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Art of the Commons: the Greek open literary scene

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photo credit: Carlos Porto via photopin cc

by Giannis Farsaris
founder of the digital library OPENBOOK

Back in the distant 1971, at the early steps of the internet, the 24 year old Michael Hart began to digitizing literary classics, free from copyrights, creating the emblematic Project Gutenberg. The idea was simple: to make easily accessible all over the world the wealth of literature, creating the biggest digital open library. He spent his entire life on this idea and left three years ago vindicated.
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Interview with Dafermos, a FLOK researcher at Equador

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George Dafermos (born in Heraklion in 1980) is Professor of Technology Policy and Management at the National Institute of Higher Studies (IAEN) in Ecuador and a member of the research team of the FLOK Society Project. He was also a participant in the 1st Festival of the Commons where he gave a talk on patents.

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George Dafermos during a presentation in Equador

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The emergence of the peer to peer civilization and political economy

1. Our current world system is marked by a profoundly counterproductive logic of social organization:

a) it is based on a false concept of abundance in the limited material world; it has created a system based on infinite growth, within the confines of finite resources

b) it is based on a false concept of scarcity in the infinite immaterial world; instead of allowing continuous experimental social innovation, it purposely erects legal and technical barriers to disallow free cooperation through copyright, patents, etc

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Why Food Should be a Commons not a Commodity

Food is treated as a private good in today’s industrial food system, but it must be re-conceived as a common good in the transition toward a more sustainable food system that is fairer to food producers and consumers. If we were to treat food as a commons, it could be better produced and distributed by hybrid tri-centric governance systems implemented at the local level and compounded by market rules, public regulations, and collective actions. This change would have enormous ethical, legal, economic, and nutritional implications for the global food system.

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