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thinkpiece: How to distinguish civic society from the private sector
by Michel Bauwens 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

for the blog in 10 days or so: We have to remember that historically, civil society actually meant the private sector, but this was a private sector consisting of propertied individuals and some powerful institutions such as the Church; most people, slaves, women, non-propertied workers and farmers, where not part of civil society. This only changed when, through many decades of popular struggles, active citizenship rights were extented , creating a more vibrant civil society, with many new types of social institutions such as nonprofits, parties, but also many informal associations and relationships, now very evident through peer production. Nevertheless despite these gains in rights which insure formal equality in citizenship, civil society remains a deeply divided reality. In many countries, especially in the South, the very notion of civil society is contested because it still retains powerful exclusionary mechanisms. I think we can adapt two changes to the concept, so that it retains its value, as I think we need a concept that describes what does not belong neither to the collective state nor to private profit maximisation, but describes activities that directly benefit the common good. The first is to use the concept of civiC, rather than civil society, as this clearly links it with equal citizenship and popular sovereignity. The second change is that we have to imperative exclude activities for private gain from the realm of civic society. This then gives us the triarchy: 1. of the state, as representative institution (at least in democracies), that is formally in charge of the overall collective good, though of course in reality we know that it carries out this function for the benefit of ruling oligarchies, which means this function must be reclaimed in the interest of the citizens. 1. that of the private sector, which contains profit-maximising enterprises only concerned with their own private advancement, and therefore, not acting as citizens; these activities need to be transformed, so that they can no longer ignore positive and negative social externalities 2. civic society then, is reserved for all those individual and collective entities which act directly from a perspective of the common good, through self-action and self-expression instead of representation (which distinguishes it from the state), and this can include market actions, on the very important condition that these are subsumed under the common good, i.e. undertaken by mission-oriented entities, for which the market activity is a means to an end, and not an end in itself or a means for profit maximisation. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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an update on the tav/espra projects in London
by Michel Bauwens 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: tav <tav(a)espians.com> Date: 11 March 2011 15:13 Subject: [esp] Exciting news!! To: Espians <esp(a)googlegroups.com>, openkollab(a)googlegroups.com, Espians < espians(a)googlegroups.com> Over the coming months we are going to be launching not one, but half a dozen ventures: togethr.at, Social Startup Labs, Future Hacker, Git Review, Hub Make Lab and Ampify/Espra!! # togethr.at Following the recent Place Station <http://www.theplacestation.org.uk/> work that we jointly delivered with 00:/, Indy's company, we've now setup a 50/50 joint venture called togethr.at. This will be a sort of Kickstarter meets Foursquare serving that exciting space where the physical meets the virtual. The heart of the site will be a place and topic-based social marketplace built around a novel system of offers and claims. Some example uses: * Community activists will find the tools necessary to organise everything from street parties to social startups. * Local authorities will be able to partake in the Neighbourhood Challenge funds and make use of their underused assets. * Developers (like Tesco) will be able to engage in consultation re: development and invest in community efforts. We've already got £15k of investment into togethr.at — half of which goes towards the development budget. The aim is to get together a total dev budget of £64k so as to launch a drool-worthy alpha at SOCAP/Europe <http://europe.socialcapitalmarkets.net/> and a beta in September! # Social Startup Labs Another joint venture, Social Startup Labs will be a vehicle to scale up the awesome work < http://wiki.socialstartuplabs.com/private/social-startup-labs-social-franch… > that Sofia, Mamading and co. have been doing on the ground in Lambeth/London. Also launching at SOCAP/Europe as a sister site to together.at, the socialstartuplabs.com site will provide tools to: * Digitally capture the needs, assets and opportunities in local communities. * Support the various social processes that social startup labs brings together. * Enable new social startups to collaborate and support each other. The launch will also kick off a super innovative social franchising model that we've come up with — for which we've already got one Canadian firm committed and interested franchisees in the Bay Area, Houston and Brussels! # Future Hacker A sort of Hacker News meets IRC, the futurehacker.org site will be about serving the startup/hacker types in both keeping up with deeply technical developments <http://al3x.net/2011/02/22/solving-the-hacker-news-problem.html> as well as providing the collaboration tools to support open projects (incl. GitHub integration). In an effort to start going beyond the usual tech topics, Future Hacker will also be supporting emergent domains like open manufacturing, diy bio, open synthetic genomics, etc. # Git Review The traditional software development process with version numbers and releases is pretty much broken and needs a significant overhaul. Git Review, a sister site to Future Hacker, will be offering a novel approach that integrates best practices like code review, testing, etc. with decentralised (forked) "project" planning and issue tracking supporting continuous deployment setups. # Hub Make Lab Not a joint venture, Hub Make Lab is a project by 00:/ that will be both "rebooting" the original Hub at Islington and setting up a new 12,000 square foot space on Haymarket! With such a potent location, right next to Trafalgar Square and Parliament, and 24 hour access, we will be looking to manifest the most vibrant and happening space in the whole of London! I'm currently engaged in dialogue with 00:/ about abandoning the horribly flawed Hub model of sub-renting desk space and moving to the Trust and Pecus-based Riva model. Not sure if they are ready for such a leap yet, but in any case, starting May (and publicly September), we will have a new base of operations in the centre of town!! # Ampify In a similar manner to how Ruby on Rails was originally developed to create Basecamp, Ampify will be developed further so as to support all the above ventures. And it being decentralised means that all of these sites will all be able to talk to each other!! No more closed silos!!! We will be leaving aside the more Espra-esque developments like Naaga, our programming language, and AmpBrowser with augmented interfaces to later, but will be focusing on the decentralised identity, datastore and messaging architecture at this stage. # Espra All of these developments should mean that come late September we should be in a really good position — in terms of reputation, finance and technological development — to kick off the grander Espian/Espra vision to the world. =) Anyway, hope that's a good enough update for now. What do you all think? Are you excited yet? And, oh, if you are interested in joining in on any of this, do drop by the IRC channel — #esp on irc.freenode.net -- Cya soon, love, tav plex:espians/tav | tav(a)espians.com | +44 (0) 7809 569 369 http://tav.espians.com | http://twitter.com/tav | skype:tavespian -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Fwd: link:public service reknewal for 21st Century
by Michel Bauwens 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

