Month: February 2018

Quoted The Cybersyn Revolution (jacobinmag.com)

The current market for electronic products depends on planned obsolescence: old products quickly become outdated and unfashionable. But extending the life of our electronic devices helps to address the e-waste problem. Project Cybersyn showed that it is possible to create a cutting-edge system using technologies that are not state-of-the-art. It demonstrates that the future can be tied to the technological past.

The Cybersyn Revolution

Read Next, the Internet: Building a Cooperative Digital Space (The Internet of Ownership)

Originally published in the Cooperative Business Journal’s winter 2018 issue. For a sizable portion of the people running the established cooperatives in the United States, I’ve found, the in…

Really nice article by @ntnsndr on the possibilities of coops in the digital space (and what they’re already achieving).  Quality rather than unnecessary growth; data privacy; federation rather than centralization; harnessing ideas like blockchain for trust; and funding new ventures through cooperative means. Exciting times. (h/t @Matt_Noyes)

Next, the Internet: Building a Cooperative Digital Space

I find Project Cybersyn fascinating as a piece of history of how one country tried to use advanced technology to solve the problem of socialist central planning.

Are there any good histories (or thought experiments) of the advanced use of technology for more anarchist, less hierarchical (non-market, non-state) organisation?

Read Jeremy Corbyn pledges rebirth of 'municipal socialism' in the UK (The Guardian)

Labour leader urges councils to reverse privatisation of public services while defending party’s intervention in Haringey

Interesting to see a reference to “municipal” socialism from JC. Also interesting to see the top-level intervention when a local authority is doing something dodgy. I agree with the sentiment of the intervention but how municipalist is it?

Jeremy Corbyn pledges rebirth of ‘municipal socialism’ in the UK