November 2015 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] 'Post-capitalism', according to Alexander Bogdanov
by Michel Bauwens 14 Nov '15

14 Nov '15

https://www.marxists.org/archive/bogdanov/1919/socialism.htm ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Orsan <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 12:42 AM Subject: [NetworkedLabour] 'Post-capitalism', according to Alexander Bogdanov To: networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org *Socially Organised Society: Socialist Society * Alexander Bogdanov 1919 ------------------------------ Source: Chapter X of *A Short Course of Economic Science*, 10th edition, 1919. English translation J. Fineberg, 1923; Transcribed: by Adam Buick. ------------------------------ The epoch of capitalism has not yet been completed, but the instability of its relations has become quite obvious. The fundamental contradictions of this system which are deeply undermining it, and the forces of development which are creating the basis of a new system, have also become quite clear. The main features of the *direction *in which social forces are moving have been marked out. It is, therefore, possible to draw conclusions as to what form the new system will take and in what way it will differ from the present system. It may seem that science has no right to speak of what has not yet arrived and of what experience has not provided us with any exact example. But that is erroneous. Science exists precisely for the purpose of *foretelling *things. Of what has not yet been experienced it cannot, of course, make an exact forecast, but if we know generally what *exists *and in *what direction it is changing *then science *must *draw the conclusions as to what it will change into. Science must draw these conclusions in order that men may adapt their actions to circumstances, so that instead of wasting their efforts by working against the future and retarding the development of new forms, they may consciously work to hasten and assist such development. The conclusions of social science with regard to future society cannot be exact because the great complexity of social phenomena does not permit, in our times, of their being completely observed in all details, but only in their main features, and for that reason the picture of the new system also can only be drawn in its main outlines; but these are the *most important considerations *for the people of the present day. The history of the ancient world shows that human society may sometimes regress, decline, and even decay; the history of primitive man and also that of several isolated Eastern societies shows the possibility of a long period of stagnation. For this reason, from a strictly scientific point of view, the transition to new forms must be accepted conditionally. New and higher forms will appear only in the event of a *society progressing further in its development *as it has progressed up till now. There must be sufficient cause, however, for regression or stagnation, and these cannot be indicated in the life of modern society. With the mass of contradictions inherent in it, and the impetuous process of life which they create, there cannot be stagnation. These inherent contradictions could cause retrogression only in the event of the absence of sufficient forms and elements of development. But such elements exist, and these very contradictions develop and multiply them. The productive power of man is increasing and even such a social catastrophe as a world war only temporarily weakens it. Furthermore an enormous class in society growing and organising is striving to bring about these new forms. For this reason there are no serious grounds for expecting a movement backwards. There are immeasurably more grounds for believing that society will continue along its path and create a new system which will destroy and abolish the contradictions of capitalism. 1. Relation of Society to Nature The development of machine technique in the period of capitalism acquired such a character of consecutiveness and activity that it is quite possible to determine its tendencies and consequently the further result of its development. With regard to the first part of the machine – the source of motive power – we have already indicated the tendency, viz., the transition from steam to electricity, the most flexible, the most plastic, of all the powers of nature. It can easily be produced from all the others and be converted into all the others; it can be divided into exact parts and transmitted across enormous distances. The inevitable exhaustion of the main sources of steam power, coal and oil, leads to the necessity for the transition to electricity, and this will create the possibility of making use of all waterfalls, all flowing water (even the tides of the oceans ), and the intermittent energy of the wind which can be collected with the aid of accumulators, & c. A new and immeasurably rich source of electrical energy, infinitely superior to all other sources of .electrical energy, has also been indicated, viz., atomic energy, which is contained in all matter. Its existence has been scientifically proved, and its use even begun, although in a very small scale where it automatically releases itself *(e.g. *radium and other similar disintegrating elements). Methods for systematically releasing this energy have not yet been discovered; the new higher scientific technique will probably discover these methods and united humanity possess inexhaustible stocks of elemental power . With regard to the transmitting mechanism we also observe a tendency towards the *automatic type *of machine. Following this we observe an even higher type – not only an automatically acting, but an *automatically regulating *machine. Its beginnings lie on the one hand in the increasing application of mechanical regulators to present-day machines, and on the other in the few mechanisms of this type already created by military technique *(e.g., *self-propelling submarines and air torpedoes). Under capitalism these will hardly find application for peaceful production: they are disadvantageous from the point of view of profits as they are very complicated and unavoidably dear; the amount of labour which they save in comparison with machines of the former type is not great, because automatic machinery also dispenses with a considerable amount of human labour. Furthermore the workers required to work them must possess the highest intelligence; hence their pay also would have to be high, and their resistance to capital would be considerably greater. In war there is no question of profits, and for that reason these obstacles to their application do not arise. Under socialism the question of profits will disappear in production also; first consideration will be given to the technical advantages of self-regulating mechanism – which will render possible the achievement of a rapidity and exactness of work incomparably greater than that achieved by human organs, which work more slowly and with less precision, and moreover are subject to fatigue and error. Furthermore, the number of machines, and the sum total of mechanical energy, will increase to such a colossal degree that the physical energy of men will become infinitesimally small in comparison. The powers of nature will carry out the executive work of man – they will be his obedient dumb slaves, whose strength will increase to infinity. The technique of communication between men is of special significance. The rapid progress in this connection observed at the end of the capitalist epoch has been obviously directed to the abolition of all obstacles which nature and space place in the way of the organisation and compactness of humanity. The perfection of wireless telegraphy and telephony will create the possibility for people to communicate with each other under any condition, over any distance, and across all natural barriers. The increase in the speed of all forms of transportation brings men and the products of their labour more closely together than was ever dreamed of in the past century. And the creation of dirigible aircraft will make human communication completely independent of geographical conditions – the structure and configuration of the earth’s surface. _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] IGF 2015 Day 3 - WK 5 - WS 7 How Trade Agreements shape the future of Internet Governance
by Michel Bauwens 14 Nov '15

14 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Steve Zeltzer <lvpsf(a)igc.org> Date: Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 2:52 AM Subject: [NetworkedLabour] IGF 2015 Day 3 - WK 5 - WS 7 How Trade Agreements shape the future of Internet Governance To: "<networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org>" < networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org> IGF 2015 Day 3 - WK 5 - WS 7 How Trade Agreements shape the future of Internet Governance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk1xClt04yo _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] HOW PLATFORM COOPS CAN BEAT DEATH STARS LIKE UBER TO CREATE A REAL SHARING ECONOMY?