see also: http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Public-Services ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: james burke <lifesized(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 12:10 AM Subject: link:public service reknewal for 21st Century To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> http://www.ns6newsynthesis.com/documents/roundtablereports/unitedkingdom/ns… -- Web: www.lifesized.net Phone:+31 (0)6 5244 6445 Twitter: @lifesized -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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DIY - forking - setting up a government - as legal entity ?
by Dante-Gabryell Monson 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

HI All, I have a question : if we where to set up our own ( country / region / state ) government, according to some principles discussed on p2p foundation platforms, how would we do it ? In the country I come from, we often joke as we have so many governments on the same territory : federal, regional, linguistic, and transnational governments, in addition to local bodies of governance, and the financial system of control. So why not one more ? A legal entity, with members, who through a mechanism yet to be determined, builds up "code" for its own governance ? A new legal entity potentially bringing more clarity to all the other ones ? Some "open, participatory, panocratic panarchy government" ? What would you suggest forking such kind of government on ? What code ? Existing laws ? If so, which ones ? And which ones would suit a p2p paradigm ? Would this also require a new constitution ? Would it be in phase with existing constitutions ? There are such kind of projects already, some artistic ( missing reference ) others more serious diaspora attempts, such as regarding the expatriate tamil's from Sri Lanka : http://www.tgte-us.org/mission.html

