov-how-much-your-data.htm ... Freelancers Union in the US has been a form of response, initiated by a new generation unionist Horowitz, who describes herself on the website of the 'union' (https://www.freelancersunion.org/) "As the founder and Executive Director of Freelancers Union – and CEO of the social-purpose Freelancers Insurance Company (FIC) – Sara has been helping workers solve their problems for nearly two decades. A MacArthur Foundation "Genius" fellow, Sara has long been a leading voice for the emerging economy, early on recognising the vital role independent workers would play in our networked, interconnected world. Today, 42 million Americans are "independent workers" – about one-third of the entire workforce. With a membership of more than 244k nationwide, Freelancers Union is building a new form of unionism through creative, cooperative, market-based solutions to pressing social problems. Sara was named one of the Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs by Forbes in 2011, a Top 25 Most Promising Social Entrepreneur by Businessweek in 2011, one of Crain's New York's "25 People to Watch" in 2010, and one of 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow at the 2002 World Economic Forum." As it is clear from her bio, she turned the excluded workers' precarity into a capital, by monetising the vulnerability, branding a company as a union, and precarious people into 'independant workers'. This represent a good example of how one can hack a 'union form' turn it into a private insurance company. This is of course a reinvention of the western business unionism form and adopting it to the re-workerized middle classes. This example says a lot in relation to the counter argument posed against the aggressive total data capture by monopolies like Google, and Facebook [and other NSA-PRISM collaborators] -mentioned by Morozov in his article- where it is proposed to 'monetization of the personal data' by giving the copyrights of personal data to individuals themselves, of course together with the 'right to sell it to the market'. What we see in this picture is clashing core arguments of the future capitalism. On the one side a 'perfect capitalism' propagated by NSA partners like Google, Facebook, Californian Singularity ideology,... but on the other hand we see emerging new constellations new start up aligning around Industrial Internet and Smart Cities concepts, by corporations like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Apple, the first generation knowledge capital fractions. I think Vasilis Kostakis' and Michel's co-authored book Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy provides very insightful perspective to understand structural and agency dynamics: http://p2pfoundation.net/Network_Society_and_Future_Scenarios_for_a_Collabo… On the other hand, in response to Horowitz's kind of business unionism 2.0, we see emerging European, or German model being developed by Joel Dellroy here: http://freelancersmovement.org/ and here with a European level crouwdfunded campaign: http://freelancers-europe.org/ Thinking in relation or comparing these two to the example in other thread, opened up by Peter's posting of Gaza action in Oakland, where we see new occupy type unionism which is about organising unorganisable: those who are the 'labour's others' as Peter called them, who can not afford to be 'independant worker' at all and going through much deeper existential crisis while thinking this is their individual inabilities. Forming horizontal self-organised communities through self-expression and representation, exchange and articulation, mobilisation and collective action is shared in the last and European freelancers movement idea. Although the latter new unionism (gunion, 99picket lines, or occupy-15m related networked/direct unionism) are radically different from both examples of freelancer unions mentioned above in politics, my argument that they can and have to collaborate in a modular way in order to harmonise or interconnect struggles at various global-working-class-fractions (see Strauna: http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/4/2/0/9/… ). This is again how I see this modular collective work can be delivered in practise, overcoming cultural, political, ideological dividing lines, by p2p collaborating based on mutual recognition and more importantly based exchanges of concrete needs, configured according to that specific collaboration: http://www.slideshare.net/orsans/gnunion-version-beta-10 I think capital in all its forms are in favour of total socialisation of labour, by capturing value in any possible way and accumulating. There is of course inter-class fight about how and who to do that, which seems like delaying our faith. What rises as the only option for human kind to stop this maniacal going is 'to unite'. And we all know this that it can only work if it is allows spontanity, simultanuity, include egalitarian and respectful manners, and democratic and mature processes. This is the ideal form in my mind, trying to grow into, which can give a practical picture of what I am trying to say: a map of relationships: http://graphcommons.com/system/images/2106/original/graph.png?1406131146 actors and items for collaboration: On platform building and networking for working people and tech-labour unionists, labour organisers, and community projects with Says-us [as an online plartform that put workless workers, activists, alternative solidarity economy communities in touch.], with Freelancers Movement in Europe - and may be US? to develope a platform for self-empowerment of freelancers On organising, with Organizing Campaigns and independant unions [janitors, helath care, education, logistics...]>> to integrate self-empowerment tools for safe self-organising alongside the global production networks and value chains (via mapping by workers manuel or online with software like Debate Gpraph, GraphCommons, Deepha Mehta, open chain mapping) with NetzwerkIT, Sensorica, TIE network, IWW On Tech developemnt with FSF (John Sullivan) + Cyberunions (Stephan, Walton), Mayfirst/People Link On research, analysis, knowledge commons, open strategy... support, with P2P foundation, Transform, TNI, Waag Society, Institute of Network Cultures, IIRE, Triple C... On cooperatives with Catalan Integral Cooperative, Calafou,... On naming and shaming: LabourLeaks, Associated WhistleBlowers Press, Wikileaks On mass labour campaigning and labour media network: USI, LabourTech, LabourSTart, CapulTV, Global Revolution, I-Witness Project / infrastructure development and concept hacking communities: HackLabs, HackBases, HackSpaces, MakerSpaces, FabLabs, Ecowillages, Squatters, Cyprto Parties, co-working spaces, co-housing spaces. Political spaces for articulation: Interface, DeGrwoth, Chaos Computer Congress / Camp, World Social Forum, AlterSummit, Joint Social Conference, Co-Workers gathering,.. ...work in progress.. Orsan _______________________________________________ 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: ZNet Commentary: Walden Bello: The Corporate Free Trade Project Reloaded
