by Micah Tillman Hurricane season has begun. The Dark Knight is setting box office records. The messiah has departed our shores. And USA Today has just printed Michael Novak's "Reconciling Evil with Faith." Responding to James Wood's New Yorker piece,...

Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, is trying to raise funds to expand the Foundation's activities. The quality of writing on the P2P Foundation blog is incomparable, and I have relied heavily on material in the P2P Wiki on peer production, open source manufacturing, and desktop manufacturing, in writing Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen of my org theory manuscript.

I highly recommend Bauwens' extended essay "P2P and Human Evolution," and his shorter introductory essay "The Political Economy of Peer Production."

Bauwens' solicitation follows below. If you're interested in helping, you can click on the "Donate Now" button on the right-hand sidebar at the P2P Foundation Blog.

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Dear friends,

Help us build a better more humane and sustainable society through the research and promotion of peer to peer alternatives. Help us build and strengthen the infrastructure of cooperation of the P2P Foundation!!

As you know, we believe that the current economic model is not sustainable, because it treats nature as infinite, while it attempts to render free cooperation more difficult through the creation of artificial scarcity in the field of culture of knowledge. While there is now a thriving sustainability movement, the achievement of an open environment for the global and local sharing of knowledge is just as important, as this is where the solutions for sustainability need to be generated.

The P2P Foundation focuses on creating a knowledge base and internetworking platform for peer production, governance, and property, and for open/free, participatory, and commons-oriented social practices, in every field of human activity: politics and the economy, the scientific and the spiritual.

We want go "get better at working together" by studying what works and what doesn't work in the emerging new social forms enabled by peer to peer technologies. We want to help people to have more fulfilling lives by supporting approaches and policies for meaningful constructive work so that social innovation can thrive.


Our Achievements so far

About two and a half years ago, we started building an ecology of online resources to serve that purpose:

- A Wiki (http://p2pfoundation.net) to build the knowledge base as well as well as a directory of initiatives. Franz Nahrada has called it the largest collection of free modes available on the planet. We have nearly 6,000 pages of documentation which have been viewed almost 3.5 million times. As an example, where else could we find an overview as well as details of the many emerging open design communities that aim to assist in the making of physical products? See http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Design for these pages, one amongst many sections.

- A blog (http://blog.p2pfoundation.net) which keeps track of current initiatives and offers current thinking on p2p developments. Our blog has now about 700 readers daily and is growing at a constant rate.

- An interconnected network of social bookmarking sites, where our sympathizers exchange their finds on a continous basis

- A community center (http://p2pfoundation.ning.com) where people can discuss issues and get to know each other

- A series of mailing list, such as the Peer to Peer Research list

The people who work with us are often active in their own fields, and this leads to a cross-fertilization and co-learning of different initiatives.

In the last 18 months, as the founder of the P2P Foundation, I have also undertaken intensive lecture tours in academia, business and policy communities and institutions.

These achievements, the result of voluntary contributions by myself and a core group of active supporters, also come at a cost, and we could do much more with your active support, which would enable more consistent efforts.

We have created a non-profit structure in the Netherlands to achieve a next level of organization.



Contribute funding to our infrastructure of cooperation!!

We are at a stage where funding would be instrumental in growing our activities and reach.

We need funding of our physical infrastructure, which is now paid by individual volunteers.

We need funding to provide a less insecure financial environment for some of our full-time volunteers.

We need funding to formalize the knowledge base, to give it an extra level of presentation and synthesis so that it can appeal to new communities. Such synthetic reports are difficult to achieve on the basis of volunteering alone.

The funding would allow us to stimulate mini-projects that are proposed by some of our sympathizers, who would not have the opportunity to carry them out without some form of compensation.


