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Sustainable Commons or Circular Commons?

Decision time! For at least the last few years I’ve been referring to the environmentally-driven image of After Capitalism as “Sustainable Commons.” But as I’ve dug in deep to the dozen concepts supporting Sustainable Commons, I’ve detected a sense that sustainable is a bit “old-fashioned.” I’m not sure that that’s the right word, or that I agree with it, but …. Probably the most compelling “anti” sustainable argument is that many have suggested “sustainable development” is an oxymoron – especially those advocating degrowth. I will confess this seems almost a bit heretical to me, as I’ve been fighting for sustainability my whole career. I realize that the word is not the concept, but ….

Alongside this nagging doubt is a growing admiration for the Circular Economy concept. I am almost as excited about this as I once was about sustainability. It’s such an elegant concept. It is a great framework. And I think it has some marketing/branding appeal. By that I mean I can see it catching on in a big way. It already has to some extent, although I think the pandemic has slowed down some of its momentum.

OTOH, is it too soon. Is circular a flash-in-the-pan, soon to be forgotten? I don’t think so, and you can probably tell which way I’m leaning. Help me out – what do you think? – Andy Hines

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The Non-Tragedy of the Commons

Most of us have dutifully learned the Tragedy of the Commons, how unchecked individual interested overwhelms the group needs. The key word in that sentence is “unchecked.” In short, commoning approaches manage such systems to balance individual and group needs. Commoning is one of the newer concepts to me from the After Capitalism research. Massimo De Angelis’s Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism is an excellent addition to the “Sustainable Commons” visions. The book explains how a commoning approach might work as an alternative to capitalism. First a few definitions:

  • Commons are a community sharing resources and governing them and their own relations and (re) production
  • Commoning is the form of social labor managing common resources via participatory and non-hierarchical approaches.

Simple examples of commons are households, networks of supporting friends, managed workshops, community gardens, and peer-to-peer ( P2P ) networks for sharing music , codes , files, etc. The author provides several detailed examples of community commoning approaches in the book. His argument for commoning is that it is an alternative way to make decisions and act upon those decisions to shape the future of communities via a local and distributed approach that avoids “being locked into market competition and its anxieties, the blackmail of profit-driven companies, and state agencies.”

He is no shrinking violet: “I believe there is a social revolution in the making that, if recognized and able to attract more energies from people around the world, could give us a chance to embark on a process of transformation towards postcapitalist society.” He notes how the excesses of capitalism evolved: the process of enclosures, expropriations, looting, financial extraction and tax avoidance. In short predator capitalism has got us into such a mess that commoning becomes a viable alternative.

There are two ways that work gets done in commoning: communal and reciprocal labor.

  • Communal labor is the social labor that a community of commoners pulls together for particular common objectives following convocation .
  • Reciprocal labor is the form of social labor that is intertwined with perceptions of reciprocity , gift , or mutual aid ; it is the labor that subject A performs for subject B , B for C and C for A ( circular reciprocity ) or simply A for B ( where karmic feelgood is the reward ) .

A very difficult aspect of the move to commoning is the “current entanglement with capital and the state.” He admits that capitalism is crafty and reacts and adapts to challenges by developing new forms. Thus, he is pragmatic. It will be necessary to work within the capitalist framework as commoning develops: “the strategic horizon therefore is not to avoid making deals, but how to make a given deal.” At the same time, he doesn’t suggest that the commoning vision must be completely worked out before moving in that direction. I love this: “Systems are not implemented, their dominance emerges.”

It is no easy task. Scaling is a big challenge. He suggest a massive social movement would be necessary, and he notes the challenge is not just to overcome capitalism, “but also of overcoming the multifaceted real divisions that exist among commoners and commons movements.”  — Andy Hines

 

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Commons or Commodities?

We might think about two polar opposite and perhaps extreme visions of the “after capitalism” future: commons, in which things are not owned but shared by everyone, or commodities in which everything has a price. David Bollier gives us a nice introduction to called Think Like a Commoner, that espouses the former (and warns of the latter).

What do we mean by commons? Commons include physical and intangible resources of all sorts, but “they are more accurately defined as paradigms that combine a distinct community with a set of social practices, values and norms that are used to manage a resource. Put another way, a commons is a resource + a community + a set of social protocols.” More simply: “managing a resource for everyone’s benefit.”

