Digital Generative Economies and the New Guilds: A Conversation between Michel Bauwens and Douglas Rushkoff

An interview between these two thinkers where they discuss finance, value, business and the Commons including a historical perspective. What follows is a list of items covered during the discussion and links for definitions and further reading.

Bauwens (l), Rushkoff (r)

00:00 Douglas Rushkoff
1:52 Michel Bauwens
3:13 Michel asks Doug about the evolution of society and guilds
4:09 Guilds: “the wheels of commerce”, Fernand Braudel’s books on capitalism and civilization
4:50 After the Crusades, late middle age, trade guilds emerged, economy, work
7:30 Aristocracy got crushed by P2P economy so broke up guilds and local currencies – chartered monopolies
8:20 Michel talks about what might be contemporary versions of guilds – Enspiral, Sensorica
10:34 How can we create value sovereignty? Open value accounting
11:50 Open Coops, Capped returns
14:47 Douglas: How to get buy in to these new kinds of company form – freelance union
16:10 Michel: Smart – Belgian payment service – mutualizing – alternatives
18:30 Douglas: Mutualism
23:00 Developing sustainable businesses. Example : Aker – Open farm toolkits – one of 12 projects at the POC21 innovation camp
24:57 Netarchical capitalism, Platform cooperativism – Can existing companies change?
26:30 Borrowing instead of buying
27:50 Flexible versus brittle in highly financialized landscape
29:40 Open Accounting – Sensorica – transvestment –
30:30 Derivative markets led to amplification of capital, local currencies will end up more stable then central currencies
31:42 Madison mapping summit – Mutual Aid Network –
34:13 Asking Doug how he applies P2P to government and governance? (direct democracy, Loomio)
35:50 P2P form of democracy – cities, city states and nation states
37:00 We live in the spectacle of a democracy, trans-nationality, trans-local, guilds to counter global corporations
40:28 Currency + nationality. National economies, federal banks, fiscal policy
42:10 Crypto and LETS, critique on using blockchain
44:27 DAO – we need ethical, sustainable forms not more rent extraction schemes, legacy advantage
46:46 Platform Cooperativism – {Doug}
50:00 Distributed ownership
51:30 Open Coops {Michel} – coop as distributed capitalism not good enough, actively creating common goods, Fairshares