Communal Tragedies

We've all heard of the Tragedy of the Commons, where people don't take good care of common resources because they assume the responsibility for a shared resource is not also fully theirs. But there are two other tragedies that are not as well known when people seek to live in intimate community.

The first is what I'll call the Tragedy of Artistic Freedom. People have different ways of expressing their creativity. The problem occurs when people assume that their way is "what needs to be done" and expect other people to have the same ideas about what they want to do. If I have a certain amount of time in which to express my creativity, then the work will expand to fill that time. I will do certain things that I may consider necessary, that someone else might think are silly, inefficient or arbitrary. If someone else is under my authority and they need to express themselves differently, then they will feel burdened and unfree. I have harnessed them to my plow instead of setting them free. I may think they are lazy, or unreliable.

The solution is to free people to contribute in ways that are most meaningful to them, while having a minimum of agreed upon tasks that everyone wants to happen. But when you do those tasks, I have to let you do them how you best see fit, not how I would like them to be done.

The second tragedy that makes people not want to live in community can be called the Tragedy of Unrealized Communion. Humans have a need to transcend their ego and merge into a higher collective, whether it be nature, a spiritual world of ideas, a mystical union with a beloved, union with other musicians, singers, game players, dancers, or simply people sharing a nurturing activity. Some come into a community looking for this experience only to find that the fear of others prevalent in the mainstream culture is also there in the community, and instead of mystical union there are monotonous meetings and drudgery under sadistic masters.

The solution is to give high priority to creating ego-transcending, communion-producing activities.

Luddite Manhattan Project, first stage

Here is an appeal to a programmer at Dancing Rabbit ecovillage:
What I have in mind is a sort of “SimVillage” that might eventually
evolve into a network of villages. It is a game, but also a serious
attempt to figure out how to do things sanely and sustainably “in
silico” and hopefully followed by real life attempts. The way DR is
doing it is one possibility on the road to sanity and sustainability.
It may take a long time (and we may not have a long time), and this
project might be a way to speed it up, to do some of the evolutionary
process in silico instead of in real life. Another difference I
envision between this simulation and DR is that there will be a
constraint of locality: until the village is sustainable, no exchange
is allowed with the rest of the economic world,(though there are
initial tools and materials allowed). The reason for this is
threefold: first, once you allow commerce with the global economy, you
have to simulate the global economy (if you want to ensure
sustainability), which is too hard. Second, it makes it honest, as
there is no way to hide unsustainable practices in externalities.
Third, there are evolutionary reasons to believe that new
species/cultures such as homo sustainabilis need some degree of
reproductive (or memetic in case of cultures) isolation in order not
to be swamped by genes or memes from the mainstream species or culture
from which they arise. I supposed it is possible that only very large
villages are sustainable, like the whole earth. But this would be an
output, not an assumption.

Here are some more details: There will be different possible
locations, each with their natural resources. Junkyards are allowed to
be part of a village. There will be players comprising the village, or
just one master player who can choose how to populate the village with
different characters/producer-consumers and make other decisions.
There will be three areas that are kept track of as far as needs that
have to be satisfied to win the game (there are global needs-that are
not specific to any one individual, and local needs-that are specific
to individuals):

1. Ecological--Is the soil replenished of nutrients, is the land, air
and water kept clean, is diversity maintained? How much soil is being
used?

2. Technological--All materials, energy and tools have to be
maintained and manufactured on-site (with the initial conditions
exception mentioned above). A network of local needs, both satisfied
and not yet satisfied are constructed by the players. For example the
blacksmith needs iron or steel (and coal and other materials) to
satisfy the tool needs of the farmers and other players. The cooks
need cooking tools and stoves, etc. Each player satisfies some local
and/or global needs, has some local and is part of global needs.

