P2P Foundation's blog » Blog Archive » John Restakis and Michel Bauwens on the FLOK Society Transition Project in Ecuador
abernard102@gmail.com 2014-02-03
Summary:
" ... In what may be one of the most innovative change programs in Latin America, the administration of Rafael Correa is proposing to transition from a neo-liberal, free market economic model to what they are calling a social knowledge economy based on a combination of commons-based economics and the promotion of open knowledge systems. It’s heady stuff and the project is placing Ecuador at the forefront of global efforts to advance human knowledge as a commons and to apply this knowledge to the creation of a new economic model based on the commons, co-operative models of production, open-source systems of sharing, and free access to information. Housed at the National Institute for Higher Learning (IAEN), the FLOK Society project (Free/Libre Open Knowledge Society) is conducting the research and developing the policy ideas that will underpin this effort. I and six other researchers form the team at the heart of this project. Supporting this effort is a motley, misfitted, but highly motivated pack of thinkers, hacktivists, political operators, digital geeks, and determined idealists from around the world who see in FLOK a chance at crafting a progressive vision of economics for the 21st Century and, even more enticing, a chance to put such a vision into effect. It is a project to imagine utopia for real world application. But…what does all this mean? Is it a digital age fantasy or a prescription for transformative change? Is there a political will to drive the radical changes we are envisioning? Will our work move from vision to reality? My intention in this blog series is to reflect on this effort, to share what I myself am learning in the process, and to explore what this really means for re-imagining a humane and sustainable economics in the Age of Google and in the context of the political puzzle that is Ecuador ..."