Economy
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
End Growth
Rachel Botsman in the Rise of Collaborative Consumption : From pp. 220-221, chapter 10: "Collaborative Consumption may be consumer and community orientated, but its benefits are shared across businesses. Thousands of new opportunities have already emerged under Collaborative Consumption with successful revenue models based on memberships (Zipcar, Bag Borrow or Steal), service fees (Airbnb, Zopa), and micropayments for usage (BIXI, BabyPlays) being established.
Collaborative Consumption - Business Models
Capitalism Problems
Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story
Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger. Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association . Enlarge image
New metrics, evaluation and accounting methods appropriate for a collaborative, peer to peer economy. Watch this video for an introduction: Tiberius Brastaviceanu on the Scalable Peer Economics of the Sensorica Open Value Accounting Network Video: Christian Felber on the Common Welfare Economy ; a metrics system to measure the common welfare contribution of very market entity. Tiberius Brastaviceanu on Open Value Accounting Systems
Category:P2P Accounting
Looking out upon the horrid ruin we seem to have made of the planet, in spite of the kind hearts and good intentions of the vast majority of human beings, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some nefarious force has hijacked civilization, driving it towards ends that serve almost no one. If we are headed for a future that no one would consciously choose, it stands to reason, some say, that we are not choosing; that something else, unfriendly to human welfare, is choosing for us. Deeper study of certain pivotal events in history strengthens this conclusion. The official explanations of the Kennedy assassination or 9/11 are riddled with contradictions that are difficult to explain.
The Hames Report: Synchronicity, Myth, and the New World Order
There's nothing really natural about the 40-hour work week -- let alone the 50-plus hours many Americans spend on the job. Some people argue the U.S. culture of busyness perpetuates unnatural states of unemployment , overwork, inequality, over-consumption, low well-being and high carbon emissions . "Employment law and welfare law encourages us, particularly in the U.S. and U.K., to work more than 40 hours a week," said Mike Harris, senior associate at the New Economics Foundation , an independent think tank in London.
Work Less, Help Economy And Environment
The P2P – Marxism Debate Takes Off
As an intro to a recent post ‘ And the Debate Begins… Peer-to-Peer and Marxism: analogies and differences ‘ we have said: “We are posting a critically timed and very important interview on P2P-Marxism nexus. Conducted by Jean Lievens with the founder of the Foundation for P2P Alternatives Michel Bauwens on some aspects of his P2P theory and Marxist theory, the interview might be the opening of the greatest debate of coming years. While the rising ‘mode of P2P Production’ and new P2P political processes have obviously overdetermined the massive social change process that came about in 2011, with the contribution of such productive debate we would be able to get much clearer projections
Resilient Society
Watch our 40 minute documentary Real Estate 4 Ransom Real Estate 4 Ransom from Real Estate 4 Ransom on Vimeo . Earthsharing and Economics If you’ve ever wanted a simpler way to ensure we all have some right to a place on this earth, that we all have a valued role in society, then the economic adjustment we support could be just the tonic needed to see sense in this challenged world. Most people think that periods of social, economic and environmental turmoil are somehow naturally preordained ["They are just part of the recurring cycle"] – and that continued over-exploitation of nature is taken to be the price we must pay for the benefits of modern civilisation.
Introduction | Earthsharing
Interview with Sacred Economist Charles Eisenstein
Image Courtesy of Charles Eisenstein Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker and writer having graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. His latest book Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition “traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth”. Eisenstein’s book was released alongside a short film that aims to visually display some of the ideas of the book . Following an Urban Time’s article on the Gift of Sacred Economics , I had the opportunity to speak further with Charles about the importance of a gift economy, its mechanism and how its increasing prevalence could shape societies of the future.
Via . Excerpted from David Graeber : “There is very good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism itself will no longer exist – most obviously, as ecologists keep reminding us, because it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet, and the current form of capitalism doesn’t seem to be capable of generating the kind of vast technological breakthroughs and mobilizations that would be required for us to start finding and colonizing any other planets. Yet faced with the prospect of capitalism actually ending, the most common reaction – even from those who call themselves “progressives” – is simply fear.
The end of the machine that produces fear?