by Michel Bauwens 27 Aug '14

27 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: ZCommunications <no-reply(a)zcomm.org> Date: Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 7:56 PM Subject: ZNet Commentary: Walden Bello: The Corporate Free Trade Project Reloaded To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…>. Walden Bello: The Corporate Free Trade Project ReloadedZ Communications Daily Commentary Six years after the advent of the global financial crisis, and with no end in sight, one would have expected that global capitalism would be in a serious state of disarray. Yet neoliberalism, while discredited, retains its hold on policymakers as a default ideology. Finance capital has been able to roll back the initial attempts to reregulate it in Europe and the United States. And Washington and Brussels have resumed their aggressive efforts to create multilateral free trade regimes. Today, the United States is pushing hard to complete negotiations with 11 countries that would put in place the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), while it is negotiating with the European Union to set up its twin, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These initiatives are in full throttle this year, 20 years after the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the first neoliberal multilateral trade regime, came into being in 1994. *Rocky Road* The last 20 years have proven to be a rocky road for free trade. Neoliberal trade policies did not begin with the birth of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) or the founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO) a year later, in 1995. They had been in place in over 90 developing and transitional economies through structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for over a decade. Trade liberalization was one of the prongs of structural adjustment, along with privatization and deregulation. The result was the rise in poverty rates in Latin America in the 1980’s, the so-called “Lost Decade.” As for Africa, by the end of the 1980’s, it had been rolled back to where it was at the time of decolonization in the 1960’s. The 1990’s saw the Clinton administration push three grand neoliberal trade projects: NAFTA, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation). NAFTA and APEC were partly conceived as fallback positions in the event the WTO did not come into being. APEC aimed to unite 21 countries in the Eastern and Western Pacific in a trans-Pacific free trade area, while NAFTA was seen as but the first step of a free trade project that would eventually bring the whole Western Hemisphere into a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). APEC was scuttled by Japan and a number of other Asian countries, which refused the mandatory liberalization demanded by the United States during the critical Osaka Summit of APEC in 1995. NAFTA came into being, but the grandiose FTAA was torpedoed by Latin American governments led by Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina during the Miami summit in November 2003. As for the WTO, the push by the European Union and the US to initiate a new round of trade liberalization just five years after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round fell apart during the Third Ministerial in Seattle in November-December 1999, undone by the resistance of developing countries and some 50,000 protesters on the streets. But the EU and US were undeterred, and at the Fourth Ministerial at Doha in 2001, they employed carrot and stick policies to get the developing countries to sign on to a declaration launching the so-called “Doha Development Round,” which had nothing to do with development. But the experience of being bamboozled in Doha led developing countries to form defensive blocks within the WTO. There was the Group of 20 led by India and Brazil, which pushed a united stand to resist further liberalization of developing countries’ agricultural sectors while the EU and the US continued to massively subsidize theirs. There was the Group of 33, led by Indonesia and the Philippines, which sought to protect the interests of countries with large peasant populations. Then there was the Group of 90, which resisted the push by the EU and the US to include investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trace facilitation within the remit of the WTO, which would have meant bringing more dimensions of economic life under the disciplinary authority of this body. It was members of the Group of 90 that led the walkout during the Fifth Ministerial of the WTO in Cancun in September 2003 that brought about the collapse of that meeting. After over a decade of negotiations that went nowhere, a major attempt was made to revive the WTO leading up to Bali Summit in November 2013. A Trade Facilitation deal was promoted by the North that was initially premised on the countries of the South curbing their food security measures. Agreement on the deal was supposed to have been obtained at Bali when India withdrew its opposition after getting developed country assurance that its food stockpiling policies would not be challenged. Three weeks ago, however, India made a turnaround saying that the deal was off since the developed countries had reneged on their promise to find a permanent solution to the food security