by Michel Bauwens 14 Nov '15

14 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Orsan <orsan1234(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 4:34 AM Subject: [NetworkedLabour] HOW PLATFORM COOPS CAN BEAT DEATH STARS LIKE UBER TO CREATE A REAL SHARING ECONOMY? To: networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://commonstransition.org/how-platform-coops-can-beat-death-stars-like-u… HOW PLATFORM COOPS CAN BEAT DEATH STARS LIKE UBER TO CREATE A REAL SHARING ECONOMY On: Nov 11 <http://commonstransition.org/2015/11/11/>Categories: Articles <http://commonstransition.org/category/articles-and-resources/articles/>, Neal Gorenflo <http://commonstransition.org/category/authors/neal-gorenflo/>, Open Cooperativism <http://commonstransition.org/category/subjects/open-cooperativism/>, Platform Cooperativism <http://commonstransition.org/category/collectives/platform-cooperativism/> No Comments <http://commonstransition.org/how-platform-coops-can-beat-death-stars-like-u…> We have an epic choice before us between platform coops and Death Star platforms, and the time to decide is now. It might be the most important economic decision we ever make, but most of us don’t even know we have a choice. And just what is a Death Star platform? Bill Johnson of StructureC3 <http://www.structure3c.com/> referred to Uber and Airbnb as Death Star platforms in a recent chat. The label struck me as surprisingly apt: it reflects the raw ambition and focused power of these platforms, particularly Uber. Uber’s big bet is global monopoly or bust. They’ve raised over $8 billion in venture capital, are on track to do over $10 billion in revenue this year, and have over one million drivers who are destroying the taxi industry in over 300 cities worldwide. They’ve done all this in just over five years. In fact, they reached a $51 billion valuation faster than Facebook, and plan to raise even more money. If they’re successful, they’ll become the most valuable startup in history. Airbnb is nearly as big and ambitious. Platform coops are the alternative to Death Stars. As Lisa Gansky urged, these platforms share value with the people who make them valuable <http://www.fastcoexist.com/3038476/collaborative-economy-companies-need-to-…>. Platform coops combine a cooperative business structure with an online platform to deliver a real-world service. What if Uber was owned and governed by its drivers? What if Airbnb was owned and governed by its hosts? That’s what an emerging movement is exploring for the entire sharing economy in an upcoming conference, Platform Cooperativism <http://platformcoop.net/>. Shareable helped break the platform coop story last year in a Nathan Schneider feature entitled, “Owning is the New Sharing <http://www.shareable.net/blog/owning-is-the-new-sharing>” along with Trebor Scholz of the New School <https://medium.com/@trebors/platform-cooperativism-vs-the-sharing-economy-2…>. These two thought leaders, also the conference organizers, identified a wave of platform coops forming, but we’re still in the early days. WHAT FORCES ARE DRIVING THE RISE OF DEATH STAR PLATFORMS? AND WHAT’S AT STAKE? Uber signifies a new era in tech entrepreneurship. Its leaders express an explicit ideology of domination and limitless, global ambition. In fact, the global tech sector may be one of the most powerful stateless actors on the world stage today. And Death Star platforms are the tech sector’s avant garde. Death Star platforms deftly exploit today’s growing economic insecurity and political vacuum. Their business model relies on precarious 1099 contractors. They mix technology, ideology <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology>, design, public relations, community organizing, and lobbying in a powerful new formulation that’s conquering cities and users around the world. They wrap themselves in the cloak of technological progress, free market inevitability, and even common good. As a result, cities allow them to break their laws with surprising frequency (Uber and Airbnb are simply illegal in most cities). Weak city governments either drink the Kool-Aid or struggle to contain them. Millennials, who Pew Research described as detached from institutions and networked with friends <http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/>, may be Death Star platform’s most ardent users. 50% of millennials are political independents, a huge increase over prior generations. And while Millennials are detached from traditional institutions, they increasingly connect through Death Stars. Most use these services and implicitly accept their ideology as Death Stars mask the complexity of their services—and their politics—behind slickly designed apps. As a result, they along with many others unknowingly join a movement with totalitarian goals, all for the sake of often negligible income, savings and convenience. It’s scary but understandable. US Millennials suffer from the highest debt and lowest employment of any generation since the Great Depression. Not to mention that Death Stars often deliver a better service. I use them occasionally too. Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and leading sharing economy venture capitalist (VC), epitomized this ideology in a 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled, “Competition is for Losers <http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-losers-1410535536>,” in which he encourages entrepreneurs to establish monopolies. Marc Andreessen, another leading sharing economy VC, wrote a similar op-ed in the same publication three years earlier titled, “Why Software is Eating the World <http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460>,” in which he declared that there was no industry that couldn’t be disrupted by web technologies. Behind the bombastic rhetoric are powerful real-world drivers. There are sound, if not self-serving, reasons for these VC’s bold calls to action. A technology gold rush dramatically larger than any before has only begun to unfold, and Thiel and his ilk have the most to gain. Jeremiah Owyang’s Collaborative Economy Honeycomb <http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2014/12/07/collaborative-economy-honeyco…> infographic shows a large and growing universe of companies challenging dozens of major industries. Indeed, a recent IBM survey <http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47989.wss>identified corporate executives’ top fear as the Uberization of everything. Zipcar founder Robin Chase <http://www.robinchase.org/> believes that everything that can become a platform, will become a platform <https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/everything-that-can-become-a-platform-wi…>. If so, then the sharing economy is just the tip of the spear. Silicon Valley could become *the* power center of the world, with its leaders joining the small-but-growing ranks of stateless, above-the-law plutocrats. That’s a big claim, but not out of the realm of possibility. There are some compelling leading indicators. There’s a surface explanation, but much more below that. Technology startups are building platforms to compete in nearly every brick and mortar service sector, and on a global basis. These platforms coordinate economic activity, but do not need to own the key physical assets or employ any of the end-service providers to profit. Uber owns no cars and employs no drivers, but has decimated the taxi business in San Francisco <http://www.shareable.net/blog/is-ridesharing-killing-san-franciscos-taxi-in…> . With incredibly low costs, global reach, scientifically developed user interfaces, and massive funding, Death Star platforms have a shot at duplicating this kind of success in every major city and service sector around the world. This has VCs salivating. The multitude of incumbents spread across many industries and geographies that play by the rules face steep odds against the lawlessness, network effects, and focused power of Death Stars. At a deeper level, fundamental changes in the startup world are underway. Tech startups *have to* venture into the brick and mortar world as the low hanging fruit in information-intensive industries has been picked. Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and more have established their global monopolies. Tech must leave the nest, and its newest startups can because it’s significantly faster, cheaper, and less risky to start companies than before. SHOCK AND AWE ENTREPRENEURSHIP The assembly line creation of technology startups has been largely perfected. Silicon Valley’s VC-driven ecosystem has significantly reduced the considerable cost and risk of starting a venture. Funding is at record levels <http://nvca.org/pressreleases/annual-venture-capital-investment-tops-48-bil…>. There’s large corps of professionals who specialize in building startups. The technology is also cheap, meaning that startups need significantly less funding than before…unless they want to “disrupt” a brick and mortar industry. These new dynamics explain Uber. Uber didn’t raise record amounts of venture capital to develop a new technology. Their technology is pedestrian. Most of it was developed by taxpayer-funded US government programs decades ago. They have combined old technology in a new way, but that’s relatively cheap to do. The $8 billion they’ve raised is to establish a global monopoly—in the real, physical world—in as short a time as possible. That takes a lot of marketing and lobbying muscle, and that’s really expensive. What are indicators of the Death Star platform’s rising political power? Uber’s David Plouffe, formerly President Obama’s campaign manager, literally besieged Portland’s mayor, ultimately forcing him to create a favorable policy <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/30/portland-makes-uber-lyft-legal-for-now.html>. Bloomberg’s “This is How Uber Takes Over a City <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-06-23/this-is-how-uber-takes-ov…>” gives an eye opening account Uber’s strong arm tactics. As of this writing this, Airbnb is running an $8.3 million campaign to defeat a San Francisco voter proposition (Prop F) designed to limit Airbnb’s negative impact on the city’s skyrocketing housing costs. This lobbying activity is just the tip of the iceberg. Uber and Airbnb are using a good bit of their $10 billion+ collective war chest to hire a global army of lobbyists. In their language, they’ve put “boots on the ground” in hundreds of cities. This is a big departure from the past. Tech investors used to avoid startups with significant regulatory risk because there were plenty of better, less risky opportunities. That’s not the case anymore. Now tech investors must and *can* take on the physical world. Moreover, the huge investment raises and regulatory friction add up to much more than the sum of their parts. It’s like 1+1=10. The more money Death Star platforms raise, the more press and customers they get. The more they break the rules, the more press and customers the get, which enables them to raise even more money. Taxi drivers strike? Jackpot! And the cycle repeats. It’s a blitzkrieg. It’s shock and awe entrepreneurship. It’s the sound of a new hegemonic bloc coming to power. Here’s what’s at stake. As Detroit shaped the world in the image of the car in the 20th century through an alienating and resource intensive system of highways and suburbs, so might Silicon Valley shape the world in the image of Death Star platforms in the 21st. If you’re outraged by the power of tech giants now, just wait until tech dominates the majority of services you depend on to live. If you’re worried about how tech companies use your personal information now, just wait until they can track you 24/7 online and off. If you’re frustrated by how tech companies wield power over you as user now, just wait until you’re algorithmically fired by a Death Star because of one random bad rating. If you think incumbents like taxi companies suck, just wait until a win-at-all-cost tech titan like Uber’s Travis Kalanick rules the roost. If the diversity of your city’s locally-owned businesses is already suffering, just wait until sterile, centralizing Silicon Valley apps create an even more boring and unresilient monoculture. If you’re worried about housing costs, just wait until every city’s housing market is like San Francisco’s, where one bedroom apartments rent for an average of $3,500 a month <http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/09/03/san_franciscos_median_rent_hits_ye…>, the highest in the US. If you’re pissed by today’s unprecedented inequality, just wait until Death Star platforms destroy millions of jobs (Uber can’t wait for driverless cars <http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/28/5758734/uber-will-eventually-replace-all-…>, yippee!) while shifting more risk and cost onto providers. Bottom line, what seems like a bad situation for the 99% today could become much, much worse tomorrow. PLATFORM COOPS, YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE If platform coops are our only hope, then we’re in big trouble. The movement is in its infancy. There are several fundamental, interrelated legal, financial, and organizational challenges to the process of forming platform coops. New organizational forms need to be worked out, which will take years. Meanwhile, Death Star platforms will conquer more territory at a new, faster version of Internet time. Their global blitzkrieg will continue apace. The aforementioned conference, Platform Cooperativism <http://platformcoop.net/>, hopes to address this through what organizers are calling a coming out party for the cooperative internet. Over 1,000 people have registered. Activists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, union officials, financiers, and academics are gathering to conceptualize the movement and begin to work out the key challenges of creating a democratic alternative to Death Star platforms. Its organizers hope to catalyze a movement of provider-owned sharing economy platforms, where the drivers or hosts wield the power, not VCs. The conference is a direct response to rise of Death Stars and their treatment of providers. The central premise of platform cooperativism is that those who create the most value for the platforms— providers like drivers and hosts—should own and control the platforms. Current arrangements tend toward exploitation of providers as Death Stars shift the cost and risk of providing a service to providers. Unlike most incumbent service providers, such as taxi companies or hotels, Death Stars providers are 1099 contractors who do not enjoy the benefits and protections of employees. Death Stars rely on this arrangement to avoid the costs of managing a workforce and grow quickly. It’s true that Death Stars often provide superior service by leveraging technology, but they probably wouldn’t be viable if they did not exploit this huge labor-related cost advantage. THE RISE OF THE REBEL ALLIANCE Examples of platform coops abound. A wave is forming, but most examples are brave experiments at best. Shareable’s “Owning is the New Sharing,” lists many examples. There’s Loconomics <https://loconomics.com/>, the cooperative version of task marketplace TaskRabbit. One of the most successful experiments is Enspiral Network <http://www.shareable.net/blog/enspiral-changing-the-way-social-entrepreneur…>, a New Zealand-based coworking community plus digital collective that allows hundreds of freelancers and social enterprises to work together for mutual benefit. Lazooz <http://lazooz.org/> is the blockchain version of Uber where drivers mine digital currency by giving rides, while Swarm <https://swarm.fund/> is the blockchain version of Kickstarter. These examples represent three common developmental patterns for platform coops. First, there are legally-defined cooperative versions of sharing economy platforms like Loconomics. Second are hybrids like Enspiral Network, which aren’t legally cooperatives but operate on similar principles leveraging digital technology. Then there’s the most scalable option: blockchain-based platform coops like Lazooz. They leverage the same technology Bitcoin uses —a distributed digital ledger—to coordinate, govern, and compensate platform work on a democratic basis. All of these paths are worth pursuing. As we do this, we must take care not to duplicate the organizational monoculture of Silicon Valley. However, it’s important to acknowledge that this movement will not produce viable competitors quickly. It took Silicon Valley decades to perfect the assembly line manufacture of startups. It shouldn’t take this movement that long, since Silicon Valley has paved much of the way. The movement can artfully adapt Silicon Valley startup methodology, business models, design, and its innovation ecosystem to launch a wave of platform coops. While much of the path has been paved, plenty of work remains. Below are five things platform coops must do to beat Death Stars platforms. What else would you add to this list? 1. INCUBATE THE TEMPLATES It will take focused, well-resourced, and consistent effort to work out the interrelated legal, financial, and organizational challenges of forming platform coops. Platform coops aren’t an incremental step up from typical startups, they’re a transformational leap. The path is currently uncertain, expensive, and time consuming. For instance, Loconomics has been working on their structure for going on two years, and aren’t even in beta yet. A better way is needed. Platform coops need to face this challenge together with long-term support of a stable anchor institution, like a university. This high barrier to forming platform coops must be lowered or this new movement will die in its crib. Part of the magic of tech startups is that there’s a well understood organizational structure, financing method, and developmental path for entrepreneurs to use. In other words, there’s a template. Platform coops need templates too, but ones which support a diversity of organizational patterns. What’s needed is a small number of incubators in different global cities working together to give birth to the first wave of platform coops. The trick is to get the first few platform coops off the ground, and then develop a global ecosystem that encourages replication of working models across industry verticals and geographies. 