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Fwd: [OSLIST] The World unites around Four Principles
by Michel Bauwens 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 2:56 AM Subject: Fwd: [OSLIST] The World unites around Four Principles To: sustainable_solidarity(a)yahoogroups.com, hc_ecology(a)yahoogroups.com, econowmix(a)googlegroups.com in relation to similarities between some apparent indian spiritual principles - nice simple slides : http://www.imagegossips.com/2011/02/indian-principles-of-spirituality/ <http://www.imagegossips.com/2011/02/indian-principles-of-spirituality/> and open space technology's principles of self organized meeting spaces : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology#Guiding_Principles_and_O… <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology#Guiding_Principles_and_O…> ------------- comparison : apparently, some indian spiritual principles ( still need to find the exact historic reference ... ? ) http://rummuser.com/?p=4624 * The First Principle states: “Whomsoever you encounter is the right one” This means that no one comes into our life by chance. Everyone who is around us, anyone with whom we interact, represents something, whether to teach us something or to help us improve a current situation. The Second Principle states: “Whatever happened is the only thing that could have happened” Nothing, absolutely nothing of that which we experienced could have been any other way. Not even in the least important detail. There is no “If only I had done that differently…, then it would have been different…”. No. What happened is the only thing that could have taken place and must have taken place for us to learn our lesson in order to move forward. Every single situation in life, which we encounter, is absolutely perfect, even when it defies our understanding and our ego. The Third Principle states: “Each moment in which something begins is the right moment” Everything begins at exactly the right moment, neither earlier nor later. When we are ready for it, for that something new in our life, it is there, ready to begin. This is the Fourth Principle, the final one: “What is over, is over” It is that simple. When something in our life ends, it helps our evolution. That is why, enriched by the recent experience, it is better to let go and move on. * Open Space Technology Principles : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology#Guiding_Principles_and_O… 1. * Whoever comes is the right people* ...reminds participants that they don't need the CEO and 100 people to get something done, you need people who care. And, absent the direction or control exerted in a traditional meeting, that's who shows up in the various breakout sessions of an open space meeting. 2. *Whenever it starts is the right time* ...reminds participants that "spirit and creativity do not run on the clock." 3. *Whatever happens is the only thing that could have* ...reminds participants that once something has happened, it's done—and no amount of fretting, complaining or otherwise rehashing can change that. Move on. 4. *When it's over, it's over* ...reminds participants that we never know how long it will take to resolve an issue, once raised, but that whenever the issue or work or conversation is finished, move on to the next thing. Don't keep rehashing just because there's 30 minutes left in the session. Do the work, not the time. Owen explains his one "Law," called the *"Law of Two Feet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology#Law_of_Two_Feet> "* or *"The Law of Mobility"*, as follows: *If at any time during our time together you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet, go someplace else.* In this way, all participants are given both the right and the responsibility to maximize their own learning and contribution, which the Law assumes only they, themselves, can ultimately judge and control. Forwarded conversation Subject: [OSLIST] The World unites around Four Principles ------------------------ From: *Suzanne Daigle* <sdaigle4(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 4:46 PM To: OSLIST(a)listserv.boisestate.edu >From Africa to India to North America and everywhere.... Our timeless open space principles travel far. About a week ago, a friend of mine in Canada sent me a beautiful slide show titled The Four Principles of Indian Spirituality. I immediately recognized the words and spirit and felt that it took me deeper into our familiar principles. I could not send the actual slide show but send this link so I can share it will all of you. http://www.imagegossips.com/2011/02/indian-principles-of-spirituality/ Greetings from warm and sunny Florida -- Suzanne Daigle NuFocus Strategic Group 7159 Victoria Circle University Park, FL 34201 FL 941-359-8877; CT 203-722-2009 www.nufocusgroup.com s.daigle(a)nufocusgroup.com twitter @suzannedaigle * * ========================================================== OSLIST(a)LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of oslist(a)listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist ---------- From: *Harrison Owen* <hhowen(a)verizon.net> Date: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 6:00 PM To: OSLIST(a)listserv.boisestate.edu Wonderful! And for sure I will have to consult with my copyright lawyer…infringement and all that sort of stuff!! Big Joke!!! Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA Phone 301-365-2093 www.openspaceworld.com www.ho-image.com (Personal Website) *From:* OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Suzanne Daigle *Sent:* Thursday, March 17, 2011 11:46 AM *To:* OSLIST(a)LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU *Subject:* The World unites around Four Principles ---------- From: *Justin T. Sampson* <justin(a)krasama.com> Date: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 6:28 PM To: OSLIST(a)listserv.boisestate.edu They are too close to be coincidence -- did you get the four principles from Hindu tradition, or did the author of these slides get them from you? ---------- From: *Harrison Owen* <hhowen(a)verizon.net> Date: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 7:46 PM To: OSLIST(a)listserv.boisestate.edu Neither so far as I know. The principles just emerged as a matter of experience, and I don’t have a clue who the “Indian author” might be. And truth to tell, I really don’t care. I just think it is neat and not a little bit funny in a nice sort of way. OS has always been “free for the taking” – no fees, no copyrights, patents, trademarks, no nothing. I guess this takes “free” to another new level. Yea Team! ho *From:* OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Justin T. Sampson *Sent:* Thursday, March 17, 2011 1:29 PM *Subject:* Re: The World unites around Four Principles -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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humanizing the cosmos
by Michel Bauwens 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