If you’re like me, the first idea that pops into your head is Garret Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons. Bollier notes how it has become a cautionary lesson about the impossibility of collective action. One can sense his exasperation when he makes the case that Hardin’s commons is not a commons! Hardin describes an open-access regime, or a free-for-all. But Bollier notes that a commons has boundaries, rules, social norms and sanctions against free riders. A commons requires that there be a community willing to act as a conscientious steward of a resource.

A few key principles of commons (from Ostrom):

  • commons must have clearly defined boundaries so that commoners can know who has authorized rights to use a resource
  • the rules for appropriating a resource must take account of local conditions and must include limits on what can be taken and how.
  • Commoners must be able to create or influence the rules that govern a commons
  • Must be willing to monitor how their resources are used (or abused) and must devise a system of sanctions

The ambition view suggested by Bollier is that the commons could be a vehicle for social and political emancipation and societal transformation. Thus the “commons economy” found its way into my initial list of after capitalism concepts.

On to commodities. Bollier puts it bluntly: “privatization and commodification of our shared wealth is one of the great unacknowledged scandals of our time.” Okay, but the link to commons is the process of enclosure of the commons: “Enclosures convert a system of collective management and social mutuality into a market order that privileges private ownership, prices, market relationships and consumerism.” Think of the king owning the forest in Robin Hood. And over time, more and more commons have been enclosed. “The goal is to treat people as individuals and consumers, not as communities with shared, long-term, nonmarket interests.” Regular readers of this blog will note the one of the key findings about values shifts from ConsumerShift was the growing anti-consumer ethos.

It is noted how Polyani observed that numerous resources — especially land, labor and money — be redefined as commodities, which he called “fictional commodities….that quickly expanded to other realms, making virtually everything subject to purchase and sale.  This is happening to nature and to culture and….

A crucial point for me. Bollier pans claims made by contemporary economists that humans are essentially materialist individuals of unlimited appetites, and that these traits are universal. Quite the opposite. The real aberration in human history is the idea of Homo economicus. I touched on that recently in a post “Wiring or Choice?”

For Bollier a top priority should be expanding the conversation about the commons. I agree! – Andy Hines

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Next Economy Additions: Commons, Creative Molecular, and Em/Singularity

A couple of years, I started collecting and posting concepts or names for the next economy as part of my scanning (which admittedly “ain’t what it used to be). I didn’t seek them out, but rather have been noting them when they appear. It’s been a while since my last addition to the list, which left us at 35 concepts. Three new additions bring us to 38: Commons, Creative Molecular, and EM/Singularity.

1. Attention
2. Automated
3. Betterness
4. Blockchain
5. Capitalism 2.0
6. Circular
7. Co-creation
8. Collaborative
9. Commons
10. Conscious
11. Creative Molecular
12. Eco-economy
13. Em/Singularity
14. Experience
15. Frugal
16. Gift
17. Gig
18. Green
19. Knowledge		 20. Leisure
21. Local living
22. Metaspace
23. Open source
24. Post-capitalist
25. Post-Growth
26. Post-industrial
27. Purpose
28. Regenerative
29. Relationship
30. Resilient
31. Second
32. Sharing
33. Slack
34. Soft Path
35. Steady-state
36. Sustainable
37. Wisdom
38. Zero Marginal Cost

The commons economy came to me through an excellent article by Jose Ramos on “The Future of Work.” He likened the current economic system to a game of musical chairs: “Most of us are so busy playing this game, we hardly realise that we must step away to play a different game altogether. This new game we can call the ‘commons economy’, in which one person’s gain is not to the exclusion of the other, but rather considers and nourishes a whole social community and whole ecological system.

The creative molecular economy is a concept shared by APF member Neil Richardson from his work with the Communities of the Future network. In its exploration of what’s next, the group recognizes that the industrial and knowledge economies are transitioning as a new era based on biological principles. emerges. Some of these points are further developed in the book, Preparing for a World that Doesn’t Exist.

The Em/Singularity economy explores the concept of uploading human consciousness – what he calls  whole-brain emulations, or ems. The models could be copied and stored in robots, or in android bodes in virtual reality. The short story is these super-intelligent and super-productive ems go to work. The concept comes from Robin Hanson, AI researcher now an economics professor at George Mason University in his book: The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life When Robots Rule the Earth.

Readers of this blog are likely familiar with the Singularity concept, and while I suppose you could position it as a sorta new economy idea, I really liked the “em” concept as fresh and provocative. There is a nice review by Randall Mayes in the September 2016 issue of AAI’s Foresight Signals.

