OpenKollab

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• Red Mars – open collaboration business model [1 Update]

Maria Droujkova <droujkova@gmail.com> May 02 09:03AM -0400 ^


 
Sheri,
 
The Mars trilogy is one of my favorites as well, for the same reason some
people dislike it (the author using the story to express his Utopian ideas).
Is the gathering you are talking about Wisdom 2.0 from your Twitter
hashtags? Interesting!
 
In the book, there were several economies at once. Some things were totally
open and free, like this lab gifted to the underground scientists by the new
progressive megacorp that ended up supporting the independence of Mars -
however, it came from the said megacorp participating in the money-based
economy on Earth. Other things were free as the information on the internet
is now free, because there were no costs to duplicating them, for example,
goods produced by self-replicating robots running on solar energy. There was
an involved gift economy with complex rules based on some tribal traditions.
There was a common standard for the necessities, very similar to money.
Coops had internal goods and service economies, providing members with
necessities. Then of course there was the old capitalist system coexisting
with all that. One of my favorite paragraphs about culture clashes described
the young natives approaching newly arrived Earth corporations with requests
for machinery for their projects, and totally expecting the machinery to be
free because the projects are valuable.
 
I am closely observing (and supporting) homeschool communities and networks
in the US. They have complex gift, care, money and coop economies
interacting with money-based economy. It's fascinating.
 
Cheers,
Maria Droujkova
http://www.naturalmath.com
 
Make math your own, to make your own math.