http://monthlyreview.org/101101dickens.php Dear Eric, Bill, perhaps you could read this article and write one or two paragraphs to present it to our readers, from the perspective of humanity's relations with nature and the universe, while Eric may perhaps mention some of the open manufacturing projects related to space? Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Time for revolution?
by Kevin Carson 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

Sent to you by Kevin Carson via Google Reader: Time for revolution? via Stumbling and Mumbling by chris dillow on 3/13/11 To what extent are the conditions in place for a Marxian revolution? I’m prompted to ask by Miljenko: Whilst the rich lever evermore power for themselves, the rest of us who were looking to do all sorts of open source-type things in both virtual and offline communities…suddenly find ourselves back in an awful rat-race of laboratory rodent-like relationships. This echoes the standard Marxian view of how capitalism will be supplanted by socialism. This will happen, Marx said, when capitalist relations of production, instead of stimulating growth, actually retard technical progress, and when discontent with living standards creates a revolutionary working class. As Jon Elster put it in the standard interpretation of Marx*: The capitalist relations of production become suboptimal for the development of the productive forces at the very moment when they also become increasingly suboptimal with respect to their human use. The former guarantees the viability of communism, the latter provides the motivation for the communist revolution. (Making Sense of Marx, p294). In some respects, as Miljenko points out, this is happening. On the one hand, hierarchical profit-oriented capitalism is incapable of maximizing the development and use of IT, as its opportunities cannot easily be monetized; for this reason, the “IT revolution“ has not significantly altered GDP growth. And yet on the other hand, ordinary workers in the UK face not only lower real wages as they bear the cost of the financial crisis, but also (for those who keep their jobs**) a reversal of the long-term reduction in life-time working hours; the debt bondage imposed upon future graduates, plus the “pensions crisis” threaten to lengthen the working lifetimes of millions of workers. These worsening working conditions, however, co-exist alongside the increasing enrichment of a small minority. So far, so Marxist. There are, though, some unMarxian features of our current predicament. I don’t mean that the tendency for the rate of profit to fall hasn’t operated. The low rate of business investment suggests that there has been a decline in profitable opportunities - a fact related to capitalism’s inability to monetize and therefore develop the new technologies. Instead, I’m thinking of a lack of class consciousness. One manifestation of this is an ignorance of the source of inequality. Bankers' bonuses are routinely ascribed to greed. Such moralizing misses the point - that they arise from power. Whilst anti-Marxists sometimes like to snark that it is workers rather than shareholders who are appropriating wealth, this exemplifies Marx’s more general point - that the powerful exploit the powerless, and that the capitalist economy is only superficially “a very Eden of the innate rights of man.” Related to this, there is almost no thinking on the mainstream left about what an alternative to capitalism would look like. All we get are campaigns for banks and companies to pay more tax - oblivious to the fact that they have the power not only to resist such demands, but to shift the burden of such taxes onto other even in the unlikely event of such demands being met. What’s not being asked is: what (if any) forms of economic organization would both develop productive forces/technology and at least ameliorate “the awful rat-race of laboratory rodent-like relationships“? Herein, though, lies an awkward question. Could it be that there is (so far) no answer to this - because two of the things that compel us to work longer are not artefacts of capitalism and thus remediable by revolution, but an inevitable fact of any form of economic organization? Take pensions. The fact is that if we are living longer then we must either save more, or work longer, or suffer a fall in living standards in our old age. This is a problem of fact, unrelated to the capitalist mode of production or mere conjunctural facts such as the budget deficit and low gilt yields which are contributing to low annuity rates. Or take the cost of education. This would rise over time simply because of Baumol’s cost disease; the productivity of teaching doesn’t grow much and so its relative cost would increase. Someone must pay for this. My point here is not to argue for or against revolution. Instead, it is to ask what could and could not be achieved by alternative forms of economic organization. My problem is that this question is not even being asked. And I for one lament Marx’s lack of influence in this sense. * Standard in my house anyway. ** As Joan Robinson said, in capitalism, the only thing worse than being exploited is being not exploited. Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to Stumbling and Mumbling using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites

