The book (and indeed its author) is much inspired by, and cites, Spanish repubicanism and the “Spanish revolution” when anarchism flowered in worker-run farms and businesses (and was snuffed out by fascism, of course). Here’s the link to the review.
The Oslo Forum is an unusual gathering of high-level political mediators, organized by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. They have gathered a book of essays on mediation, by authors including Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt and Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide. I was very honoured to be invited to contribute. My essay tries to specify exactly what kind of conditions are necessary for successful mediation, in particular what kinds of access, to both negotiations and information. You can download the book, for free,
This is the first episode of “The World: Decrypted” a short video commentary on international affairs
VIDEO
An interesting video about Semco, an innovative worker-led company in Brazil. Very much the sort of thing that The Leaderless Revolution talks about as a new form of the company, the basic unit of the economy.
A very generous profile of me and Independent Diplomat in Foreign Policy magazine.
I have been very shocked by the impact of this storm on New York, and particularly the city’s failure to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable. The authorities were clearly unprepared for this disaster, and when it struck it was the poor and invisible who were hit the hardest, and were then the most ignored .
Hunger, ill health and poverty are simple to measure
From Mr Carne Ross.
This is the title of an influential essay by Jo Freeman aka Joreen about the many subtle and insidious risks of leaderless movements, including, for instance, the formation of unacknowledged and informal elites. Her recommendations on principles to avoid such dangers are interesting, and are pasted below. The essay does not discuss more structured systems of decision-making within leaderless movements (the Occupy General Assembly and Spokescouncil models are examples of such). But Freeman’s observations are importan
Occupy Niall Ferguson! My row over #occupybank with the Prof #ows
This has just been broadcast on the BBC in the UK, and will be soon on the BBC World Service.
Every year, the BBC holds the “Reith lecture” which is a major set-piece speech by some public figure on an issue of the day. Niall Ferguson this year gave a series of talks on “The Rule of Law”. He and I had a bit of a contretemps at the recording of the lecture a few weeks ago, in New York City.
