“But it has to be noted that the world of the existing collaborative economy has a divided soul: one side has much to do with P2P, the communal and the free software community that are by no means in the majority.”
We are living in an exceptional time that demands brave, creative initiatives. If we are able to imagine a different
“One of the most important evolutions of 15-M is undoubtedly the “Movimiento por la Democracia” (Movement for Democracy). It clearly targets the political arena without desiring to become a political party itself”
Spanish economist, author and complementary currency activist Susana Martín Belmonte exposes the false assumption that has led to a fundamentally misguided diagnosis of the current financial crisis; the false assumption being that money needs to exist before it can be lent, when exactly the opposite is true.
Here’s our translation of Bernardo Gutiérrez’s love letter to his home city, a place that’s still surprisingly alive and vibrant in the midst of the austerity meltdown affecting southern Europe.
“This is how the whole “new communalism,” from P2P talks to debates about the FLOK Society, including the new North American cooperativism, mutualism, or the movement of the ecological economy, represent the attempt to contribute non-universalist global solutions that are not based on imagined and abstract identities, but rather on real communities, through the development of community economies capable of sustaining well-being in a network.”
“Rural towns often suffer abuses motivated by engineering consultancies and large corporations’ financial interests. Certain hackerlands arise as an alternative to these structures, turning into local, non-profit consultants of sorts. They meet some of the rural area’s needs – particularly digital de-isolation – by creating independent Internet networks that work in mountainous or isolated areas, setting up local, democratic servers, regional Internet radios, etc.”
“The native peoples anticipated the much-touted sharing economy by a few centuries. While the current global crisis pushes capitalism towards an irreversible mutation, our vision of a post-capitalist future is remarkably similar to the pre-capitalist origins of indigenous America.”
Neal Gorenflo (founder, Shareable), Michel Bauwens (founder, P2P Foundation), and John Restakis (author, “Humanizing the Economy”) speak with Enric Duran about the creation and development of the Catalan Integral Cooperative, Enric’s path and current situation, and much more.
“Resilience is at the same time the golden rule and the consequence of building community on a shared economy under a P2P architecture. It is our main virtue and the only thing that can guarantee survival even under increasing global decomposition.” Cyberpunk, P2P, and the Future Now: Michel Bauwens, Neal Gorenflo and John Robb interview David de Ugarte from las Indias.”
“It’s a given that movement within city spaces has never been free; architecture and urban design have always directed it. But unlike the fences, bars, and walls that once were used to restrict and channel our mobility, this contemporary urban furniture is all but invisible. And with hardly a change to the landscape, it serves its repressive purpose – or does it one better.”
“To immunize ourselves from learned helplessness, the best thing is to have encountered neither success nor failure exclusively. Be conscious that there are things which we can control, and things which we cannot. As Epicurus remarked: “We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come…”