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Distributed stakeholder ownership?
by Michel Bauwens 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

I find this a very pregnant concept by Sepp, and I'm proposing to use this as the central idea behind 'physical' peer property, I wonder if someone can help me develop a wiki entry on this< see: Perhaps we could consider both users and producers to be stakeholders. In each type of enterprise, some of us hold a greater stake in consumption, some of us are predominantly producers. But all of us have an interest in the activity to continue. So perhaps ownership should be with those who have an interest, be it the producers, be it the consumers. Distributed stakeholder ownership? -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Michigan: The Transformation Manifesto
by Samuel Rose 18 Mar '11

18 Mar '11

What do you all think?: http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto Michigan: The Transformation Manifesto >From P2P Foundation Contents - 1 Contributors<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 2 "Michigan is Screwed"<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 3 Energy<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 4 Education<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 5 Manufacturing<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 6 Research and Development<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 7 Food systems<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 8 Jobs<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 9 Government<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 10 Your additions here<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> - 11 References<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> Contributors - I'm Sam Rose, from the Foundation or Peer To Peer Alternatives http://p2pfoundation.net/ and co-founder http://futureforwardinstitute.com/ I am a Michigan native, former blue collar worker and now independent business person. "Michigan is Screwed" See: http://www.youtube.com/embed/AUpO1QFMDtM It's likely you are highly aware of the current political situation that people in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and other struggling industrial states are facing. In Michigan in particular it looks to me like the goal of Rick Snyder and the legislators that control the Michigan House/Senate is to tear down 20th century community infrastructures, starting from the bottom up. The reality is that if the people in power in Michigan now fully succeed, private mega corporations will queue up to enclose property, extract wealth and resources at lightning speed, further impoverish our community's most vulnerable members, push out those willing to fight by making their lives and communities miserable, and put whomever is left on their knees. They want our money flowing out of our pockets and communities, and their cheaply made worthless crap flowing in. They want to grab our land, our trees, frack out our natural gas and deplete our water, and run our soil down to clay. They want to push people out of the largest cities, fence of the empty land, bulldoze the buildings and sit on the land waiting for a future day when it's value increases. They want to do all of this while paying next to no taxes, employing none of the people of Michigan, and investing nothing back into the communities. They already got a huge amount of the money out of our communities by way of fraudulant mortgage scams that destroyed the economies of several countries around the world. They can make it more miserable for any of us that don't pick up and leave by: increasing our taxes (the elderly and retired, the poor, etc). Making our schools so deplorable that no one will want to move to our communities. And, whenever possible, declaring an "emergency" and dissolving local government, installing private corporations in their place with license to do whatever they want without any oversight. I am willing to bet that most of you that voted for Rick Snyder and the people in Michigan Congress probably did not vote for what I describe above. I'll bet that your ancestors didn't fight to get you to where you are now, just to see us all start to slip back towards whatever they came here to get away from. However, the sad fact is that what I describe above is now upon you, and all of us. Fortunately for us, we don't have to accept this reality. We currently have all of the building blocks we need to turn things around for ourselves here in a relatively short amount of time. A clue comes to us from our own state's past. At the turn of the 19th-20th century, automobiles were prohibitively expensive for all but a few people. One of the reasons was a monopoly on the designs of automotive technology by George B. Selden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_B._Selden Selden and associate's efforts to protect their patents led to a battle with Henry Ford, which resulted in a decision by courts to