Rage, despair, anger, sadness, disbelief…these emotions define our moment. In times of war, violence, and environmental disasters, how else can we feel? Is this what it means to be civilised"

It's clear that our institutions are fundamentally misaligned with addressing these problems. Michel Bauwens writes: “Corporations and states are competitive entities, geared towards extraction to serve the relative strength of their owners and citizens. These institutions are problematic by themselves, in an age facing a planetary meta-crisis.”

Could it be that the design of the institutions themselves is why we have these crises in the first place? In an interconnected living system, where is the ‘external’ to outsource to? What are the alternatives to States and Markets?

In part 1 of a two-part conversation, I speak to Michel Bauwens, founder and director of the P2P Foundation, a person who has spent decades studying these questions.

Themes Covered:
• Michel’s civilization history perspective of our world today and why we might be living through a moment of transition and the birth of new commons-centric institutions.
• A cosmo-local view of the world with institutions that are neither market- nor state-centric, but commons-centric.
• How Open Source Software and Technology are creating the conditions for the return of the commons and the creation of new institutions outside of the market and state.

Upcoming in Part 2:
In part 2, we will explore the role of Web3 and Crypto in the rise of the commons and delve into Michel’s journey that led him to founding the P2P Foundation and studying civilization history.
Connect with Michel Bauwens:
• Substack: 4th Generation Civilization
• X (formerly Twitter): @mbauwens
• P2P Foundation: P2P Foundation WikiConnect with Light Forest:
• Website: www.lightforest.world
• Twitter: Light Forest & @devlewis18
• Instagram: @lightforestworld & @daiyisi🥁

The music for the podcast is produced by me using a combination of Bandlab and original recording of a Hapi drum (a type of tongue drum) played be me.