2. OFFER A BETTER SERVICE AT A COMPETITIVE PRICE Let’s not forget business fundamentals. Platform coops must offer a better service at a competitive price to beat Death Stars. A lot hinges on simply executing better day in and day out, but strategy plays a big role too. The key strategic challenge is figuring out how to leverage platform coops’ social mission, democratic structure to help them compete. User ownership and control offers inherent advantages that stem from a more engaging and empowering relationship to other users and the enterprise itself. For instance, platform coops could attract more loyal users at a lower cost than Death Stars by offering user-ownership. All else being equal, user-owners will likely deliver better service than 1099 contractors. Platform coops may be able to create a deeper community experience than Death Stars, which routinely feign community ethos for profit. The social mission of platform coops could help them access less expensive labor and capital like traditional cooperatives. They could also gain a cost advantage by developing a common software infrastructure or using open source platforms by ShareTribe <https://github.com/sharetribe/sharetribe> and GNUsocial <https://english.lasindias.com/some-keys-to-gnu-social-camp>. 3. TAKE COOPERATION TO THE NEXT LEVEL It goes without saying that platform coops should cooperate, as that is standard operating procedure in the cooperative world. In fact, it’s number six of the sector’s widely embraced Rochdale Principles <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles>. However, platform coops should take cooperation to the next level to exploit a potentially decisive competitive advantage over Death Stars. Death Stars’ closed nature which make it nearly impossible for them to engage in the deep collaboration between cooperatives seen in regions like Quebec, Canada, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and Basque Country, Spain. Clusters of small to medium-sized cooperatives in these regions often compete successfully against large multinationals through networking, formal collaborations, and shared infrastructure such as market research centers, banks, and universities. These cooperatives collaborate in a much deeper way than tech companies. In fact, they act almost as if they’re one organism. Platform coops must act similarly. For examble, the replacement for Airbnb shouldn’t be another centralizing global platform even if it’s a cooperative. It should be a federation of locally-owned cooperatives that are interconnected technologically (Fairbnb!). GNUsocial’s microblogging platform is an example. Each node is on a different server, but users can interact across nodes. The advantage is a much more resilient, user-controlled, distributed infrastructure. At Somero 2015 <http://somero2015.lasindias.club/en/> last month, GNUsocial took a big leap by unveiling the alpha version of a hospitality module called GNUbnb. Platform coops can share much more than software including data, digital reputation, knowledge, marketing, public relations, legal, lobbying, and physical space. And share all of this on a global basis — as Michel Bauwens’ open coop proposal <http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Cooperatives> advises — and across industries. Cities should get in on the action too. They should cooperate with each other and with platform coops to mold the sharing economy in the public interest as Janelle Orsi <http://platformcoop.net/participants/janelle-orsi>of the Sustainable Economies Law Center <http://www.theselc.org/> recently suggested <https://www.thenation.com/article/5-ways-take-back-tech/>. 4. CREATE AN ECOSYSTEM TO DISTRIBUTE WEALTH Silicon Valley arguably creates and concentrates more wealth than any place on earth. Behind this phenomenon is a powerful ecosystem <http://www.slideshare.net/EpicenterUSA/hbcu-innovation-summitbyers> that includes Stanford University, the biggest venture capital firms in the world, an enterprising culture, top notch professional services, and more. This ecosystem birthed the Death Stars, and they’ve benefited greatly from it. Platform coops need a similarly powerful ecosystem to compete, but one that distributes wealth instead of concentrating it. That’s a tall order, but platform coops may have natural allies in creating such an ecosystem including city governments, unions, nonprofits, universities, the free and open source software movement, and social investors like credit unions, social venture funds, and foundations. It took many decades for the Silicon Valley “miracle” to unfold. Similarly, it’ll take an ecosystem to raise this movement. 5. BUILD A MASS MOVEMENT Platform cooperatives have the opportunity to channel the huge amount of negative sentiment around Death Star platforms to power their movement. They can also move into the slipstream of awareness Death Stars are creating about the sharing economy to surge forward. However, the movement must be reframed in at least three ways to take advantage of these powerful forces. First, platform cooperativism must become a populist, trans-partisan movement. If Platform Cooperativism is the coming out party for the cooperative Internet, then it’s a lopsided one. The guest list <http://platformcoop.net/participants> reads like the line up for New York City’s liberal all star team. That said, I give them credit for a long list of partners including Shareable <http://www.shareable.net/>. That’s a good start at building a movement; they only need to reach across the aisle more going forward. Second, it must shift emphasis from moral arguments for platform coops to practical ones which convince ordinary folks that the vision is feasible. Hope is essential! Like traditional cooperatives, platform coops could offer inherent competitive advantages, including superior cost structure, better working conditions, higher pay, better reputations, resilience, and alignment between value creators and rewards. In fact, sharing ownership and control with users may become a necessity, as Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures has argued <http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/>, for platforms to compete for customers as other advantages are leveled by the market. Lastly, the emphasis must shift from platform coops formed by providers to a multi-stakeholder model <http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-platform-cooperativism-can-accelerate-sus…> that could include providers, customers, founders, investors, geographic communities, and nature. Provider-driven platform coops are a good start, but they will eventually run into the same problems that arise in any organization when one stakeholder group calls the shots. Investors are a normal part of the mix in traditional coops, so no reason they shouldn’t be here, especially with their power in check as one of many stakeholders. So an epic choice is before us. Do we accept Death Star platforms’ boring, unresilient, monocultural domination? A domination that will be difficult to shake off once established. A domination that puts the world at each of our individual fingertips while disempowering us collectively. A domination that could permanently damage the richness, resilience, and capacities of our local communities, as Douglas Rushkoff <http://www.rushkoff.com/> suggests <https://medium.com/@rushkoff/my-problem-with-uber-all-along-has-been-that-i…> . Or do we work together to build, as Charles Eisenstein would put it, the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible <http://charleseisenstein.net/project/the-more-beautiful-world-our-hearts-kn…>? A world where platform coops manifest the values of the commons in every community. Where our capacity to manage our resources together is deeply respected. Where polycentric control is a given. Where local laws, customs and cultures are honored. Where self-interest and common good are aligned. Where we are truly alive. The odds against this more beautiful world are the same odds Luke Skywalker faced against the Death Star in the original *Star Wars*. The key to victory is the same too. We must use the force, but the force in this case isn’t some mystical energy, the force is us. ------------------------------ Originally published in Shareable <http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-platform-coops-can-beat-death-stars-like-…> _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [opennetcoalition] 2015 Donation Campaign: support civil liberties, support La Quadrature!
