[P2P-F] Fwd: Owning Is the New Sharing

Mon Dec 8 19:15:32 CET 2014

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nathan Schneider <nathan at therowboat.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 1:14 AM
Subject: Owning Is the New Sharing
To: michel at p2pfoundation.net

         Owning Is the New Sharing
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=4f90ac888f&e=d0bac2f27a>What
if we owned the Internet? Would we get paid for our likes and comments?
What privacy policies would we write for ourselves?

Last month, the Silicon Valley-based network Shareable dispatched me to
write a report on the growing movement to experiment with new forms of
economic democracy online. The folks at Shareable recognized that, more and
more, the so-called "sharing economy" is being recognized as extractive and
invasive
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=ab9ab28bb3&e=d0bac2f27a>.
In search of alternatives, I looked at cooperatives, networks of
freelancers, cryptocurrencies, and more. A popular mantra among
sharing-economy boosters has been "sharing is the new owning." *What I
found is the opposite: Read my report at Shareable.net
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=dd7167f713&e=d0bac2f27a>.*

As soon as the article appeared last week, I started hearing from
entrepreneurs and activists around the world who were excited about it.
Trebor Scholz, who recently hosted an extraordinary conference on digital
labor at the New School
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=56bf074c37&e=d0bac2f27a>,
told me that he had been polishing an article on the same topic. It's up
now at Medium, and is a helpful companion to mine: "Platform Cooperativism
vs. the Sharing Economy
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=e57edd43b8&e=d0bac2f27a>
."
    So old that it looks like new?
I said that this stuff is new, but I was kind of lying. Lately I've been
trying to keep my eye out for things that are old and new at the same
time—or, as Catholic Worker founder Peter Maurin put it, "so old that it
looks like new." That's why I also wrote about cooperative ownership in my
latest column for *America* magazine
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=928f95b14b&e=d0bac2f27a>,
with a focus on the long legacy of Catholic cooperativism, from monastic
communities to Mondragon, the largest network of cooperatives in the world.

In the column, I said that this tradition is mostly dormant in the United
States and should be awakened—but readers wrote back to tell me that,
happily, I was wrong. Though they're not terribly visible, faith-driven
cooperatives are making a comeback
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=244bc0aa58&e=d0bac2f27a>.
Pope Francis once recalled something he heard his father say about
cooperativism: "It goes forward slowly, but it is sure."

This deeper kind of sharing is present in many traditions—especially those
suffering gross injustice. As we wrestle to come to terms with the
disparities of economic and police power that plague our communities, now
is a good time to be reading Jessica Gordon Nembhard's recent book
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=65ebde206b&e=d0bac2f27a>,
*Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic
Thought and Practice*. But business will only get us so far; now is also a
good time to be in the streets
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=c6ce636f4f&e=d0bac2f27a>
.
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milestones in my work. Unsubscribe michel at p2pfoundation.net, entirely
guilt-free,
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here. For more regular and obnoxious updates, you can always follow me at
@nathanairplane
<http://therowboat.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9f3ed41904eeb9d7c3a139492&id=bd037ad120&e=d0bac2f27a>
.

Nathan Schneider Leaves of Grass Brooklyn, NY 11205 USA

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-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan

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