The Citizen Guerilla that Brings ‘Banksters’ to Court in Spain

By Leila, October 27, 2016

Since 2012, 15MpaRato, an organized citizen collective based in Barcelona, has been uncovering some of the largest corruption cases that are shaking Spanish politics since the 2008 financial crisis, and is a good example of fighting the impunity of financial corruption. Politicians and bankers are often seen as getting away with special concessions and avoiding [...]

Platform Co-operativism: Short-Term Security in the On-Demand Economy

By Leila, October 6, 2016

BY: MAX DOVEY Last month I witnessed a chanting mob of disgruntled Deliveroo riders who had gathered outside the company’s headquarters in London to protest against an intended pay cut that would reduce their hourly wage from £7 (€ 8.30) to £3.75 (€4.45) per delivery. The demonstration was the latest eruption of employee dissent within [...]

Terra0: The Self-Owning Augmented Forest

By Leila, September 29, 2016

Terra0 is an ongoing art project whose goal is to set up an alternative economic unit on the Ethereum Blockchain, while exploring the relationship between art and capital by functioning as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The idea behind the project is to create a situation in which a forest creates capital by selling licenses [...]

Liberating Academic Papers from Behind their Paywalls

By Leila, September 22, 2016

“Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.” [...]

Blockchain and Art: Time for a Critical Reflection

By Leila, September 16, 2016

UPDATE: “(…) Denny has recently been commissioned to produce work for the Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas. It seems likely that this venture will result in yet another piece of basically inoffensive corporate art, since in such a context the artist’s intentions are almost always effectively moot, whatever they might aspire to be. Such partnerships suggest [...]

Steven Hill on the necessity of regulating services like Airbnb and Uber

By Leila, September 9, 2016

“The technology is marvelous. The problem, at the moment, is that it is in the hands of for-profit companies” Steven Hill is a writer, lecturer and political professional based in the United States with two decades of experience in politics. His latest books are Expand Social Security Now!: How to Ensure Americans Get the Retirement They [...]

On-Demand Economy: More Regulations and Non-Profit Apps Needed to Build a Fairer Future

By Leila, September 8, 2016

Airbnb and Uber have recently been standing center stage in the international media theater. These dominant network platforms linking sellers and buyers bring new challenges to the field of the so-called collaborative economy and raise serious concern in terms of taxation, job security, healthcare insurance or work compensation. “When you get rid of governments but [...]