by Michel Bauwens 12 Nov '15

12 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: La Quadrature du Net <contact(a)laquadrature.net> Date: Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 9:53 PM Subject: [opennetcoalition] 2015 Donation Campaign: support civil liberties, support La Quadrature! To: opennetcoalition(a)laquadrature.net Themes: LA QUADRATURE DU NET, FRENCH SURVEILLANCE LAWS, NET NEUTRALITY, COPYRIGHT REFORM La Quadrature du Net – For immediate release Permanent link: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2015-Donation-Campaign-support-liberties-su… 2015 Donation Campaign: support civil liberties, support La Quadrature! The Internetz, 12 November 2015 — **La Quadrature du Net launched its yearly fundraising campaign. To maintain total independence, La Quadrature calls for supporters willing to help an association fully dedicated to the defense and promotion of civil liberties, to the engagement of citizens in political life, and to the development of a free and open digital society. At the end of a year in which fundamental freedoms in the digital space have been challenged, we need to prepare for the future.** 2015 has been a busy year for La Quadrature du Net and thus for rights and freedoms. In France, the fight against [surveillance laws][1] has been at the center of our actions since January. In Europe, we have worked for [Net neutrality][2], [protection of personal data][3] and [copyright reform][4]. We have also worked towards a major update of [our proposals][5] to promote reforms and principles for a balanced vision of the Internet. We have developed the presence of La Quadrature du Net in several cities in France, encouraging the action of many volunteers and followers of the association. Collaboration with international and French partners (associations, unions and professionals) has been developed too, especially during the heated parliamentary debates about the Surveillance Law. The year 2014 has ended with a worried call for donations, to which citizens have [answered massively][6], especially by putting in place recurring/monthly donations to La Quadrature du Net. This is how we can remain independent and be able to focus on political struggles and citizen engagement in the defence of fundamental rights. We [renew this call][7], relying on past and present donors to give us the means to pursue our intensive work the upcoming year. For 2016, the main area work will be: * Work on the French Digital Bill that will be discussed early 2016 * Work on copyright reform at the European level * Continue the work on positive proposals * Complete the rebuilding of La Quadrature du Net's website to ease its access * Continue the development of volunteer initiatives around La Quadrature du Net in France * Develop or consolidate participation tools (Memopol, PiPhone, etc…) This clearly does not exclude other campaigns on laws that are not yet planned. To secure our projects and campaigns, we urgently need your support! Thanks in advance, and rest assured we work for the greater good. **The Strategic Directions Council and the operational team of La Quadrature du Net** Philippe Aigrain, Benjamin Bayart, Laurent Chemla, Lionel Maurel, Yoann Spicher, Benjamin Sonntag, Félix Tréguer, Laurence Vandewalle, Jérémie Zimmermann Adrienne Charmet, Agnès de Cornulier, Christopher Talib, Okhin, Mathieu Labonde, Baptiste Dagneaux et Lori Roussey. Support La Quadrature du Net: https://support.laquadrature.net [1]: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/surveillance [2]: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/Net_neutrality [3]: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/privacy-personal-data [4]: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/copyright [5]: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/proposals [6]: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/thank-you-3141516-times-for-your-support-to… [7]: https://support.laquadrature.net ** About La Quadrature du Net ** La Quadrature du Net is an advocacy group that defends the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet. More specifically, it advocates for the adaptation of French and European legislations to respect the founding principles of the Internet, most notably the free circulation of knowledge. In addition to its advocacy work, the group also aims to foster a better understanding of legislative processes among citizens. Through specific and pertinent information and tools, La Quadrature du Net hopes to encourage citizens' participation in the public debate on rights and freedoms in the digital age. La Quadrature du Net is supported by French, European and international NGOs including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Open Society Institute and Privacy International. List of supporting organisations: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/they-support-la-quadrature-du-net ** Press contact and press room ** contact(a)laquadrature.net, +33 (0)972 294 426 https://www.laquadrature.net/en/press-room _______________________________________________ Opennetcoalition mailing list Opennetcoalition(a)laquadrature.net https://laquadrature.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opennetcoalition -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Call: Conference Panel ”The Marxist Critique of the Political Economy of the Media” at the 2nd Marx Conference
by Christian Fuchs 11 Nov '15

11 Nov '15

Call for Abstracts: Conference Panel ”The Marxist Critique of the Political Economy of the Media” (2 sessions) Part of the 2nd Marx Conference, Stockholm, Sweden. October 14-16, 2016. Venue: ABF-huset, Sveavägen 41. Website: http://www.marx2016.org Convenors: Arwid Lund, Uppsala University, Sweden; Christian Fuchs, University of Westminster, UK. Supported by the open access journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique (http://www.triple-c.at) Details: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/announcement/view/26 Abstract submission: max. 250 words. Deadline January 31, 2016. Submission to: arwid.lund(a)abm.uu.se. Please indicate to which of the two sessions you submit (see below). Each session will consist of a panel of four speakers, 15 min. for each presentation, and half an hour for concluding questions and discussions. In 2013, a very successful Marx conference was held in Stockholm, gathering 2000 activists and scholars, with keynote speakers such as Michael Heinrich and Wolfgang Haug. The main topic of the conference was Marxist theory as a tool for analysing contemporary society. 2016’s follow-up conference (Marx2016) aims at political openings and potentials for a world beyond capitalism based on a thorough analysis of contemporary society. The general theme of the conference is To change a changed world. The conference consists of four main tracks. One of the sub-tracks will focuses on Marxist studies of media, communication and information There will be two sessions based on the following questions and themes: Theme 1: Digital labour, Marx and Dallas Smythe: In 1977, almost 40 years ago, Dallas Smythe published his seminal article “Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism”, in which he introduced the notions of audience labour and the audience commodity. This session asks: What is the relevance of “audience labour” for the political project of Marxism and the analysis of online participants and user generated content in the age of commercial social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Google? Does it matter for Marxism as a political project if the analysis of digital capitalism is based on the concepts of surplus-value or rent? Theme 2: Exploitation 2.0: Class and Exploitation in the Digital Age: Capitalism is a dynamic, dialectical system that changes in order to maintain its fundamental structures of exploitation. The rise of the computer, digitisation and the Internet’s role in the economy and society has brought about changes of class structures. This session asks: How have class and exploitation changed in the age of digital media? How can we analyse unpaid activities on commercial platforms with the help of class and other concepts such as the multitude and exploitation? What is the role of conflicts and struggles between users and the owners of corporate Internets platforms (such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Weibo, Amazon, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, etc.). Can peer production and non-commercial, alternative online media challenge capitalism? What are the implications of digital Marxism and media Marxism for Marxist theory and socialist politics? The sub-theme of The Marxist Critique of the Political Economy of the Media will be accompanied by one keynote talk in a general plenary session that provides a general introduction to the Marxist political economy of media, information and communication: Christian Fuchs: “The Marxist Critique of the Political Economy of Media in the Age of Digital Capitalism”.

