[wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless

Wed Apr 25 08:05:31 UTC 2007

reading all these texts on business model, economic sustainability, ... I
started thinking about what is the economical model, in my way of
understanding it is model of society based primarily on money, And I thought
isnit a way to have an alternative kind of society based on others values
than money?

And I remembered an article I read (I forgot the author and the title) about
a society without money. In this book the author was stating that money is
totally virtual and a society working without money is totally possible, the
widespread of electronic money  was a proof for him.
A society totally based on electronic money would be a society in fact
behaving like not having money : you work at month end your money is
transfered to your bank account, for buying something you use your credit
card and from the beginning to the end of the chain you only have in your
hand a plastic plate worthing less than 10 dollar.

This article made me think about the real value of money and modern economy
beginning from the gold-dollar to the dollar valued by the market, the
communism, the capitalism to the credit card. And I had the strong feeling
that we can really live without money, the communism was a try that failed
because of the method used to spawn it (communism was always linked to
authoritarian regime), non readiness of mentality by population (as people
were living under heavy control in an oppressed way, they didnt want to see
any benefit in the system ) and by the nature of the man: in fact money is
only a human fabrication to facilitate exchange, to value work and
incidentally maintain a cast hierarchy onto society. Without money everybody
are equal, something difficult to admit fro the common people.

The open movement is a big change on the way population understand the
economy because money is no more the major basement of the system but it is
the common interest of population. If money can be made adding on that then
it's good but not primordial. in fact with the open movement the society is
based on the information. if you have the information (and the background to
use it) you can benefit from the community if you are out of the network you
dont exist for the community.

I foresee that in a distant future from now the open movement philosophy,
which currently apply only in software, will also apply to hardware. We will
no more pay for hardware but only for the use of it. Because more the
capitalism and his money is everything approach is evolving more people
understand that in fact all of that is illusion and there are more important
value to base a society on ....

On 4/20/07, jeff buderer <jeff at onevillagefoundation.org> wrote:
>
> Marco, Horst, All
>
> The key thing to keep in mind is that despite all the hype there is
> truly something revolutionary out there can help us to work together in
> new and exciting ways. It's a matter of bringing what is out there in
> here.
>
> And of course it is not so much about the technology but how people use
> that technology to develop new ways of getting things within the
> emerging information economy.
>
> Finally what we see now is not anything like what the long term picture
> will be. We are in transitional phase. To better understand the dramatic
> changes and their possible consequences you might be better off reading
> a William Gibson novel than in say listening to what the tech sages are
> saying.
>
> The point here though is to consider the thesis or hypothesis or
> synthesis that we can from all this information, technology and
> networked human resources use technology for grassroots empowerment and
> in that process manage the role of corporations/top-down players so that
> they have opportunities but within a clearly defined playing field.
>
> If we can create such a dynamic in our networks then it is at that point
> when we can be sure that the hype will start manifesting into reality -
> OUR reality.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
> [mailto:wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Horst Krause
> Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 8:24 AM
> To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructure
> Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community
> Wireless
>
> hello marco + wsfii-discuss-list,
>
> with great interest i follow this *sustainability*-thread.
>
> > when we want to have an economical sustainability FOR THE PEOPLE, we
> > will need tools designed for exceptionally this goal. these tools
> > already exist. certain types cooperatives belong to these tools as I
> > believe.
>
> i think about the impact, 'development' has into a weakend society,
> and the reasons and circumstances that drive self-declared developers.
> because, i recognise a large gap in realisation/discussion between:
> - high expectations in/for *III./IV.-world*-countries, and
> - the low success to overcome digital-divide inside rich societies.
>
> many reports seem to me too positivly tinted, for example:
> opportunities,
> capacity/comunity/democracy-building, potentials, synergy, ect.,
> or the hardbreaking foo of those, planing to sell a chicken,
> would be empowered to search the i-net to maximise cash flow ;-)
>
> shure only a part benefits from this shifting, the social-divide will
> deepen,
> and, first of all and ever, digital fences will be put up by this
> evolution.
> so called development is much based on media-hyp, tech.-talk,
> nerdism-egos,
> figures+numbers, progress-myth, futur-hopes, ect., to call some, only
> little reflected missionairic, colonial, touristic, western vallues.
>
> everbody's darlings like to talk about targets, forces, tasks,
> successes,
> but it makes me supicius, that many of these so hailed solutions,
> do NOT work fine, or got under critics; even under developed conditions,
> or refer unconsciously and narrow-horizonted to nothing else but
> - some akademic-sky-watcher-blub and their media-campaigners,
> - the developments of the (soft-)develope(r,d) and
> - their developing-world-successors: micro-telcos +  net-shop-owners,
> - bruised IT-omnipotence-fantasy, now to be compensated in a
>   once-again + far-away - attempt in africa/asia.
>
> are there some critical, serios, competent field researches about
> social, cultural, environmental side-effekts of IT-connectivity?
> but deeper than usual win-win-game of self-portrayals by embedded media.
> please recall to me some links i read diagonal earlier @ this list.
>
>
> bye, horst krause, berlin
> offlinehorst at web.de
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:38:24 +0200
> marco <marco.pompe at web.de> wrote:
>
> > jeff buderer wrote:
> > > Marco,
> > >
> > > I think we need your perspective to bring this process forward at
> least
> > > in Ghana so please do continue to engage those people you mentioned.
> > >
> > >
> > my general opinion is, that it is very possible to deal with even big
> > companies, when have good idea of how to play the "game". we have to
> > consider the arguments of vickram crishna very well, to get that kind
> of
> > good idea about it ...
> >
> > i do think, that we can create a space, where in we can set the rules
> to
> > a certain extend. we have to have a look at how the market and its big
> > player work, how ecomical, social and psychological processes are
> > shaping the world in order to capital investment and profit
> maximising.
> > if we understand what will stab in our back and what will benefit the
> > community in the end, we have the basics to deal with corporations.
> also
> > i want to point at the several ethical investment facilities we have
> in
> > US and Europe ... the conditions are fantastic (compared to SERO). its
> a
> > matter of collective WILL in my eyes ...
> >
> > when we want to have an economical sustainability FOR THE PEOPLE, we
> > will need tools designed for exceptionally this goal. these tools
> > already exist. certain types cooperatives belong to these tools as I
> > believe. NGOs can help as well. loose networks as well.
> > my suggestion is to focus on the founding of a half global / half
> local
> > hardware supply cooperative and a similar ISP-cooperative. i wonder if
> > we should go in details ...
> >
> > grts, marco pompe, berlin
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss
>
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