Kategorie: English

»Cantu’s kitchen pyrotechnics are revealed as explorations of possible answers to a very simple question: What is food? And if the cuisine at Moto, his „molecular tasting lab,“ can be described as postmodern, Cantu himself has little time for gastro-academic posing. He’s driven by a techno-utopian vision of decentralized food in which the world’s ever-growing appetites are met by a radical transformation of agriculture itself — and it all begins in our kitchens.

„Make enough food for everyone. That’s the end game,“ says Cantu. „And to get there, we have to start thinking a little crazier about what food is.«

Read on wired.com’s talk with Cantu about his tastes and vision

Radio Helsinki hat eine Reihe von Audiomitschnitten von Diskussionsveranstaltungen des Elevate-Festivals (1|2|3|4|5|6) in Graz Anfang November 2008 im Cultural Broadcasting Archive zur Verfügung gestellt. Die Sprachen sind deutsch und englisch.

Radio Helsinki has put online some audio tracks of panel debates at Elevate-Festival in Graz, november 2008. You’ll find the entire list at Cultural Broadcasting Archive. Languages are german and english. these are english discussions: »Commons of the Mind« and »Reclaiming the Commons«.

[Stefan Merten of Oekonux wrote an interesting report of a free software conference in India. Here is the post]

I’m just on the way back home from this great conference which took place in Thiruvananthapuram in the state of Kerala / India. I must say I’m really deeply impressed. I would wish that Free Software including things like Oekonux says would have that backing in Germany / Europe / industrialized countries!

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[Presentation at »Kooperation statt Wettbewerb, Gemeinwohl statt Profit« @ Elevate-Festival]

Deutsche Version

1. The world will be commonist or the world will not be.

Capitalism is in deep crisis, somebody speak about a final crisis. If only capitalism is at stake, this could be gotten over. But we are capitalism, we are reproducing ourselves by reproducing us within capitalism by reproducing capitalism itself. If capitalism perishes, we perish. Thus, commonism is not a simple wish, not a crazy utopia, but simply an historical, an human necessity.
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Here’s my submission for the Fourth Oekonux Conference (the official deadline for submissions ended two days ago).

Title: Peer Production Everywhere

Subtitle: How Can We Do It And Where Can We Start?

Abstract:

I’ll talk about how commons-based peer production can be extended to all areas of life. How might a society based on peer production look like and which principles will be typical for such a society? I’ll also talk about which steps are reasonable to encourage the emergence of such a society.

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[Reposted from qummunismus; license: GFDL]

The Terms „Intellectual Property“ (IP) or „Intellectual Property Right“ (IPR) are used to describe rather different legal constructs. Copyright, Patent Law, Trademark Law, etc, etc..

What they have in common is that they cover rights to exclude others from the use of immaterial goods like knowledge and information. Some authors, among them them most prominently Richard M. Stallmann, argue that the term should not be used at all. On the other hand, there are a lot of points that can be brought up against the concept of IP that applies to most or all of the different legal constructs that are commonly lumped under the term „intellectual property“. So it makes sense to use a term that describes all of the laws that exist for the purpose of excluding people from the access to knowledge and information.

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An interview with Michel Bauwens, founder of the Peer-to-Peer Foundation:

Read the transcript of the interview here: P2P as a post-capitalist mode of production

Find more interview snippets with Michel at Peer To Peer: Social, Political, And Economic Issues In A P2P World

During a recent debate on Oekonux mailing list, Patrick Anderson gave some theses about the relationshp between profit and competition. He wrote:

Profit disappears when Competition is Perfect, but Competition is usually not Perfect, so Profit is usually not Zero.

Profit and Competition are inversely related, while Profit and Monopoly are directly related. A Perfect Monopoly would enjoy Infinite Profit, right?

I found, that these theses are wrong, because they base on on the assumption, that profit raise from the circulation of commodities. Profit is not explainable as a difference of prices. But where else did the profit come from? What is profit at all?

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My last talk in Hiddinghausen was a little talk given as a complement to the Commons Network idea. The Commons Network is based on the idea of free and unconditional sharing—that others share with you goods they have or produce because they like to do so (and the other way around). This leaves, inevitable, the question: what if there is nobody who likes to share what you need (and you can’t produce it for yourself)? What if people need some additional incentives to produce what you would like to have?

I have already given an answer to that question in my peerconomy book: people can join an explicit agreement to help each other to produce the goods each of them likes to have, sharing the necessary effort (the tasks to do) in some pre-agreed manner. The General Luxury Production System (GLuPS) is a slightly updated version of that idea. The word “luxury” in the name is meant to express the hope that the Commons Network will become sufficiently flexible and versatile to satisfy—at least—all of people’s essential needs (the “8 Essentials” discussed in my UPset talk).

This optimistic assumption stems from the generalization of Eben Moglen’s dictum

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In the beginning of November 2008, the Escanda collective along with others will be hosting a four-day radical economics gathering. We will analyse why the current economic system has failed and we will learn from the possibilities and experiences of those working despite capitalism to build autonomous networks of production and circulation from a basis of sustainability, self organization, solidarity, respect and social/environmental justice.

The gathering will focus both on the theory of radical economics and the practice: working towards creating and building radical economies within and between our own movements and collectives.

We will provide a space for networking and there will be our very own radical marketplace for participants to bring, exchange, barter and give away goods as well as services etc. [reposted]

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