Keith Hart: Memory Bank. Money in an Unequal World (2001)

Hart believes that humanity stands on the threshold of a new era in which there will be a pressing need to develop, conceptually and in practice, an awareness of the common problems facing world society as a whole. We have scarcely begun to contemplate how to establish and maintain the social, technological and cultural infrastructures we will need to survive in the 21st century. In a polarized world characterized by staggering economic inequalities, recent advances in technology offer radical possibilities for the development of human freedom and equality. Hart’s particular focus in this book is the Internet, which he argues holds the potential for a re-personalization of economic relations. In this world, new means of exchange could be harnessed to the ends of a truer economic democracy. Money is the problem, but it is also the solution. Hart, an anthropologist by training, offers a new view on the interaction between money, capitalism, and culture – now, in the future, and throughout history. The many important strands of thought and experience in this book will challenge established views from all quarters of economic, political, and social thought.

Publisher Texere, 2001
ISBN 1587990970, 9781587990977
Length 320 pages

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Christian Siefkes: From Exchange to Contributions: Generalizing Peer Production Into the Physical World (2008) [English/German]

A new mode of production has emerged in the areas of software and content production. This mode, which is based on sharing and cooperation, has spawned whole mature operating systems such as GNU/Linux as well as innumerable other free software applications; giant knowledge bases such as the Wikipedia; a large free culture movement; and a new, wholly decentralized medium for spreading, analyzing and discussing news and knowledge, the so-called blogosphere.

So far, this new mode of production–peer production–has been limited to certain niches of production, such as information goods. This book discusses whether this limitation is necessary or whether the potential of peer production extends farther. In other words: Is a society possible in which peer production is the primary mode of production? If so, how could such a society be organized?

Is a society possible where production is driven by demand and not by profit? Where there is no need to sell anything and hence no unemployment? Where competition is more a game than a struggle for survival? Where there is no distinction between people with capital and those without? A society where it would be silly to keep your ideas and knowledge secret instead of sharing them; and where scarcity is no longer a precondition of economic success, but a problem to be worked around?

It is, and this book describes how.

Length 156 pages

The text can be modified and copied under the conditions of the Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike-Licence.

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English edition: Christian Siefkes. From Exchange to Contributions: Generalizing Peer Production into the Physical World. Edition C. Siefkes, Berlin, 2007. ISBN 978-3-940736-00-0.
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German translation: Christian Siefkes. Beitragen statt tauschen. Materielle Produktion nach dem Modell Freier Software. AG SPAK Bücher, Neu-Ulm, 2008. ISBN 978-3-930830-99-2.
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Saskia Sassen: Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money (1998–) [EN, CR]

“Saskia Sassen is an internationally recognized expert on globalization whose writings have appeared in journals and magazines worldwide. Now available in paperback, Globalization and Its Discontents is a collection of Sassen’s essays dealing with topics such as the “global city,” gender and migration (reconceived as the globalization of labor), information technology, and the new dynamics of inequality. Sassen brings together cultural and literary studies, feminist theory, political economics, sociology, and political science, showing how vast the chasm between metropolitan business centers and low-income inner cities has become. Incisive and original, she takes on common political, cultural, and economic misconceptions of globalization and offers a thoughtful, provocative new look at our increasingly global society.”

Publisher New Press, 1998
ISBN 1565845188, 9781565845183
xxxvi+253 pages

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Globalization and Its Discontents (English, 1998, DJVU, updated on 2015-7-8)
Protugeografije globalizacije (Croatian, trans. Danijela Sestrić, Jakov Vilović and Tomislav Medak, 2003)