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Fwd: [commoning] Fwd: Call for Panel, International Association for the Study of Commons, Regional European Meeting 2016, Bern
by Michel Bauwens 11 Nov '15

11 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Silke Helfrich <silke.helfrich(a)gmx.de> Date: Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 2:22 PM Subject: [commoning] Fwd: Call for Panel, International Association for the Study of Commons, Regional European Meeting 2016, Bern To: COMMONING LIste engl <commoning(a)lists.commons-institut.org> -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: Call for Panel, International Association for the Study of Commons, Regional European Meeting 2016, Bern Datum: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 14:23:37 +0000 Von: IASC Europe 2016 <iasc-europe-2016(a)cde.unibe.ch> An: info(a)commonsblog.de <info(a)commonsblog.de> Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, liebe Kollegen und Kolleginnen Anbei sende ich Ihnen den Call for Panel, Papers und Posters für das IASC Regional European Meeting in Bern (Mai 2016) mit der Bitte, den Call Ihren Kolleg_innen und Mitarbeiter_innen bzw. Mitgliedern Ihres Instituts zugänglich zu machen. Mit freundlichen Grüssen Elisabeth Schubiger IASC Regional Conference Team, Bern ** *Call for Panels, Papers, and Posters * *for IASC Regional European Meeting, * *Bern, Switzerland, 10-13 May 2016 * *Commons in a “Glocal” World: * *Global Connections and Local Responses* Venue: University of Bern, Main Building Organized by the Institute of Social Anthropology (ISA), the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), and the Institute of Geography (IG) in collaboration with the Institute of History the World Trade Institute (WTI), University of Bern, Switzerland Main theme: Global Connections and Local Responses Research on the commons deals either with the development of institutions for the management of the commons, or with issues related to global change. While the latter mainly focusses on drivers and effects of global expansion of capitalist modes of production, consumption, and societal reproduction, research on institutions for the management of the commons deals with collective action and the effects and reactions within local action arenas. However, the entangled institutional processes through which global and local arenas – referred to as “glocal” – interlock are not yet addressed in a systematic way. Europe has been a major driver of “glocal” processes. Therefore, the 4th Regional European Meeting of the IASC is devoted to global connections and local responses. It provides a space to advance our understanding of ongoing “glocal” processes and to analyse historically how commons in Europe have evolved and adapted to “glocal” changes. By integrating political ecology with approaches of New Institutionalism and Critical Theory in Anthropology, Human Geography, Political Science and History, we propose to investigate the impacts of external changes on the perception and evaluation of resources by actors related to the commons. This raises the question of local bargaining power, ideologies and discourses, and of the selection and crafting of institutional designs, which in turn affect the access to common-pool resources, as well as the distribution of benefits related to the management of these resources. This conference therefore aims to look at the interfaces between local and global processes in order to bring together research arenas that have often been kept quite separate until now. We therefore call for contributions focussing on: • how global players such as multinational companies and organizations affect local governance of the commons worldwide • the role of international law and global trade in shaping the interface between global actors and institutional processes of local commons governance • the impacts of external economic and political changes on the perception and evaluation of resources and areas by actors related to the commons • local resistance and the development of political strategies countering the transformation of collective into private or state-based property rights as a consequence of economic and political changes • the local crafting of institutional designs in global and local arenas, and how these affect access to and distribution of natural resources and related benefits among local to global actors using the commons • how the encounter of global and local processes affect bargaining power, ideologies and discourses of global and local actors in governing sustainability trade-offs. We especially welcome contributions that aim to address the above mentioned themes through novel forms of integrating theoretical approaches. In addition, the focus of the conference will be on a dialogue among representatives of different academic disciplines (e.g. geography, social anthropology, history, development studies, economics, political science, and law) and between academics and non-academic actors (e.g. practitioners, business representatives, policy makers, or NGOs). For any additional information, please visit http://www.iasc-commons.org/conferences/regional/2016-iasc-european-regiona… *Deadline for submitting panel abstracts is November 15, 2015 * Please send your panel abstract (500 words) with at least two potential presenters In case you have a single paper or a poster this can also be submitted at this deadline. A second call for papers related to the panels will follow on November 15, 2015 Please submit your abstract via the IASC Conference Registration Module: http://conferences.iasc-commons.org/ Please contact us if you have questions: iasc-europe-2016(a)cde.unibe.ch -- Silke Helfrich www.commonsblog.de _______________________________________________ Commoning mailing list Commons-Institut e.V. Germany Commoning(a)lists.commons-institut.org https://lists.schokokeks.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/commoning -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Self-managed VIOME under threat: Call for international support against the auction. November 17-24
by Michel Bauwens 11 Nov '15

11 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Theodoros Karyotis <tkaryotis(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 5:18 PM Subject: Self-managed VIOME under threat: Call for international support against the auction. November 17-24 To: *Dear friends:* *As a result of the legal battle waged against the VIOME workers collective, the state-appointed trustee is now organising a series of auctions with the aim of liquidating the plot of land on which the VIOME factory is located. A possible sale of the land would create the legal ground for evicting the workers from the factory.* *Although the workers and the solidarity assembly are decided to stand their ground and defend the factory in all eventualities, the auction process represents a threat and it requires mobilisation in order to be prevented. A first step is to block, through direct action, the first such auction that is programmed for November 26th. This is why we reach out to you, to ask for help and mobilisation to put pressure on the government to satisfy the long-standing demands of the VIOME workers for legalisation of their activity, by expropriating the factory and granting it to the VIOME workers' cooperative, which will operate it in a horizontal and self-managed way, as it has been doing for 3 years now. * *We appeal for an international week of solidarity, from November 17 to 24. * - *We urge you to sign the attached resolution and return your details to protbiometal(a)gmail.com <protbiometal(a)gmail.com>, or even better, hand it in to the nearest Greek embassy or consulate demanding that it is transferred to the Greek Ministry of Labour. * - *We welcome any international acts of solidarity, especially ones that involve non-violent direct action towards Greek embassies worldwide.* - *We urge you to organise screenings of this 30-minute documentary by D.Azzellini and O.Ressler, detailing the struggle of VIOME through interviews and participation in its assemblies (English subtitles included): https://youtu.be/2Fg2akSUvFM <https://youtu.be/2Fg2akSUvFM> **You can download a good quality version of the documentary here <https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxav19zv3gewn0h/Occupy%20Resist%20Produce%20-%20V…>(407mb).* - *You can send us announcements of your events, and/or photos to be uploaded to VIOME´s website, to protbiometal(a)gmail.com <protbiometal(a)gmail.com> * *Please read and circulate the following appeal of the workers for support:* A call for support of the struggle of VIOME <https://www.blogger.com/null>Dear solidarity supporters, we would like to inform you about the latest developments in the struggle of the workers of VIOME. <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-te7f_VwAvyA/Vh-xNo-vmfI/AAAAAAAAW10/cQrFo-jnUTw/s…>As you know, for four years now *we have been fighting for our life and dignity*. We, the workers, have chosen to create social alliances. We have rejected the proposals made by various political organizations to have an "exclusive" relationship with our struggle and direct it following narrow partisan criteria. Nevertheless, we have always all accepted invitations to speak and communicate. When large parts of society decided to stand by us and support us with whatever means they had available,* a large network of solidarity was created*. Consequently we managed to build relationships of trust, through common assemblies were the wider community can participate, where together we make decisions on the political course of the struggle, as well as on many other issues. *Many political organizations agreed with the political framework* that we, together with the wider community, have set. To this day they support our effort to operate the factory with workers’ control of