open up automotive technology for those that were not using the Selden engine design. >From Open Source - History and Development Adrienne Walker San Jose State University http://infosherpas.com/ojs/index.php/openandlibraries/article/view/43/65: *Free sharing and open source are not 21st century ideas, we tend to think of open source as a way of being connected to the Internet as software but open source was in existence early in the 20th century although it took a different form. That form was automobile manufacturing. For those of you familiar with early automotive history, Henry Ford challenged the patent of George Selden. Selden had a chokehold on the automobile industry but Ford won a challenge to Selden's patent (The history of free and open source, 2009). Henry Fords breakthrough initiated the beginning of open source in the modern age and coupled with the formation of the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association was influential in creating cross-licensing agreements. Cross-licensing agreements existed between the United States automobile manufacturers of the day. Each automobile manufacturing company modified the technology and filed patents, these patents were shared, and no exchange of money, no lawsuits and an industry thrived (The history of free and open source, 2009).* [1]<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> We can do this again in Michigan. We can start in our own communities, re-building our economies around sharing not just technology, but also production of food, energy, and knowledge. Energy *There's enough wind and solar power across the state of Michigan to run the whole state on wind and solar energy alone.* Open sourcing the technology for wind, solar, and batteries for hybrid/electric cars would create an explosion of innovation across the state and in the region, and eventually worldwide. If we really want to get into manufacturing green energy in the state of Michigan, the fastest route will be by way of creating sound design cores for small wind generators and solar collectors/solar and releasing them under an open license (like TAPR for instance http://www.tapr.org/ohl.html ) Our first step can be to install hybrid solar/wind in as many individua locations as possible (some neighbrhoods can team up and group buy for a whole block), and install them in a way that turns the current electrical grid into a "Net metering" grid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_metering We can also start processing our plant and animal waste in open source biodigesters to produce electricity (example http://www.appropedia.org/Category:Biogas ) and our agricultural and surburban landscaping refuse into new soil and biofuel. Much of this new infrastructure can be managed by user-owned cooperatives where needed. Education It's time to create cooperatives where parents and teachers are the owners of school systems. Most cirricular development can be released under creative commons licenses (as seen withhttp://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home http://ftacademy.org/ http://www.oercommons.org/ etc etc ) Parents can work with teachers and their students to adaptively shape learning over time. *No more showing up in cinderblock buildings and being trained to be told what to do at the expense of truly learning how and why to do it. We teach children CRITICAL THINKING and skills to solve problems on their own with little or nothing to work with except their minds. Children are no longer raw material to be shaped into employees for big business. They are now taught to invent, build, experiment, create and destroy, co-manage and co-govern anywhere anytime with anything. They are taught actual history and left to decide for themselves. They are taught to produce their *own* food, energy, information systems as needed. They are taught to be programmers, not users. Makers, not consumers. Independent problem solvers, not employees. This is 21st century education in Michigan.* Manufacturing Manufacturing in Michigan will become small, distributed, diverse and massively adaptable and interoperable. Designs are shared and improved constantly. Technology cooperatives not only design and produce physhical hardware and software technology for people, but they also teach people how to do this themselves, and how to effectively use technology. Existing manufacturing labor unions will help create these new technology cooperatives by taking their pension fund monies out of greedy wall street companies and re-investing in Local Economic Development. Tens of thousands of people who are laid off from jobs will also pool resources to create these Technology Cooperatives throughout the state. This could happen here in Michigan within one year. Research and Development Michigan Technology Cooperatives can invest their surplus resources in ongoing open source research and development, driven by the needs of people in Michigan and throughout the US and world. Students learn to participate in this