Kategorie: English

By Christian Siefkes, Johannes Euler, Gunter Kramp and Nikolas Kichler

An idea for unifying commons-based projects in a self-organised solidarity economy that’s easy and convenient to join

[This article is also available in PDF format. / Diesen Artikel gibt es auch auf Deutsch.]

The ideas presented in this document are based on an open space session that took place in April 2016 during the spring meeting of the German Commons Institute. The session was initiated by Gunter; further participants were Britta, Christian, Hannes, Nikolas, Sarah, and Sunna.

This document has been written by Christian, Hannes, Gunter, and Nikolas together with Stefan T. It has been translated by Justin and Christian.

Context: Which Problems Are We Trying to Solve?

There are various intentional communities that practice a shared economy (e.g. Twin Oaks in the US or Niederkaufungen in Germany). However, few people are attracted to living in such communities and the barriers to entry are high. Reasons for this include the necessity of sharing so many spheres of life with the same group of people, often causing long and tedious discussions. (A new community member described the experience as “like getting married to 70 people at the same time.”)

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A lot of people want to „overcome“ capitalism, but what do they mean by it? Michel Bauwens from the P2P Foundation gave a short note on that topic, which could be interesting to discuss here: Is it really post-capitalist (also see the critique on reciprocity licences)? Here’s the text:

A note on the post-capitalist strategy of the P2P Foundation

Following Kojin Karatini, we agree that the present system is based on a trinity of capital-state-nation, which represents an integration of three modes of exchange. (mehr …)

Recently, a friend pointed me to an animation describing the inherent self-destructive elements of capitalism — while not naming what it is: capitalism. The animation has ten parts and is called »synergy«, and — nomen est omen — tries to describe the interwoven dynamics of a society which is inherently »corrupt« . First, I associated the word »corruption« which a personal defective behavior, but it is meant systemically: social corruption. However, I think, »social disruption« would fit better. And: Don’t expect any solutions, it only describes our society by using absolutely great animations! I wish, I could do animations that way! The creator is Marian Thomas.

Interview with Harsha Walia at the UN|COMMONS conference: »Citizenship is a fundamentally racist and exclusionary form«.

Visit also: berlinergazette.de/uncommons/

Interview with Yochai Benkler at the UN|COMMONS conference: »Commons is a critique of neoliberalism«.

Visit also: berlinergazette.de/uncommons/

This article was published in: Tilman Baumgärtel (Ed.), A Reader on International Media Piracy, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 131-144. It is the English translation of Zur politischen Ökonomie von Kopie und Kopierschutz.

Why does copy protection exist? What is been protected against whom? The spontaneous answers to these simple questions refer to the prevailing forms of thinking in commodity society: The “intellectual property” just has to be protected against theft, just like everybody locks their door in order to prevent the television set from be carried away by “TV pirates”.

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Before traveling through the Baltics, I gave a presentation in a squatted house in Helsinki, Finland, called »Makamik«, on the question on if and how the Commons can be generalized up to the societal level. The answer in short: Yes. In order to make this thinkable we need some very well developed notions, and the talk is about that. Here are the Slides (PDF, ODP) and the audio files taken by Kalle from Kosmas TV (OGG, MP3) — thanks a lot!

On Sunday, July 5th, at 6 pm, I will give a presentation on the potences of the Commons to be generalized to the level of whole society. The presentation will be given in English and takes place in Makamik, a squated house in Helsinki. See also commons.fi (in finnish).

Designing a Game to Promote Critical Computing Practices Beyond Capital

A workshop at Aarhus 2015 Conference on Critical Alternatives (August, 17-21)

Many of us grew up playing a game called Monopoly—it was about property, and winning other people’s money and land. But is that really the world we want? What if there were a different game?

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This is a nice clip on alternative approaches. Like other approaches it shows the tendency to subsume many „alternatives“ as such under one leading approach — the Commons in this example. And there is one tiny weird statement which feels a bit like conspiracy thinking declaring „The Wall Street“ as source of all evil. Nevertheless, watch it 🙂