Currently reading: Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, ISBN: 9781847941398
Archives: Reads
Currently reading: Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, ISBN: 9780333781722
Interesting read about some of the issues faced at the system level as cooperatives get large and embedded in global markets. As experienced by Mondragon.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19704-mondragon-and-the-system-problem
Also on:Interesting article on the tech choices behind CommonsCloud.
http://freeknowledge.eu/article/making-of-commonscloud-technical-choices
(CommonsCloud is a platform coop combining Discourse, NextCloud and Phabricator. They’re trying to build an online collaboration platform for the solidarity economy.)
Damn.
Thoughts?
I think the article could explain better what it is specifically that both the left the far-right are doing with cryptocurrency. And in what way the far-right is one step ahead.
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)
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?
It’s from 2013, but it is a positive story of workers taking over the factory and turning it into something with positive environmental and social impact. And while I can’t read Italian from what I can understand they are still active, despite some attempts to shut them down. http://rimaflow.it/
Interesting article on the Solid (Social linked data) platform. It describes a lot of the decentralisation concepts that are explored and implemented in the indieweb movement (surprised the article doesn’t mention indieweb, in fact, given the W3C link), but comes at it from a Linked Data angle. The language around markets and competition doesn’t really appeal to my personal politics, but good to see the philosophy of moving away from centralised silos being explored in different ways.
I’m not clued up enough to know what the final result of the blockchain hype vs antihype ping pong match will be. Ditto UBI. This article is about both. Nevertheless, regardless of the means, I like the ends they’re aiming for: decentralization, degrowth, reinvigorated local communities, post-capitalism. https://www.fastcompany.com/40482312/can-basic-income-plus-the-blockchain-build-a-new-economic-system
Summary
- Our consumption patterns have huge environmental, social and health impacts.
- Consumption is a corporate strategy.
- We need a systemic change, not just tweaks to consumerism.
Thoughts
Good article, backed up by plenty of stats. But it’s stronger on the “our consumption model is broken” part, a bit weak on “here’s how to build a new one.” The plan for system change doesn’t feel very fleshed out, with some loose suggestions, and not much as to how we actually achieve the suggestions. Maybe that’s explored further elsewhere.
Interesting stuff. Some food for thought on communalism’s role in techno-utopianism; horizontalism vs verticalism; the politics of infrastructure.