production and self-management by the workers’ assembly. <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HC2Ki87di2U/Vh-w04t57ZI/AAAAAAAAW1Y/t8O6gnOzF6U/s…>*Among the political forces that supported our struggle was SYRIZA,* through statements and commitments for an immediate solution to the issue of operation of the factory, made by the current prime-minister himself. Of course, *after SYRIZA came to power, the statements and the commitments became more and more vague*. The determination they demonstrated when they were in opposition was replaced by timidity, and by proposals that we make compromises in a different framework than what we had previously agreed upon. Their great “achievement” after eight months in government is to *abandon the struggle of VIOME to the machinations of the judicial system*. The same judicial system that, despite having condemned former owner of VIOME Christina Philippou to dozens of months in prison, allows her to walk free, supposedly to do community service at a municipality where she has strong "connections". To this day, she has never showed up at the place where she is supposed to do community work. A judicial system that allows those who have abused and destroyed the Greek society for five years now to walk free, never taking any action to punish them. The “first ever left-wing government” leaves us in the hands of this judicial system. <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q_h4wzdqcy8/Vh-xNYSAn-I/AAAAAAAAW1s/tTzaAApMH7Q/s…>The political standpoint of the judges is evident through the decisions they have made up to this moment: *they have gone as far as saying that we have no legitimate right to demand the money owed by our former employers! *In all our attempts to claim our money, both by intervention of the property of Philkeram, and by demanding to operate the factory again, we have received the same answers. And of course, *they do not take any action to find a solution* for the operation of the factory, so we, the workers who have decided to stay on, can escape unemployment. According to the court decisions, the unified plot of land where* the VIOME premises are located is auctioned on Thursday November 26, 2015,* and for three consecutive Thursdays thereafter. If no interested buyer is found, they will continue with the process until they achieve to sell the land, therefore evicting us from the factory. This land consists of fourteen separate plots, *some of which were directly or indirectly donated by the Greek government to former owner Phillipou* in recognition of the "social contribution" of job creation. Now they are put to auction to satisfy the creditors of VIOME’s parent company Philkeram: the Inland Revenue Office, the Social Insurance Service, former workers of Philkeram, banks and suppliers. <http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v4PTc6W7d-E/Vh-xNrmEErI/AAAAAAAAW1w/TxnHGiz9P20/s…>The premises of VIOME represent about 1/7 of the total land, and the area in which it lies could easily be separated from the rest of Philkeram’s real estate. *But the employees of VIOME are never mentioned in the bankruptcy proceedings*, although VIOME was a subsidiary of Philkeram, driven to destruction by the parent company’s bankruptcy. VIOME is completely neglected, although the mismanagement of the Phillipou family, who transferred funds from VIOME and *overburdened it with debt for their personal gain,* was largely responsible for the bankruptcy. This is a proven fact, since a study by consultants DELOIT concluded there was capacity for normal operation for both companies. *The judicial system once again sides with the forces of capital *and makes rulings against the workers who assert the right to work. And of course, the state does not stand up to the challenge of providing solutions. For this reason, we, the workers of VIOME,* invite all of you, who have been standing beside us during all this time of struggle, to be present on Thursday November 26 in the auction* of the land, to abort their plan to evict us from the VIOME factory. A space that we have, for two years now, managed to turn into a place of work and a place of freedom. We invite you to stand beside us, to support every effort of the workers to *make the forces of production autonomous from the capitalist class,* a class which anyway has delocalised all production abroad. *We invite you to support the operation of the factory,* since we, the workers, have declared that we are not leaving, that our lives are now linked to this factory. We invite you to stand beside us, so we can affirm all together that *a solution exists beyond the advices of the “experts”*: this time around, the solution lies with those who are directly involved in the struggle, not with the luminaries. *in solidarity,* *the general assembly of the workers at VIOME* -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: My latest article
by Michel Bauwens 11 Nov '15

11 Nov '15

http://commondreams.org/views/2015/11/06/50-ways-leave-euro-greece-and-glob… ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Thomas Greco <thg(a)mindspring.com> Date: Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 1:52 AM Subject: My latest article To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> Cc: Kevin Flanagan <kev.flanagan(a)gmail.com>, William Methven < methvenwilliam(a)gmail.com>, Graham Barnes <gb(a)feasta.org>, Davie Philip < davie(a)cultivate.ie> Common Dreams <http://commondreams.org/> has just published my latest article, *50 Ways to Leave the Euro: Greece and the Global Crisis*. In this article I provide my prescriptions for how Greece (and other countries) might relieve their impossible debt burden and describe ways in which domestic liquidity can be created without inflation. You can read it here <http://commondreams.org/views/2015/11/06/50-ways-leave-euro-greece-and-glob…>. I’ve also posted it on my website as a PDF file <https://beyondmoney.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/50-ways-to-leave-the-euro-r…> . Feel free to repost, excerpt and circulate it. Thomas -- Thomas H. Greco, Jr.thg(a)mindspring.com PO Box 42663, Tucson, AZ 85733 Mobile phone (USA): 520-820-0575 Beyond Money: http://beyondmoney.net Archive Website: http://www.Reinventingmoney.com Skype/Twitter name: tomazgreco My fourth and latest book, "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization" can be ordered from Chelsea Green Publishing, Amazon.com, or your local bookshop. ------------------------------ [image: Avast logo] <https://www.avast.com/antivirus> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/antivirus> -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: FYI: "The Internet needs a new economy—here’s why" + NYC Event 11/13 -14 (videostreamed)
by Michel Bauwens 11 Nov '15

11 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Nurul E. <ne_atl(a)onebox.com> Date: Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 4:19 AM Subject: FYI: "The Internet needs a new economy—here’s why" + NYC Event 11/13 -14 (videostreamed) To: ne_atl(a)onebox.com ------- Forbes blogger Adam Hartung ----- As Goes Apple, So Goes The Nation: Jobs In The Digital Service Economy http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2015/11/06/as-goes-apple-so-goes-th… Snippet: "Today’s growth companies, those powering the American economic engine, are filled with intellectual assets rather than physical assets. Apple, Google and Facebook (et.al.) are creating intellectual capital, and they need employees able to add to that capital base. It is not enough for job candidates to have a college degree any longer. Today’s job hunter has to be information savvy, digital savvy, tech savvy. In the 1960s the gap widened dramatically between those in manufacturing and those in farming. By the 1970s farms were closing by the hundreds as value shifted out of agrarian production to industrial production. It was devastating to farm communities and farm families. Today the gap is widening between those skilled in manufacturing or general knowledge and those with information-based skills..." -------Original Message------- AND Yet ... "The tech industry, meanwhile, for all its talk of “sharing” and “democratizing,” has become addicted to a business model of massive early investment in exchange for massive short-'term returns. Ordinary users are made to think that the platforms that they use every day are meant for them, and that they’re free, even as the personal information they share is sold off to pay investors" From: "The Next System Project" <nextsystem(a)democracycollaborative.org> Subject: The Internet needs a new economy—here’s why Dear Friend, The Internet. Ownership. Democracy ** A Different Online Economy is Possible. We are writing to tell you about a great article we just published on TheNextSystem.org that argues why we need a new economy for the Internet—one based in cooperation, not exploitation and precarity. We also want to invite you to an exciting conference exploring pathways to a more cooperative digital economy. With all of its success, the growing movement to build a solidarity economy has yet to really shape the ways the Internet is creating new forms of work and finance. In their recently published article ( http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285…) for TheNextSystem.org, Nathan Schneider, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Trebor Scholz, Professor for Culture and Media at The New School, write that “the tech industry, for all its talk of ‘sharing’ and ‘democratizing,’ has become addicted to a business model of massive early investment in exchange for massive short-term returns.” What’s needed instead is a reimagining of forms of cooperative and community ownership, scaled up to Internet size, and building a digital economic ecosystem for a flourishing social economy, not the relentless extraction of profits for venture