Now that's a truly SOCIALIST & LEFT political program for the 21st century. Unfortunately, most of the pseudo left commentariat and political forces are only interested in discussing the sex of angels while the world burns and capitalism provokes greater depression worldwide.

#Ecosocialism #AnarchoCommunism #PublicGoods #Capitalism #Environmentalism: "Kropotkin’s argument stands today. It would not take much, as a share of total global productive capacity, to ensure decent lives for everyone on the planet. But with the reality of the ecological crisis, we must also face a second challenge, one that Kropotkin could not appreciate in the nineteenth century: to achieve well-being for all while at the same time reducing aggregate use of energy and materials (specifically in the core) to enable sufficiently rapid decarbonization and to bring the world economy back within planetary boundaries. Technological innovation and efficiency improvements are crucial to this, but high-income countries also need to scale down less-necessary forms of production in order to reduce excess energy and material use directly.

If capitalism has always been unable to achieve the former goal (well-being for all), it most certainly cannot achieve the latter. It is a structural impossibility, as it runs against the core logic of the capitalist economy, which is to increase aggregate production indefinitely, to maintain the conditions for perpetual accumulation.

It is clear what needs to be done: we must achieve democratic control over finance and production, as Kropotkin argued, and now organize it around the double goal of well-being and ecology. This requires that we distinguish, as Kropotkin did, between the socially necessary production that clearly needs to increase for social progress, and the destructive and less-necessary forms of production that urgently need to be scaled down. This is the revolutionary world-historical objective that faces our generation."

https://monthlyreview.org/2023/09/01/the-double-objective-of-democratic-ecosocialism/

Such an enlightenment to hear @matterslab active creators, who are also ambassadors for Matters.Town discord, @denkeni @swiftevo1, together they've turned their discussion on #Blockchain #PublicGoods #GitcoinGrants to @astro_hsu 's podcast "Blocktrend".
👇 Full episode link
https://blocktrend.substack.com/p/ep219#details

Something I noticed when I lived in #Singapore was that some things are heavily subsidized to the point of being essentially free, but almost nothing is ever *entirely* free. MRT and bus fares, for example, are very cheap. An hour-long, cross-island trip across 20+ stops on the MRT metro costs SGD $2.13 today, or about USD $1.50 (even less for students or people with various concession passes). Last time I was there, this practice of charging some tiny amount for something that is basically free is used pretty often. Basic medicine is free under a socialized healthcare system, but everyone is charged a couple of bucks per prescription anyway.

I suspect this is a psychological trick to prevent a #tragedyOfTheCommons. The perceived difference between $0 and $1 is HUGE, because the latter is no longer “free”, and therefore scarce. Charging even a tiny amount probably helps to prevent systemic abuse.

#socialism #publicGoods #publicTransit

#AI #Commons #DataCommons #OpenSource #PublicGoods: "In short, the sharing economy’s world without money was built on top of a world where money was everything, and the bill has come due. Our data has not only been appropriated, but is increasingly used against us. It has become the fuel behind AI models whose power and influence on our lives we are just beginning to fathom, but that we can already see are not all positive, or not all to our advantage – especially to those most vulnerable in our societies.

Big Tech will continue to cling to the idea of data as a non-rival good, claiming that data extractivism is all done for our benefit. They may even promise that their AI models will be open-source public goods, which supposedly means that our stolen data will come back to us as a more useful product, capable of solving the world’s problems.

We must see these moves for what they are: Not the altruistic actions of benevolent corporations, but a way to avoid lawsuits, delay attempts at serious regulation and more importantly, justify the privatisation of the commons."

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/8/19/ai-and-the-tyranny-of-the-data-commons

On #Archival, #Libraries, #Analog #HumanReadable #storage and the importance of libraries as #PublicGoods.

The linked article has some unsavory takes though (particularly around gender studies), but the Fedi conversation around this thread is still interesting.

https://mastodon.archive.org/@brewsterkahle/110814840301552912

Evil has a business model

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-shitty-tech-adoption-curve-has-a-business-model-ee025ad60951

#PublicGoods #PublicPriivatePartnerships

#Capitalism #AI #Automation #Socialism #PublicGoods: "In the end, it’s ultimately those public goods and services that represent the best solution to the problems of automation. Despite what some on the Right insist, there is no need to artificially limit technology in order to preserve jobs that can be performed by machines. With high-quality, universal services in place and an economy structured around the imperatives of social need rather than those of private profit, the importance of work in daily life would dramatically recede. Freed from the constant grind of tedious and unnecessary labor, countless millions would be able to spend their time however they chose without having to struggle to obtain the bare necessities of life.