A shout out to the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) listserve for discussions which surfaced all three of these interesting and provocative concepts for me – two from the listserve and the third from the Compass newsletter masterfully edited by Andrew Curry.   — Andy Hines

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How much sacrifice …

… are we willing to make?

Sacrifice seems to be a concept that is out of fashion. Aren’t things tough enough already … and you’re asking for more? For those struggling, it’s about just getting enough. Or for some it is simply about getting mines (sic) rather than sacrificing for the larger community.

The After Capitalism research did not find a future without sacrifice, so I think it’s useful to consider how much we are willing to make. (NOTE: Of the three images, Tech-Led Abundance potentially involves the least amount of sacrifice, but even there a redistribution of wealth will involve sacrifice). Perhaps sacrifice hits hardest in the Circular Commons, where I’ve come to the Degrowth pathway as necessary for a course-correction. I’m also persuaded that, if we made the effort, we could make this course correction, without too drastic a shift in our lives. Define “drastic,” right! Take a look at this paragraph:

Magnuson (2013) found that current growth could be preserved under a fully renewable energy system — with investments in the $30-$40 trillion range. He references a Swiss Federal Institute study that identified a “2000-watt society” in which the 7 billion people on earth consuming an equal amount of energy would equal out to 2000 watts daily. Americans, today, consume about six times that amount daily (Magnuson, 2013). Clearly the cost and sacrifices needed to maintain current growth rates are daunting for those in affluent economies.

Can we take the challenge, Americans in a position of relative affluence? Could we cut our energy use by a factor of six? [I beg your indulgence for a brainstormed list — not thorough research] What might that involve at the individual level:

  • Moving into smaller homes; adding more people to existing homes
  • Making our homes smarter and more efficient (e.g., weatherization)
  • Adding solar panels
  • Composting …. Growing our own food to reduce food miles (enables smaller refrigerator, a big culprit, but this is admittedly a long way around)
  • More efficient heating/cooling units
  • Being more conscious about the eco footprint of goods
  • Substituting biking for driving; moving to hybrid or electric vehicles (admittedly increases electricity footprint, but better overall for energy)
  • Moving to as-a-services over owing goods to enable smaller living spaces.

Does that move the needle enough? Not sure. Probably not dramatic enough. Even these changes would surely cost more in dollars and effort, at least upfront, as well as demand a lot more effort and attention.

Obviously, there needs to be coordination at larger scales. Mixed-use development approaches, for instance, could make some of the above changes more practical.

I’m thinking of an earlier post where I discussed how futurists help clients “get aligned and in motion” with the emerging future. Applies to us as individuals too! It would be fun to hear what some of y’all are already doing on this front. What are you doing to reduce your electricity/energy consumption? – Andy Hines

Reference: Magnuson, Joel. 2013. Approaching the Great Transformation: Toward a Livable Post Carbon Economy. New York: Seven Stories Press

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A Participatory Economy

Robin Hahnel provides us with a wonderful and useful handbook on the Participatory Economy that “demonstrates concretely how to reconcile comprehensive democratic planning with worker and consumer autonomy.” I found it incredibly useful to see a detailed approach to how this post-capitalist approach might work. I did not necessarily agree with everything, but it is so helpful to have the key questions framed up with proposed solutions for one to consider. The research is extensive and the analysis is comprehensive and thoughtful. Bravo!

Let’s look at some of the key ideas.

He strongly moves away from central planning to participatory planning. Economic decisions are made by self- governing worker councils, neighborhood consumer councils, and federations of consumer and worker councils. They participate in an iterative participatory annual planning procedure that is laid out in detail. The goal is to have decision-making power allocated in proportion to the degree one is affected by a decision.

He takes on the hard question of how to allocate resources to individuals (today done mostly by jobs), suggesting four guiding maxims:  

  • Maxim 1 : To each according to the social value of the contribution of their human and physical capital.
  • Maxim 2 : To each according to the social value of the contribution of only their human capital.
  • Maxim 3 : To each according to their effort or personal sacrifice.
  • Maxim 4 : To each according to their need.

There is a relationship between one’s contribution and what they get back, but much more attention is paid to equity and economic justice. He notes that people will not agree about many things and the new system must be equipped to embrace and handle disagreement rather than unrealistically assume differences of opinion will magically vanish via discussion.

