Author: Devin

  • How to Run Collaborative Projects That Don’t Fall Prey to Bureaucracy

    How to Run Collaborative Projects That Don’t Fall Prey to Bureaucracy

    This piece was published at Sharable on July 21st, 2017. Today, when people call something “bureaucratic,” they usually mean that in a negative sense, but bureaucracy didn’t always have this negative connotation. About 100 years ago when many professional bureaucracies were being built, they were seen as a means of bringing quality control, predictability, and integrity to administrations. But…

  • When Platform Coops are Seen, What Goes Unseen?

    If you’re involved with the “cooperative community” on social media, you’ve probably heard a lot about platform cooperatives in recent years. The vision is simple: what if Uber or AirBnb were owned by its users, who could share decision-making responsibility and profits among themselves? Instead of being exploited by platforms, users could and should be…

  • What is “Municipalism”?

    What is “Municipalism”?

    Originally posted at municipalist.org The definition of “municipalism” is still up for grabs. If you Google the word you’ll be given a snippet from Wikipedia about “libertarian municipalism”,  a compelling but very specific utopian political philosophy of Murray Bookchin. Surely “municipalism” can and should mean something more. Over the last fifty years, the percentage of people around the globe living in urban areas has…

  • Cryptocurrency Can Shift the Balance of Power Between Cities, States and Nations

    Cryptocurrency Can Shift the Balance of Power Between Cities, States and Nations

    Originally posted at municipalist.org One of the most powerful tools of a modern nation is its central bank’s ability to create money “out of thin air.” Nations can use this new money to purchase their own nation’s debt in the form of treasury bills, bonds and notes, allowing it to spend more than it earns in taxes and other…