Unless you’re wedded to retrograde ideas about work, gender, and the family, there is no reason not to welcome such a future with open arms."

https://jacobin.com/2023/06/ai-automation-jobs-capitalism-socialism

Things that people need to thrive in an advanced technological civilization are #PublicGoods and should not be subject to market forces, run on a for-profit basis, or give excessive consideration to “return on investment”.

Hardin didn't just claim that some commons turned tragic, he claimed that the tragedy of the commons was inevitable - that we shouldn't even bother trying to create #PublicGoods.

The Ostrom method - actually studying how something works, rather than asking yourself how it would work if everyone thought like you - is a powerful tonic to this, but it's not the only one.

26/

#PublicGoods #Coordination #ParkHealth #2KB9ZHG - ParkHealth Notes | OpenSea https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/46316387645623418400861574497267573792497807413262795597612356887507122520065

@steventdennis and why not? #publicgoods

All Public goods should be free. This includes public transportation, education, healthcare, food and housing access, libraries - book or things or repair libraries, parks, commons, utilities - water, gas, etc. Hell, even internet. These need to be accessible to all people regardless of income, place, nationality, etc.

Profits are part of the (white supremacist/ableist/colonialist) capitalist system that requires constant growth, and our planet cannot handle constant growth. We live on a finite planet, and capitalism is making the planet inhabitable to all life. So we should tear down the profit model entirely.

Instead, we ought to establish a system that relies on what the people need, and craft plans that meet those needs. We can then use that data to craft longer term plans so we can invest resources and goods into the future too.

(Yes, this is very much a simple explanation of a Participatory Economy, which is built upon local worker and community groups, where the people have the power to decide rather than any central government. Robin Hahnel has a good book that shows how possible this is and how to efficiently do it to meet the people's needs and desires.)

We need to stop thinking in terms of profit, and start thinking instead in terms of community needs.

We need to break capitalist's hold on our imaginations.

#AntiCapitalist #ParticipatoryEconomy #Anarchism #PublicGoods #PublicTransportation #Accessibility
#CommunityCare

#Water #PublicGoods #Commons #ClimateChange: "To meet these growing challenges, water must be recast as a global common good. That means states establishing an obligation under international law to protect the global water cycle for all people and generations, and acknowledging that actions in one place have impacts in another — for instance, that deforestation in Brazil affects rainfall in Peru. It means assessing the role and economic value of not just blue fresh water, but also ‘green’ water that is held in the air, biomass and soils. And it means governments and the private sectors reformulating their roles and responsibilities, to develop objectives, policies and funds that can reshape markets and better manage global water supplies."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00800-z

"For every dollar spent on public records-based journalism, society benefits $287. That is a significant return on democratic investment"

https://americansforprosperity.org/strengthening-foia-time-for-teeth/

#FOIA #Journalism #PublicGoods #PublicMedia

⚠️ PSA: If you see tech giants trying to wedge themselves in to serve as a global "home" for public goods, while at the same time they're stealing many billions from your fellow citizens ...

... raise hell. 🔥

I'm looking at you, #Microsoft.

🏷️ #OpenSource #publicGoods #digitalPublicGoods #GitHub #GiveUpGitHub

There is a lot said about how homeless individuals should pick themselves up by their #bootstrap s. I would like to know your ideas of #OpenSource #technologies or available #PublicGoods that would serve and be embraced by those without a roof that would add to strength of the bootstrap.

@andrew i’m halfway through the instrumental variables section for an older version. i’m constantly amazed at your productivity and commitment to #publicgoods 🥳

RT @wjk1971@twitter.com

Going back to bed. Still adjusting insulin pump ratios in the middle of the night. Have you ever done that and worked f/t, and raised a kid etc? I have. #insulin4all #KochNetwork #FreedomLooksLikeMe #PublicSchools are #PublicGoods

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/wjk1971/status/1611674930332016641

We think the 2022 State of the Digital Public Goods Ecosystem recently published by DPG Alliance is not just stunning but a good resource for digital public goods. You can download it here ---->>> https://digitalpublicgoods.net/DPG-Ecosystem-2022.pdf

#Digital #PublicGoods #Software #Government #OpenSource

RT @GoVanHeteren: Good summary thread by @KatriBertram of some key take-always at #EUHealthSecurity, #HealthUnion, notably re need for investments in @healthsystems #publicgoods

🐦🔗: https://nitter.eu/EU_Health/status/1595352635133120514