He is also pretty tough on markets, but I’m totally with him:

  • Contrary to what most economists would have people believe, markets do not allocate scarce productive resources efficiently.
  • Markets undermine rather than promote the kinds of human traits critical to the democratic process.
  • Markets undermine solidarity and promote egotistical attitudes and behavior

He is practical and realistic. While he has been researching the ideas for this work for many years, he admits that “it is not possible to point to any example where something like the participatory planning system we espouse ever functioned long enough for its ‘practicality’ to be unquestionable.” We’re in mostly uncharted territory, particularly at any type of large scale.

My main critique is that I feel his approach to the future would have benefited from some futurist thinking.

  • I feel he over-estimates the abilities of the worker and consumer councils to identify preferences, new products, and areas to invest for the future.
  • I feel the planning approach relies too much on historical precedents, i.e., “while past performance is not a perfect predictor of future performance nonetheless these calculations would provide a useful guide … “
  • Finally, he suggests that his strategy for getting to post-capitalism “is a much more complicated and nuanced ‘kettle of fish’ than describing where it is we want to go.” I suppose we can agree to disagree here. The After Capitalism work is an effort to address the absence of a positive guiding image of the future, which goes back to Polak’s work in the 1950s!

Along the lines of guiding images of the future, I find the principles in the participatory economy to be useful to all three AC guiding images. Interestingly, his work did not align tightly with any of the three:

  • Re: Circular Commons, his approach is growth-based, which is at direct odds with the degrowth approach of this image.
  • Re: Non-Workers Paradise, he doesn’t have post-work as a goal, although this is the image his work is closest to.
  • Re: Tech-Led Abundance, he briskly dismisses the “post-scarcity” society.

These disagreements do not detract from the usefulness of the book. It really helped my thinking and is valuable for those who really want to dig into the details of what a post-capitalist economy might look like. We need more excellent work like this! – Andy Hines.

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What Guiding Images Do

Aligned, in motion, and ready for action

— A. Hines

Guiding images tie the future to the present. They pull us into the future. They provide a stimulus for change. Previous, I wrote how about our goal as futurists is to get our clients “aligned and in motion.” Let’s update that phrase to “aligned, in motion, and ready for action. Perfect for what our guiding images of After Capitalism are intended to do.

The graphic notes our shorthand for referring to the 1st horizon (H1) being described by the Baseline scenario of the current system; the 2nd horizon (H2) as a zone of transition where new ideas “fight it out” to replace the declining Baseline; and the 3rd horizon is where the transformation to a new system happen – where our three guiding images of After Capitalism are calling to us. Let’s look closer at the emergence of H3 from the vantage point of the present:  

  • Today, looking out to H3, the guiding images get us aligned around transformation.
  • Today, looking at the H1, is the time to get in motion toward the guiding images by studying, monitoring, and doing little things like pilots and experiments that start to build momentum.
  • Today, looking out to H2 transition, is the time to begin laying plans and developing options for the action of the shift to the guiding images that takes place as they are “fighting it out” with other ideas about how to replace the decaying H1 Baseline.

The graphic shows how the Third Horizon pathway curve in the present “gets in motion” in H1, gets into action in H2 and is finally realized in H3. The guiding images connect the future to the present. They provide us a sense of direction in the present. But we don’t wait, but there are things we can be doing right now. As individuals, for example, if you believe in the Circular Commons, right now you can start composting. [I’m not suggesting that this is a simple matter of a few lifestyle adjustments, but rather just giving a simple example of how to get “in motion.”]

So, it is hoped that our three guiding images of After Capitalism might have a wide enough popular appeal to be North Star guides, pulling us into the future, getting us mobilized and ready for action. – Andy Hines

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After Capitalism is not an ism

              This-ism, that-ism, ism, ism, ism

              All we are saying is give peace a chance

                                                  John Lennon

When we ask our trusty ChatGPT what follows capitalism, the answer is communism, socialism, and anarchism as the leading alternatives. All Ism’s. Let’s define an ism: a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement. I suspect that what follows capitalism is not going to be another ism. Or perhaps “I hope” is more accurate than “I suspect.”

The three guiding images I synthesized from the After Capitalism research are intentionally not isms.

  • Circular Commons. Expands the concept of sustainability to embrace circular principles as part of a social, political, and economic commons.
  • Non-Workers Paradise. A play on the attributed-to-Marxist idea of a worker’s paradise, but in the After Capitalism world we are not working in paid jobs as a means of sustenance.
  • Tech-Led Abundance. Technological progress drives and leads to an abundance of wealth that fixes the core distribution problem of capitalism.

In speaking and writing on the topic, I expressly forbid the use of socialism and communism, noting, as I will once again here, that I have nothing against them other than the baggage they bring.