3. Physical Human--Nutritional needs (calories, vitamins, minerals,
protein), shelter, clothes, clean water, sanitation/”waste” recycling,
short-distance transportation, medicine. These can be assumed to be
global needs at first, for simplicity. Each time a new player joins,
the program has to increase the global needs. How many people are
needed?

Two more areas could be added in an advanced version:

4. Psychological Human--a diversity of cultural activities such as
song, dance, music, learning, communion with other beings contribute
to global psychological health. Stability and opportunity for change
can be quantified. Meaningful work can be quantified.

5. Economic--how are goods and services flowing. There could be
several standard scenarios such as a gift economy, free trade, or
socialism. But other scenarios could be devised by the players
themselves. Each player could choose how much he wants to work and how
he wants to exchange goods and services with the rest of the players.
There aren’t any economic needs (unless the need to trade is a real
need, which could be simulated), but the way the economy works
interacts with all the other areas.

These 5 areas interact, as already mentioned above. As in some
technology contributes more to mental health than other technology
(e.g. a complex craft is better than being a cog in a factory).  Using
coal to produce electricity pollutes more than using sunlight
(assuming either the solar panels and infrastructure can be maintained
indefinitely or produced on-site with little pollution).

So the outputs would be:

1. A network diagram showing the flow of goods and services

2. The number of people needed

3. The land area needed.

4. The initial inputs needed to win.

Masochism, Addiction and Empire (draft)

JMG has done a superb analysis of the structure of empires and in particular the US empire: http://www.thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/. But his analysis neglects the psychological dimension, and the effect of the psychology of empire on people in the inner sanctum of the empire. This is an attempt to fill that gap.

I will keep updating this entry, not waiting to publish it.

"The various aspects of masochistic personality structures provide a useful model for examining familiar elements of ordinary religious life. Overall theories of masochism can be divided into six general categories which trace masochism to 1) a distortion of love, 2) a need for punishment, 3) a payment for future rewards, 4) a strategy of the weak or powerless, 5) a flight from selfhood, or 6) an effort to be an object for others. In each case, religious analogies can be found exhibiting the same dynamics. Thus, certain religious phenomena may provide cultural or collective responses to the psychological needs at the root of masochism." from Stuart L. Charme, Religion and the Theory of Masochism.


The missing link of Charme's analysis is the connection between religion and empire. He sees a connection between masochism and religion, and between masochism and early childhood psychology. But he missed the connection between masochism and the almost universal sociological phenomenon of empire

Disclaimer: I am not judging sado-masochism or dominance/submission between consenting adults, except the statement at the end. Like all human endeavors and memes, it's a complicated subject. I do think it is another example of how in complex systems (such as meme networks), it's hard to change only one thing, for reasons discussed in other parts of this blog. One either makes things worse, and/or rolls back down the (negative) fitness landscape into the valley from which one started, unless certain conditions hold (cultural isolation and changing of high level master memes). This applies to feminist (and my) hopes that relationships can become more collaborative and horizontal, in a meme network of empire. There are also primal, pre-cultural aspects to power dynamics. Here we will only be concerned with sado-masochism (mostly masochism) as it interacts with the rest of the meme network of empire.

The psychology of survival in oppressive situations
Inside of an empire, there is no way to opt out, or rather no easy, obvious way. One must participate and hence be complicit in exploiting people, destroying nature and waging war. The soul deadens in a typical mainstream urban life, with work that is not clearly useful to one's community or even to some abstract community on the other side of the globe. With recreation that is more aptly called distraction and addiction (more on that below). Whereas on the periphery empire wields power through the threat or use of military might, on the interior it wields its power psychologically through power-over type interactions, and economically, through "participate in the economy or die".

Power-over psychology is everywhere where people have to work closely together. Most interactions where people work closely together are dominant-submissive. Power-over and under poisons human interactions that could be a paradise.

Economic power is both concentrated in the hands of a few, and distributed in the hands of many. Everybody participates in the game of controlling resources in order to control people, not just the elite. A psychological coping mechanism arises. Two such famous ones are Christianity and Buddhism. Before we consider their methods, let's consider economics in the heart of empire.