Here is how we propose the money would be allocated:


- 3,333 EUR (one third) to fund a small annual stipend to assist one full-time worker with developing and growing the P2P Foundation

- 3,333 EUR to fund the physical infrastructure of cooperation: this includes servers/publications in print and in new media formats

- 3,333 EUR to fund proposed community projects that enhance the knowledge base of the P2P Foundation (new research as well as synthetic reports)

It was a great loss several years ago when the server went down and all the online issues of Jonathan Simcock's Total Liberty magazine were lost. But now the entire archive is available online. Issues 4-20 are available in pdf format. Issues 1-3 are no longer available in the original format, but are archived in html at Spunk Press (they're linked from the TL website). Check it out.

Somewhere, an Israeli hawk is spanking the monkey to this: U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama said on Wednesday a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a “grave threat” to the world. Obama told reporters during a visit to Israel that if elected, he would take “no options off the table” in dealing with the Iran issue and said tougher [...]

On Hardball a few minutes ago, heard roughly the following from Chris Matthews re: Obama’s trip to Iraq: “The republicans have to be worried looking at this.  Americans are finally being greeted as liberators in Iraq, but it’s Obama!  Y’know, thinking back to other countries we’ve saved there hasn’t been much appreciation there either.  There were [...]

The real reason for favors to mortgage holders by Fred E. Foldvary Government chiefs seek to maximize the ownership of houses and the lands they sit on. They don’t do this for other assets. Governments do not promote the ownership...

-Trivia question no one seems to ask: Who invented pole dancing?  “Exotic dancing” itself has been around forever, with variations from burlesque to belly-dancing, but it doesn’t seem clear who first thought “maybe if we put a pole on stage…”. -I’ve always felt the stereotype of old drivers going too slow was an odd one.  Technically, [...]

by Paul Jacob I received an announcement from Governor Sanford of South Carolina. The odd thing is that I could read the whole document verbatim and you couldn’t tell the governor’s thoughts from mine. I’m in complete agreement. With what?...

Libertarian Party members, in aggregate, may actually be the worst possible prospects for libertarian outreach, on average. What they have right is often outweighed by a firm commitment to what they have wrong. To paraphrase Reagan(?), I believe — it’s not what they don’t know, but what they do know (100%) that just isn’t so. Share [...]

With the panic over rising oil prices, the hijinks just don’t stop: House Republicans on Thursday killed a Democratic plan designed to spur drilling on already available federal lands in Alaska, the West and the western Gulf of Mexico. Republicans scoffed that the Drill Act — imposing a tougher “use it or lose it” rule on leases [...]

by Ron Paul What will it take to get our troops out of Iraq? The roughly 70 percent of Americans who are firmly against the war often ask this question. Those in power are reluctant to give conditions, but when...

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. School days,...

It’s too bad I don’t believe in Hell, because I’d like to believe the nonsensical sado-masochistic motherfucker who invented the necktie was burning there. Don’t ask.

In an American Voices bit on The Onion, in response to Bush lifting the executive ban on offshore oil drilling: “Is there a ban on printing more money? If so he should lift that too and fix the economy while he’s at it.” -Don O’Connor, painter Rather than laugh about how obviously stupid that remark would be [...]

…and I haven’t put up a poll in a while. Note: There is a poll within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll. Share This

I got a question: After all the evidence to the contrary, why do statist-progressives STILL have this crackpot idea in their heads that the Republican Party is run by libertarians?  Seriously, “billionaire libertarian cranks”? Uh, yeah, hardcore libertarian billionaires run the GOP.  That’s why their agenda consists of those central libertarian goals of endless war, gay-bashing, [...]

Voter: Really, I’m a Libertarian at heart.
David Bergland: Well, when it reaches your balls, give me a call.

That's from a post at Positive Liberty by Jim Babka of Downsize DC. Best. LP. Quote. Ever.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Knapp's gonna give Babka what for over his treatment of the Boston Tea Party and Charles Jay's excoriation of Barr.

Nope. I want to talk about that, but not in precisely the way you might think.

It's true that I've sworn off my support for the Barr campaign, and that I've described Barr's candidacy as Dixiecrat 2008, and I stand by that characterization. Having already rhetorically positioned Barr alongside Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Lester Maddox, I didn't feel any great need to weigh in on his Jesse Helms eulogy. Coals to Newcastle and all that.