Of course, much work needs to be done on what these three guiding images might look like as well as the paths they may take. Some of that work is in the manuscript, and much remains to be done. But I suspect and hope that what is coming is going to be much more natural and organic such that it defies an ism – although we may simply come up with one because we seem to like isms. – Andy Hines

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What questions should organizations be asking about After Capitalism?

I was so pleased to speak and discuss After Capitalism with a major corporation yesterday. It’s the first talk directly to a corporation on this topic! A nice bonus was that it was very well received and generated some interesting questions and discussion. Frankly, I was bracing myself for an indifferent or even hostile reception. It made me think about the questions we should start asking NOW as we think about After Capitalism. For those who want to get ahead of the game, what should they be thinking about? What can they start doing?

While we don’t know if our three images will resonate, we need to start thinking about “aligned and in motion.” The images provide for alignment but we need to get in motion as well. The gist of the idea is that we often think that “we’ll kick in the future-related strategy when the time comes.” A simple principle however is that it’s easier to move when you are already in motion. Our job now is help our organizations get in motion — doing something, even if very small.

Here a few questions I’ve thought about for the corporate sector. What others come to mind? And what about other sectors? Government, non-profits, education? What are some question there. If you submit, I’ll compile and share a master list … and we’ll officially be in motion:

A good place to start is asking questions? What are the small things that we can do RIGHT NOW to get ourselves in motion toward a different, After Capitalism future? Really try to think of questions relevant to the long-term future that also connect to current concerns.

  1. If or when should we move to a circular approach?
  2. Are we prepared to support a degrowth approach to our stakeholders?
  3. How might we reframe measures of success?
  4. How might we reduce inequality in our organization and make our products/services more affordable to all?
  5. How would we attract people to work for us if a UBI is implemented?
  6. How might we move to a more direct democratic approach?
  7. How might we incentivize innovation without a capitalist reward structure, e.g., IP protection?

I look forward to your suggestions! – Andy Hines

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Libraries at the Center of After Capitalism?

I am not sure my library friends are asking for this, but I see a vital role for them in the longer-term future of After Capitalism.

Flickr: Library of Things, Music, Montgomery County, MD

Most of the ideas, concepts, pilots, experiments, and even fledgling movements of After Capitalism paint a picture of decentralized, direct democratic approaches to getting things done. There does seem to be a need for some magic pixie dust in how all this is going to be coordinated and work at scale. Sure, we can imagine a local focus, but that has to exist in a global context and is going to require extensive global connection. Accelerating technology will be at the core of enabling the connections, networks, coordination, and scaling. But institutionally, how might this be done?

Might I re-introduce to some of us (tongue firmly in cheek) libraries? I also thought about museums and dare I add credit unions … well, just libraries for now. We at Houston Foresight just did some work on the future of libraries. I was not foisting After Capitalism on them, but I couldn’t help but see the possibilities. I am predisposed to thinking about the future role of libraries in part due to science fiction, where libraries often play a central role, since, well organizing knowledge is kinda important in most sci fi scenarios of the distant future. It is today as well, we just haven’t caught on yet.

In the project we explored various ideas about libraries’ roles in the community. I’m assuming we all agree “just books” isn’t going to be enough to make them viable, so many have been evolving into community centers. Sensible. Alongside this evolution we have municipalities increasingly overwhelmed and unable to provide basic services. One obvious manifestation is that homeless people often end up using libraries as shelter, for obvious reasons of lack of alternatives and libraries are nice places. Other social services are also falling through the cracks. Citizens are often left without a clue of where to turn. Soooo, where might one go for information. You guessed it, libraries.

Why not? They are good at information retrieval and management. Why not help connect people to services. What else are libraries good at? Sharing things. Historically it has been books and information but in recent years the list of items has been expanding. In the project work, we played with the idea of a dramatic expansion of what a library might share. In today’s context, there are practical limits. But maybe not so in the After Capitalist world. The demand for sharing services is practically ubiquitous. The Circular Commons image, for example, has a sharing/commons approach at is very core. The post-work future of the Non-Workers Paradise doesn’t have jobs so resources will need to be distributed somehow. And we noted about the key role of technology in coordinating, which is highlighted in the Tech-Led Abundance image.

There will be more to say on this later. For now, color me excited. I’ve always had a soft spot for libraries. I remember the awe or reverence as a kid of walking into these often spectacular structures and feeling I was in an almost sacred place. Maybe this community hub role won’t be sacred, but I am in awe of its potential – Andy Hines