needs of developing countries. This collapse will probably mean the end of the WTO as a mechanism for trade liberalization. *Shifting Strategies* After the collapse in 2003 of the Cancun Ministerial—the second in four years—then US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick made his notorious remarks to the effect that the WTO was composed of “can do” countries and “can’t do countries,” and that the US would “do business” only with the “can do” countries. The US and EU began to rely less on the WTO as a mechanism for trade liberalization and more on bilateral or multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). By 2012, the US had concluded 21 FTAs. Not wanting to be left behind, the EU had 23 and Japan had 13. There were several key features of these agreements: - their terms favored the developed countries; - many imposed intellectual property rights clauses that were even more restrictive than those of the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement; - they did not touch the highly protected agricultural sector of the developed countries while liberalizing the agriculture of the developing countries; - they subordinated the environment and the interests of labor to trade liberalization; - many empowered foreign corporations with the right to sue states for what they regarded as violations of investment contracts. *Troublesome Twins* Continuing Washington’s effort to find an alternative to the WTO as a multilateral mechanism of trade liberalization, the Obama administration three years ago resurrected the original APEC free trade project in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would unite 12 countries bordering the Pacific in a free trade area. This agreement is being negotiated in secret because, as former US Trade Representative Ron Kirk has said, many of the provisions of the TPP are so unpopular that people would reject it if they were made public in transparent negotiations. The proceedings of some negotiations have been leaked, however, and these reveal that the environmental protection provisions are very weak, the US is pushing for tough intellectual property provisions, and corporate investors would be given great leeway to sue states in cases of conflict over contracts. Washington has been trying to wrap up negotiations on the TPP before the 2016 elections, but it has not been easy. During his visit to Japan in May of this year, President Obama was dealt a stunning setback when in exchange for a US commitment to defend the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands in Chinese), he was unable to secure a trade agreement with Japan that would have pried open further the country’s highly protected agricultural sector. The deal was a key step towards the completion of the TPP since the US and Japan are the two biggest economies in the projected 12 country pact. The US has made it clear that the other half of its global trade agenda is the TTIP. TTIP is TPP’s twin. Like the TPP, it is being negotiated in secret. Like the TPP, it aims not only at eliminating trade barriers but to weaken regulations on corporate activity and do away with investment restrictions. Both seek to institutionalize mechanisms that would allow corporations to sue states for imposing restrictions on their activities. *Countering the BRICS* Both the TTIP and the TPP have not only been conceived as substitute multilateral mechanisms for trade and investment liberalization in place of the stalemated WTO. They are also a defensive response of the old center economies to the rise of the South and especially of the so-called BRICS. The BRICS are among the new dynamic centers of the global economy, and though they rely on the US and EU as markets, they are also competitive with these economies. A great deal of their competitive power derives from the fact that the state plays a very significant role in supporting domestic and state industries in the BRICS, and the strategic aim of both TPP and TTIP is to create a bloc that would make the dismantling of the activist or interventionist state in the South and the BRICS a precondition for expanding trade and economic relations with Europe and the US. As Manuel Perez-Rocha and Karen Hansen Kuhn point out, “Given the global shifts of power where the main actors are the BRICS countries and in particular China, some have wondered whether the hidden agenda of the TTIP may be part of a ‘West against the Rest’ strategy to shore up a US-European alliance against the perceived threat posed by emerging economies…” Indeed, there are geopolitical dimensions to both projects. The TTIP is largely congruent with the NATO military-political bloc, while the US has made it clear that the TPP is the economic correlate of its “Pivot to Asia” military strategy, with the aims of the first to isolate Russia and that of the second to contain China. *Towards a New Trade Paradigm* In the face of the renewed corporate thrust for free trade, how are developing countries responding? The BRICS are tightening their economic coordination, and preferential trade arrangements among them are likely to follow their recent impressive moves of establishing the New Development Bank to rival the World Bank and their Contingency Reserve Fund to parallel the International Monetary Fund. For both the BRICS and other developing countries, say advocates for the South, an offensive strategy pushing a new trade paradigm is needed. Among the elements of such a paradigm being discussed are the following: Promotion of more regional economic agreements like the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas or ALBA, which makes economic cooperation and development, not free trade, the centerpiece of economic relations among countries. A push for an international trading regime that provides a lot of development space. While it had its flaws, the GATT system (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) left a lot of “development space” for developing countries, and many advocate a return to something like GATT instead of the neoliberal WTO, which eliminates practically all development space. Even better yet in their view is a reinvigorated United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which has among its central principles the “special and differential treatment of developing countries.” Abandonment of the export-oriented strategy of development that the World Bank and neoliberal technocrats pushed on developing countries which has made them very vulnerable to Northern corporate power because it has made developed country export markets rather than the domestic economy the center of gravity of the economy. Focusing on the domestic market, progressive analysts say, will necessarily push countries to undertake reforms promoting more equitable income distribution to create domestic demand that will trigger industrial development. 