capital. And next week, Scholz and Schneider are convening the Platform Cooperativism conference from November 13-14 ( http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285…) at the New School (NYC) to address this issue and to discuss – among other things – how the Internet and the businesses it creates can be owned and governed differently. Live video strream: http://platformcoop.net/video-stream Many of the Next System statement signatories ( http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285e…) will be presenting at the conference including our colleague, Democracy Collaborative Communications Director John Duda. Duda will discuss how we can tackle the challenges of scale, inclusion, and empowerment in building platform cooperativism ( http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285e…) by learning from parallel efforts across the country that reorient local economic development towards more cooperative and community based solutions. In Solidarity, The Next System Project P.S. Please help us spread the word by forwarding this email to your friends. Read Full Article ( http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285… ) http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285… On November 13 and 14, the New School in New York City will host a coming-out party for the cooperative Internet, built of platforms owned and governed by the people who rely on them. The program will include discussion sessions, screenings, monologues, legal hacks, workshops, and dialogues, as well as a showcase of projects, both conceptual and actual, under the purview of celebrity judges. We’ll learn from coders and worker cooperatives, scholars, and designers. Together, we’ll put their lessons to work as we work toward usable apps and structural economic change. This is your chance to get on the ground floor of the next Internet, and to help make it a reality. We’re operating on the hunch that many of the economic challenges we face – wealth inequality, job security, health coverage, pensions – can’t be addressed adequately without the reorganization of how online platforms are owned and governed. Platforms are already reorganizing our economy; let’s reorganize them first, putting solidarity at the center. Free Registration ( http://thenextsystem.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e51d2c7d40bc9992285e… ) -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [fcforum] Outcomes&Media of #FCForum15
by Michel Bauwens 10 Nov '15

10 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Simona Levi <info(a)conservas.tk> Date: Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 7:07 PM Subject: [fcforum] Outcomes&Media of #FCForum15 To: Dear participants, assistants and friends, Below you can find all the links to material and documents useful for civil action produced in the Free Culture Forum 2015, organized last week by Xnet in Farinera de Barcelona, as well as the photos and the videos of the conferences and workshops, for those of you that were not able to attend. Some of the linked publications are still under review, so that any contribution on translation and corrections are very welcome :) *Free Culture Forum 2015 - Citizen Rights' Observatory in the Digital Age* Index: *1* - Free Culture Forum 2015 Declaration *2* - Barcelona City Council’s commitment to collaborate on issues of Net Neutrality *3* - PRESENTATION OF THE SPANISH CITIZEN GROUP AGAINST CORRUPTION – State platform of citizens active against corruption and Stament for the Protection of Whistleblowers. *4* - “Transparency for the state! Privacy for the rest of us!” *5 *- MEDIA* - *Video | Photo | Press *6 -* Information Security for Journalists *1 - Free Culture Forum 2015 Declaration* Coordination for citizens’s action • Net Neutrality • Transparency and Privacy • Freedom of expression • Freedom of information and press vs Trade Secrets • Whistleblowers defense • Copyright Positive Agenda • Democracy in the Digital Era *Links to the documents produced by the working groups that have participated in the Free Culture Forum 2015. * *We need the traslation from english to spanish. Please, help us.* - Free Culture Forum 2015 Declaration. Index – <http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/> http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/ - Net Neutrality – <http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/net-neutrality/> http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/net-neutrality/ - Right to information above Trade Secrets – <http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/trade-secrets-directive/> http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/trade-secrets-directive/ - Transparency, Surveillance, Privacy and Civil Rights – http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/tranpsarency-and-privacy/ - Copyright Positive Agenda – <http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/copyright/> http://comments.xnet-x.net/fcforum-2015/copyright/ *2 -Picture of the Barcelona City Council’s commitment to collaborate on issues of Net Neutrality* http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#adacolau *3 - PRESENTATION OF THE SPANISH CITIZEN GROUP AGAINST CORRUPTION – State platform of citizens active against corruption and Stament for the Protection of Whistleblowers.* Pictures: http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#anticorrupcion Text: We need translation to english. Please, help us. https://xnet-x.net/decalogo-proteccion-denunciantes-alertadores/ *4 - “Transparency for the state! Privacy for the rest of us!” * *by Simona Levi de Xnet* When something stops being an instrument for democracy and justice and becomes a ‘value’ – a slogan – an end in and of itself, that’s when we have a problem. Look what they’ve done with ‘Love’ and ‘Peace’, ‘Union’, ‘Democracy’ and ‘Justice’… Read rhe full text: https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/simona-levi/transparency-f… *5 - MEDIA - *Video | Photo | Press http://2015.fcforum.net/media *PRESENTATION OF THE SPANISH CITIZEN GROUP AGAINST CORRUPTION – State platform of citizens active against corruption (ES)* <https://youtu.be/-n1kPy6zFpI>https://youtu.be/-n1kPy6zFpI *It’s not a crisis, it’s a scam (ES)* Opening by Sergio Salgado <https://youtu.be/OcoaOJJ7kiA>https://youtu.be/OcoaOJJ7kiA Enric Duran – The one who robbed a thief <https://youtu.be/MnPtGqqTj3o>https://youtu.be/MnPtGqqTj3o Finsalud – Fraud and Health – the effect of financial fraud in the health of people <https://youtu.be/2Cz3PZuocTo>https://youtu.be/2Cz3PZuocTo Hibai Arbide – Greece as a spoiler of what will happen in other countries <https://youtu.be/q7gFyxjzeVY>https://youtu.be/q7gFyxjzeVY *SURVEILLANCE, REPRESSION, DATA PROTECTION AND CIVIL LIBERTIES* Simona Levi – Transparency & privacy (ES) <https://youtu.be/RoIbfyRn8yA>https://youtu.be/RoIbfyRn8yA Jeremie Zimmermann – Estate of affairs (ENG) <https://youtu.be/tIUTDSmLNV0>https://youtu.be/tIUTDSmLNV0 Arjen Kamphuis – Information Security for Journalists (ENG) <https://youtu.be/EnORzdBRPBA>https://youtu.be/EnORzdBRPBA Alberto Escorcia – “Bots”, the attack on freedom of expression and organisation (ES) <https://youtu.be/06FRsQj2kjQ>https://youtu.be/06FRsQj2kjQ *Photo galleries* *Conferences & Workshops* <http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#conferencias> http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#conferencias <http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#workingroups> http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#workingroups Working Groups <http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#makers>http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#makers Participation in the Influencers <http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#influencers> http://2015.fcforum.net/media/#influencers *PRESS *(ES) - http://www.publico.es/internacional/free-culture-forum-red-territorio.html - http://www.eldiario.es/cultura/tecnologia/FCForum15-Decalogo-proteccion-den… - http://www.infolibre.es/noticias/politica/2015/10/31/xnet_presenta_barcelon… - http://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/97287/simona/levi/ser/alertador/corrupc… - http://www.publico.es/politica/nace-grupo-ciudadano-corrupcion-espanol.html - http://www.eldiario.es/tribunaabierta/Transparencia-privacidad_6_446265398.… - http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2015/10/31/catalunya/1446305696_150548.html - https://directa.cat/actualitat/lactivisme-digital-contra-control-de-informa… - http://www.btv.cat/btvnoticies/2015/10/31/fcforum15-simona-levi-xnet-intern… - http://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/politica/Vigilantes-instituciones_0_447255… - http://www.publico.es/politica/jeremie-zimmermann-gobiernos-miedo.html - http://blogs.20minutos.es/goldman-sachs-is-not-an-after-shave/2015/11/01/an… - http://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/el-nou-periodisme-i-la-lluita-contra-la-cor… - http://www.ccma.cat/324/es-crea-una-plataforma-per-coordinar-les-persones-q… - http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/politica/nace-una-plataforma-ciudada… *6 - Information Security for Journalists* Publication of the Spanish translation of ‘Information Security for Journalists’ of the ‘ Centre for Investigative Journalism ‘, by Silkie Carlo and Arjen Kamphuis. <http://comments.xnet-x.net/seguridad-informacion-para-periodistas/> http://comments.xnet-x.net/seguridad-informacion-para-periodistas/ http://xnet-x.net/ https://twitter.com/X_net_ <https://twitter.com/15mparato> https://www.facebook.com/RedX.Net <https://www.facebook.com/15MpaRato> If you do not want to receive information about Xnet activities please let us know in an email with the word DELETE in the subject. Sorry for any inconvenience. -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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