In a just world, the idea of wealth–be it money derived from the work of human hands, the resources and natural splendor of the planet itself–and the knowledge handed down through generations belongs to all of us. But in our decidedly unjust and imperfect world, our collective wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. There is be a better way–the notion of the commons–common land, resources, knowledge–is a common-sense way to share our natural, cultural, intellectual riches.

In this innovative animation, filmmaker Laura Hanna, writer Gavin Browning and video artists/animators Dana Schechter and Molly Schwartz examine the concept of “The Commons” as a means to achieve a society of justice and equality.

Video licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b… to view the license.

Inspiration from the film came from four provocative books:

Unjust Desserts: How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take it Back by Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly ( http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?… )

Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, by Maude Barlow ( http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?… )

Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own, by David Bollier ( http://www.thenewpress.com/index.php?… )

The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All, by Peter Linebaugh ( http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10… )

In cyberspace, the “viral spiral” is a way ideas and innovations grow and be shared with ever-larger numbers of people. That spiral path could be the way the ideas of the commons can help shape a more just society. Learn more at OnTheCommons.org.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license” in a prominent
place near the video frame.

You should also insert a web link to the Creative Commons page for the
Attribution license, which is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

Share/Bookmark

More: Can science reinvent the economy?

Can we pack an entire economy, with all its complex human and political interactions, into a computer? Physicist Dirk Helbing of ETH thinks so – as long as we’re bold enough in going about it.

He points out that financial systems aren’t the only monsters we’ve let out of the box. How traffic flows in and around huge cities simply cannot be grasped by mathematical analysis, but computer models let millions of virtual vehicles interact on realistic road patterns – and often discover potential problems before they occur in reality.

The complexity of today’s economy, Helbing suggests, demands a similar approach. “We’re not currently using the best capabilities of science,” he says. “We need to bring together scientists from different fields and put together tools that can be used as a kind of wind tunnel for testing out social and economic policies.”

The approach has already proved its worth on a small scale. Several years ago, when the state of Illinois decided to deregulate its electricity market, it wanted to avoid California’s disastrous experience, when the disgraced firm Enron manipulated prices, created shortages and caused rolling blackouts. The state authorities hired Charles Macal and colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory to build a sophisticated model of Illinois’ power market, incorporating suppliers, consumers and regulators, as well as the full network along which power flows.

The team first interviewed the various market participants to learn their behaviour. Each was represented in the model by virtual agents who could act on those strategies, but also learn on their own. Running the model, the team found that the initial legal framework for deregulation had flaws which made it vulnerable to Enron-like manipulation. The state successfully altered its plans, and the approach has since been used in similar cases in Croatia, Portugal and South Korea. Some stock markets, such as NASDAQ, have used it in planning changes to their trading rules.

Groups in the US and Europe are already building similar models of whole economies, including millions of individuals, families, firms and banks, as well as government regulators. Helbing and colleagues have lodged a proposal with a European Union funding body to start building the extensive communities of researchers and collaborations – between economists and other social scientists, physicists, lawyers and computer scientists – that would be needed to simulate whole economies effectively.

With growing computing capacity and greater understanding of complex systems, they suggest it should be possible within a decade to have functioning models of the global economy to which policy-makers could look for sound insights with which to penetrate the overwhelming complexity of today’s markets.

More: Can science reinvent the economy?

Share/Bookmark

Digital Library of Slovenia: Developing Cultural Digital Content, Interconnectind Digital Sources and Enabling Free Access to Knowledge

Zoran Krstulović

Share/Bookmark

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, discusses how knowledge, not capital, is the new basis of wealth.

Unimagined Futures: “EVERY FEW HUNDRED YEARS in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. We cross what in an earlier book, I called a “divide.”

Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself—its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born.

We are currently living through just such a transformation. It is creating the post-capitalist society, which is the subject of this book.

PETER DRUCKER: International economic theory is obsolete. The traditional factors of production – land, labor, and capital – are becoming restraints rather than driving forces. Knowledge is becoming the one critical factor of production. It has two incarnations: Knowledge applied to existing processes, services, and products is productivity; knowledge applied to the new is innovation.

When you look at it that way, the last 40 years of economic history begins to make some sense. The Japanese have shot themselves into the world economy by concentrating on productivity, while we have concentrated on innovation. But the Japanese have neglected innovation. They are now desperately trying to catch up; the results are not yet good. The Germans have totally neglected innovation and show no signs of even trying to catch up. Now we in the US are desperately trying to catch up on productivity.

Knowledge has become the central, key resource that knows no geography. It underlies the most significant and unprecedented social phenomenon of this century. No class in history has ever risen as fast as the blue- collar worker and no class has ever fallen as fast. All within less than a century.

In 1900 the blue-collar worker was still a proletarian. Trade unions were still either totally illegal or barely tolerated. There was no job security. There was no eight-hour day. There was no health insurance (except in Germany). Fifty years later, the blue-collar worker seemed to dominate every single developed society.

Now we have a Secretary of Labor who openly declared, in _The Work of Nations_, that the blue-collar worker doesn’t matter. And the unions accepted him.

Drucker born in , died November 11, 2005 in California at 95.

Share/Bookmark