#networked resistance

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$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

Free exchange would look nothing like the rigidly hierarchical state capitalism we see around us. Facilitated by horizontally networked organization and peer-to-peer exchange, new decentralized economies will look like Occupations, not Corporations. Economic experimentation is the most dangerous threat to the status quo, and the organizations that hope to perpetuate it.

“The nature of distributed systems themselves have brought with them their own culture or ideology. . . . Our new peer-to-peer reality has changed the way we think about everything from exchange to personal relationships. And we can perceive the ways that technology informs culture (and vice versa) all around us, back through history. The work of the Center for a Stateless Society’s Kevin Carson has demonstrated the effects of a subsidized American car culture on the overall economy, suffusing everything from suburban sprawl to distribution paths or consumer goods. Nothing about the present system was simply a foregone conclusion. Authority has impacted the technological ecosystem at every step of development, suppressed alternatives, and obliged the established economic powers.

“Contrast authoritarian capitalism with the decentralized, horizontally-networked-and-ordered free market presently materializing, one in which the effective exercise of power through hierarchy is less and less possible. . . . The individualist anarchists’ was the ultimate ‘open source’ economy, enabling each individual to enter into any economic endeavor she pleased, to contribute in any way, thereby occupying the margins on which capitalist profits rested. The Internet has thrown open those margins to the benefit of individuals and at the expense of established corporations who have used legislative and regulatory means to keep them closed. . . . The individualists, from Josiah Warren onward, shared amongst one another an enthusiasm for and desire to undertake experimentations within the economic realm, eschewing uniformity and doctrinaire declarations about what a free economy must be. Experimentation of the kinds they esteemed is of course a threat to the status quo, and thus to the organizations that depend upon and hope to perpetuate it.”

M. George van der Meer is a mutualist and decentralist. Formerly a curator of fine art, his interests include social philosophy, antiquing and film.

Support C4SS with M. George van der Meer’s “The Network Economy as New Mutualism”

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Chinese Scientists Invent Lightbulbs That Emit Wi-Fi

A group of Chinese scientists at Shanghai's Fudan University have a bright idea: A lightbulb that produces its own Wi-Fi signal. According to Xinhua, the technology is called Li-Fi, and the prototype actually works better than the average connection in China.

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There’s a better way. We the people can resist the state and its cruel policies that trap people in poverty. We can build mutual aid networks so that people’s needs are met without dependency on plutocratic politicians and control freak bureaucrats. We can build a world where the state doesn’t break legs, hand out crutches, and then yank those crutches out from under its victims.

--Nathan Goodman, Neoliberalism: Breaking Your Legs and Taking Your Crutches

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Everything the United States does, in its attempts to suppress the networked successor society, further undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the world public or its own domestic population, spur the formation of counter-coalitions of other countries sick of the U.S. running the world, and drive mainstream public adoption of encryption to evade surveillance. In every single response to attack, the old hierarchical society further intensifies the contradictions that will destroy it.

--Kevin Carson, With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?

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Meet the Hackers Who Want to Jailbreak the Internet | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Packed into a small conference room in Portland, Oregon, this rag-tag band of coders has quite the online pedigree, and their mission is far more ambitious than you might expect. They hope to jailbreak the internet.

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7 Groups the FBI and Corporations Have Classified as "Terrorists"

7 examples of the types of people the government and corporations now routinely label as "terrorists."

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Tor: The Onion Router

What is Tor? How does it work? And why should you use it?

With the ever expanding surveillance systems being employed in the United States and around the world, the ability to use the internet anonymously is becoming increasingly important, especially for activists, or anyone who is not okay with your Search Engine provider, ISP (Internet Service Provider) and your government knowing everything about your internet use. Here, I will go into brief detail about the technical aspects of Tor, give reasons why you should use Tor and finally guide you through the installation of the Tor browser and how to contribute to the network by setting up a relay. ...