Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P-Foundation, wrote a great article on Al Jazeera website on the expansion of sharing economy and peer production — and the problems for capitalism it causes.

The headline taken from Bauwens article is somewhat vague, because it is not clear what type of value is meant there. In the text he distinguishes between use value and exchange or monetary value. He explains, that the more use value is produced by way of open source and peer production, the more exchange value has been removed from the market:

Thus, the open-source economy destroys more proprietary software value than it replaces. Even as it creates an explosion of use value, its monetary value decreases.

(mehr …)

This is part 8 of a weekly series of articles to appear in the journal Critical Studies in Peer Production (CSPP). In the series I try to describe analytical patterns developed by the Oekonux Project since over ten years of research on Free Software and commons-based peer production. Please visit the introducing part for the background. Already released patterns: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Pattern 8: Beyond Socialism

Socialism, as defined by Karl Marx in the “Critique of the Gotha Programme” (Marx, 1875) is a commodity-producing society ruled by the working class. (mehr …)

This is part 4 of a weekly series of articles to appear in the journal Critical Studies in Peer Production (CSPP). In the series I try to describe analytical patterns developed by the Oekonux Project since over ten years of research on Free Software and commons-based peer production. Please visit the introducing part for the background. Already released patterns: 1, 2, 3.

Pattern 4: Beyond Money

Since money only makes sense for commodities, a non-commodity (cf. pattern 3) implies that there is no money involved. (mehr …)

This is part 1 of a weekly series of articles to appear in the journal Critical Studies in Peer Production (CSPP). In the series I try to describe analytical patterns developed by the Oekonux Project since over ten years of research on Free Software and commons-based peer production. Please visit the introducing part for the background.

Pattern 1: Beyond Exchange

Free Software, or more generally, commons-based peer production is not about exchange. (mehr …)

Diesen Monat nehme ich mal wieder an zwei einer Veranstaltungen teil. Zunächst am kommenden Samstag, 15. Oktober an einem Workshop Ökonomische Perspektiven II – Utopien und Perspektiven des Bildungskollektiv Biko in Erfurt (siehe Kommentar):

15.10.2011 10–16 Uhr
im Jugendbüro filler, Schillerstr. 44, Erfurt

Ökonomische Perspektiven II – Utopien und Perspektiven

In Zeiten der Krise ist wieder Zeit für Analysen und Perspektiven. Wir wollen einen Teil der Ansätze, Ideen und Projekte, die in der letzten Zeit entwickelt bzw. populär wurden vorstellen und diskutieren. Bei der zweiten Veranstaltung geht es um ökonomische Utopien und Perspektiven. Mit der Peer-Ökonomie wird ein weiterer Ansatz vorgestellt sowie Beispiele und Ideen für praktische Umsetzungen gezeigt. Die angebotenen Modelle werden an ihren eigenen Ansprüchen gemessen.

(mehr …)

The following paper was written for the Proceedings of the 6th Annual Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon 2011) which took place about a month before in Berlin. It is also available in PDF format.

OKCon 2011 in Berlin was really a great conference and I’m really happy that I were there. Knowing what organizing conferences like this means I’d like to say a big thank you to the organizers.

I don’t have exact numbers but would think that about 200 people attended the conference.

The conference was rather big in terms of program. For two days there were five parallel tracks from 10:00-20:00. A regular slot for a presentation was only 30 minutes unfortunately so beyond some superficial questions there was no room to discuss the things presented. Also there were no time in the schedule between the sessions so it was always a hurry to change rooms. As a result everyone was in a constant hurry which made it difficult to talk to each other.

(mehr …)

I recently arrived in Colombia where I will take part in a conference that starts on 11 May in Medellín. The topic of the conference is “Other Possible Worlds? Construction of alternative policies from governments and social movements in Latin America” and it is motivated as follows (translated from original Spanish):

Why this workshop?

Recent years have been marked by multiple crises—of an economic, social, political and environmental nature. It is quite clear that the neoliberal model, based on fossil energy and consumerism, has reached its limits. Against this background it is more than reasonable to consider social and economic alternatives.

(mehr …)

[Es gibt auch eine deutschsprache Version des Artikels]

Franz Hörmann, professor at University of Economics in Vienna, has rocked the boat with his theses on the breakdown of the monetary system [1|2|3|4, in german]. The breakdown shall happen this year. And then? WienTV made an interview with Hörmann after a screening of the new movie Zeitgeist Moving Forward (with english subtitles):

What should one think about this?

(mehr …)

Am 8. und 9. Oktober 2010 findet an der Freien Universität Berlin die dritte wissenschaftliche Konferenz über Freie Kultur statt. Titel der Konferenz: »Freie Kultur zwischen Commons und Märkten — Annäherung an eine hybride Ökonomie?« Die Teilnahme an der Konferenz ist kostenlos, eine Anmeldung ist jedoch erforderlich. Die Konferenzsprache ist englisch (=>Programm).

Hier die Themen der Konferenz (englisch): (mehr …)