And I do want to respond briefly to Babka on two points, so let's get that out of the way:

I don't know if this party will have their candidate on a single ballot. They appear to exist entirely for unherdable cats, hell-bent on criticizing the LP.

As it happens, the Boston Tea Party's presidential ticket is on the ballot in Colorado, will be on the ballot in Florida and Guam, and will likely manage several other states (we're looking at possibles in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and New Jersey). We've got nine state affiliates with more organizing right now. We got started too late this year to run down-ticket slates of our own, but we're endorsing and aiding a number of independents and candidates of other parties who in turn endorse our platform. One prospective endorsee, an LP candidate, just emailed me to mention that she had received a campaign contribution just from asking for our endorsement.

Ultimately, we're not anti-Libertarian Party ... we're pro-libertarian. Conditions are such that that may be less than perfectly clear to all right now, but we'll get there.

I'm not going to apologize for Charles Jay's critique. He said some things that needed to be said -- not just because they're true, but because at this point in its existence, the Boston Tea Party very much needs to explain itself to the rest of the freedom movement. We need our fellow libertarians to understand why we're doing what we're doing.

Nonetheless, I don't think that Jim's criticism is entirely unjustified. So far, the BTP's existence and career as a party has been closely tied to various critiques of the LP. That's just a fact. There's no disputing it and I'm not going to try.

Babka refers to the BTP as a "spin-off" -- but I think maybe he's giving us too much credit. We haven't really spun off yet. Rather, we've remained, to a large degree, in the LP's orbit. Our criticisms have so far largely been leveled at the LP and its presidential candidate rather than at the status quo parties and their candidates. On the positive side, we've been happy to endorse LP candidates who meet our standards.

This election cycle is the adolescence of the Boston Tea Party.

In our infancy (from 2006 to earlier this year) we were half-in, half-out of the LP. I offered a resolution at the BTP's organizational convention which would have constituted it as an internal caucus of the LP. That resolution was rejected by the members, but we didn't go in the opposite direction that year, either.

This year, we've decided to start doing the things a "real" political party does. We've nominated candidates for office and we're working to put those candidates on the ballot. We're chartering state affiliates so that we can hit the ground running in 2010 with congressional and state legislative slates. We're establishing recruitment efforts that stand on their own and don't rely on the internal LP "dissatisfaction grapevine."

Between now and 2012, I expect that the BTP will grow into young adulthood, establish itself as a proven, permanent third party ... and of course make its best attempt to do better than other third parties have done and break into "the big leagues."

The reality is that there are now two libertarian political parties on America's electoral landscape, and that (in certain respects at least) the newer one is coming up fast in the older one's rearview mirror.

Breaking up is hard to do ... but perhaps it needn't be as painful as we're making it. Can we just be friends? OK, well, maybe not, at least for the three months and change while the LP conducts its "great experiment" and the BTP embarks on its "maiden voyage." But ...

Odds are that there will always be cross-traffic between the LP and the BTP as angry or discontented libertarians of one seek expression in the other (or, as is now the case, participate in both). It's a safe bet that the two parties will bring different approaches to the longstanding and vexing problem of electing candidates to office. Hopefully as time goes on, the two parties will learn to, well, learn, from each others' mistakes and from each others' successes instead of just going at each other.

I'm not going to promise to go easy on Bob Barr. The LP made that bed, and now it (we -- I'm still an LP member and candidate) gets to lie in it. But I can, and do, promise you that I'll do my best as a member of the Boston Tea Party to make that party about more than internecine freedom movement conflicts. We have bigger game to hunt, and we're just now getting our boots on.

by Micah Tillman If "your vote is your voice" then voters are dumb. What you do in the voting booth — if you're behaving — influences nothing. But influence is the point. So voting is irrational. Why vote, then? The...

Let’s temporarily set aside, solely for purposes of discussion, my own view that electoral politics is a wrong-headed approach for anarchists to use (regardless of the particular flavor of reformism one might prefer). One could easily say, after all, that we first need to get some slack back on civil liberties (and the so-called GWOT [...]