activity at as early an age as possible. Food systems Food cooperatives and community supported agriculture have proven themselves in places like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and elsewhere. As our world spirals into a collapse of global commercial energy and resource distribution, leading to increasing costs for imported goods, we can sidestep that problem and produce food locally and regionally. We can create enough food locally in Michigan to make imports a luxury-only source of food (instead of the majority of food source for our state). We can create community owned food cooperatives in every city in the state, while simultaneously bolstering the *hundreds of thousands of LOCAL food producers and retailers that already exist in this state*. Jobs *NO. No more jobs.* It is ALREADY fact that over 98% of businesses in Michigan are now small businesses[2]<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…>. This is in part because most of those who are left actually participating in economic activity stopped looking for a job about 5-6 years ago and started a business. So this is what we do, we start businesses, and we connect them together. Go pay the $10 and register a DBA with your name on it at the county clerk. You are now ready to do businesses. Team up with other people in your community to share what you are learning about starting and running your own collaborative business/enterprise. In some cases we start cooperatives, credit unions, and ways for people to invest and receive return on investment in their local community (and not just monetary investment). We stop saving our retirement savings in 401k and other Wall Street scams and we invest that money locally and receive a robust and healthy return on investment. Government When we're not busy having our faces shoved to the grindstone at a job, we're going to have some time to engage in Local, State, and Federal governments. However, we are also going to make them increasingly obsolete in the process. We are going to be able to come up with rules together via connective technologies like the internet. We're going to also be able to team up on government when we're not being listened to. *We can do it without political parties* following The Political Principles of Peer-to-Peer Advocacy<http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Political_Principles_of_Peer-to-Peer_Advocacy> . *No advocate of peer-to-peer politics wants all communications or activity routed through them. Bottlenecks are weaknesses.* Your additions here This is what transformation in Michigan means to me. What does it mean to you? I want to know. I'll faithfully incorporate whatever any of you contribute, and I will spread it around. It's time to get real, dig in and change this place, now. References 1. ↑<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> Special thanks to Nathan Oostendorp who made me aware of this part of Michigan industrial history when he presented this at http://igniteannarbor.com see http://ingenuitas.com/ 2. ↑<http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto?title=Michi…> http://levin.senate.gov/senate/smallbusiness/index.html Retrieved from " http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto" Category <http://p2pfoundation.net/Special:Categories>: P2P Politics<http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Politics> - This page was last modified on 18 March 2011, at 02:19. - Copyright Information<http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Foundation:Copyright> -- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: samuel.rose(a)gmail.com http://futureforwardinstitute.com http://forwardfound.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan

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Re: [P2P-F] feasible - legally - to set up an alternative government body in Wisconsin ?
by Mark Janssen 17 Mar '11

17 Mar '11

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks Mark. > Can I use your reply , in a reply to the p2pf list ? Absolutely, I thought I had CC'd them. > I am interested in building on the thought of "legitimacy", > and on "awareness by the public" regarding such processes of legitimacy. There is always some kind of legitimacy, the issue that ultimately has to be faced though is whether it scales without eventually just reproducing old battles. > In relation to governance, laws, and also monetary systems. > I also want to ask you and other people on the list, > if they know about further cases of "Temporary Autonomous Zones" in the form > of legally, constitutionally, validated events with a temporary > complementary government. The local Hawaiians have something similar to this. No U.S. representative is going to have the balls to take such a movement to court, I can guarantee you that. They have extremely little basis in which to fight. But best not to press the issue too much, less the special interests turn under-handed. Marcos

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