20 years after NAFTA, the US and EU are making a renewed push for global free trade. But compared to 1994, the capacity of the South to resist the free trade project and come up with a trade paradigm with a different vision and based on different principles is greater today. Telesur columnist Walden Bello is a member of the House of Representatives (Parliament) of the Philippines. He is the author or co-author of 18 books, the latest of which is *Capitalism’s Last Stand: Deglobalization in the Age of Austerity* (London: Zed, 2013) and *Food Wars* (London: Verso, 2009). ZCommunications, 18 Millfield St., Woods Hole, MA, USA, 02543 Unsubscribe <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…> | Manage Subscription <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/click?upn=9PHos1J7-2FD2Lw6jereECeNLGs3ocss1O2kcgD4…> If you'd like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails click here <http://send.zcomm.org/wf/unsubscribe?upn=V-2FUUiW5KvBPNV-2FItFYsbuIFOqr58Na…> . -- 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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be watchful of gmail phishng attempts like th is
by Michel Bauwens 27 Aug '14

27 Aug '14

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: no-reply <Account(a)justgoogle.com> Date: Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 11:54 PM Subject: Sign in prevented To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com [image: Google Accounts] Hi, Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a Hacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 8:49:26 PM UTC IP Address: 72.23.75.173 Location: Rising Sun, Maryland, United States If you do not recognize this sign-in attempt, someone else might be trying to access your account. You should sign in to your account and reset your password immediately. Reset password <http://peace-gardens.us/photo_albumns_pg/toltec_0625/Zolinks.php> If this was you, and you are having trouble accessing your account, complete the troubleshooting steps listed at http://support.google.com/ mail?p=client_login Sincerely, The Google Accounts team This email can't receive replies. For more information, visit the Google Accounts Help Center. You received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google product or account. © 2014 Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94045, USA -- 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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transparency issue of p2p-foundation
by Michel Bauwens 27 Aug '14

27 Aug '14

Dear Denis, you raise the transparency issue, on this list, what you see is what you get, i.e. there are indivduals, with various levels of influence obtained either from within or outside the list, that communicate around an issue; I have no technical power, both because I don't like it and have no time for it, but also actually as a conscious decision, i.e. I can't exclude anyone by myself; then the p2p-foundation, well, to be frank, it's a group of people who are communicating in various ways, pragmatically, and hence, it is easy to feel excluded in some way, because it is not always visible .. most of our communication are just list of email addresses, of whatever people are most appropriate to contribute to a certain project .. ; the end result is, and personally, in a network of volunteers, I do not think this is a bad thing, is that it is the contributors that discuss , consensually, what needs to be done ; we are now trying to be more formal, to avoid the tyranny of structurelessness, this is done by using Loomio; if I have understood the process well, a first phase is an open discussion, then the decision tool is used for the major orientation decisions, and it then moves over to the implementors to take the day to day decisions amongst themselves remember, nobody is getting paid for this directly (we all have indirect strategies of making a living), though kevin will likely join us as first paid employee this october ..., and for people who work hard for free and with limited time, it is impossible to listen for ever to people who are on the sidelines thinking they have the right idea of how it should be done, without doing it themselves .. if we were a membership organisation, or a coop, of course we would need to do it differently and insure every member has a vote (which would be a counterpart of their monetary or labor contributions) but peer production networks almost never work that way, and it has been rather well studied; we are not very different from others in this, except that we are too small to entertain a formally democratic FLOSS Foundation but the people who complain that do not have it, should be the ones building and constructing it, discussions of the list are different, here everyone has a voice provided that a few social rules are adhered to, in this case, we are insisting that the rule of no personal attacks and difamation are adhered too; no one wants to take away willi's freedom of speech, there are millions of outlets where mutual insults are the norm, and I have no issue with these freely chosen cultures of discourse, but don't forget that countless progressive outlets had to fold and were destroyed, because they refused to maintain their culture, such as for example Indymedia accepting anti-semitism and a slew of conspiracy theorists (I have read about this without knowing the ins and outs) but if that were the culture here, I would unsubscribe, Michel -- 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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