Controlling resources, in order to control people
Consider rent. No one now gives this practice a second thought, it is considered normal and just that the mere ownership of property enables one to extract energy (in the form of money) from people who use that property. Let's consider the balance of energy. The landlady spends her labor in order to acquire the property. At this point the balance has been achieved, because the amount of energy spent by the landlord is equal to the amount of energy spetnt by the builders, roughly. If the landlady built the house herself, then the balance could be restored by him enjoying the house or selling or renting it, for energy equal to what was spent. With land, there is no building of the land, but there are improvements that can be made to it, that could be balanced.
Now comes a second energy transaction: the tenant spends his energy in order to live in the house or farm the land. The house or land has either already been paid for, or not. If it has already been paid for, what does the landlady give in return? She gives maintenance and pays taxes and maybe bills. But usually these costs to the landlord are far less than what she extracts in rent (tribute) from the tenant.  Complications such as mortgages do not change the basic picture, but do force the landlord to charge more money than energy balance would demand.  The same imbalance usually occurs if the landlord built the house or made improvements to the land--the amount she gets back is much more than the amount she put it, only because in imperial cultures, mere ownership entitles a landlord to extract tribute. So rent is an example of an energy imbalance. Empires are all about energy and material imbalances. The wealth pump that takes more from the periphery than it gives back is another example.

On the interior of empire, one has a material abundance and an entertainment industry and internet social networks to distract one from the deeper joys and sorrows of life. Here we have control of spiritual resources.

Ways to escape and their pitfalls
The people who have historically started rural utopian communities (such as the Essenes and early Christians) have not done so out of escapism. They have done it in order to create an alternative to empire, not just theorize or write about it. They have done it out of a genuine love for life, wanting to show by example how good life can be.  And they have done it as an alternative to either totalitarian utopianism (which tries change on a grand scale, and sadistically imposes it on others), fatalistic resignation to the status quo (which is a form of masochism), or reformism (which tries small changes that are usually insufficient to get out of the meme network of empire, as reformists well know). The basic theory of small utopian communities is that they could be seeds that could propagate of another culture. Instead of trying to stop a massive train, one plants seeds and offers them to the conductors (which unlike in a train, is everybody participating in the culture). Part of the reason the seeds didn't propagate is that they never matured into a good culture. And the reasons for that are either insufficient cultural isolation or because of a few master memes that are hard to change, as discussed previously in this blog. Those of pride and selfishness that are often blamed on human nature, but that find encouragement in empires, with the most prideful and selfish rising to positions of power. And the seeking of power over other people is a major meme, one of the founding memes of empire. It has a concomitant meme, that of wanting (not just having) to submit to the power of other people, or other beings. Are these basic human needs? I argue that they aren't. That they are addictions.

Real Human Needs and Addictions
The first question I have is: are there real human needs? I think, and
humanist psychologists think the answer is yes. What happens when a
need is not able to be fulfilled? People either become neurotic or
they try to fulfill it with substitutes. This is a big part of what an
addiction is: trying to fulfill a real need with a substitute that
doesn't really fulfill the need, but can work temporarily, perhaps
with less and less efficacy (tolerance building). Real needs and their
external satisfaction do not exhibit the phenomenon of building a
tolerance and needing a more or bigger fix: food, water, warmth,
stability, security, good work, sex, deep emotional bonding, a
coherent worldview, a sense of belonging and usefulness, nest
building, ego transcendence, ability to take care of oneself and
family in adulthood, etc. These needs are renewable, one doesn't get tired
of them, their satisfaction does not decrease in efficacy over time.
Note that some of them can be substituted for others and then they
become addictions. For example the need to belong can be partially
substituted with eating. Or the need for emotional bonding can be
substituted with sex.

Now, there are other aspects to addictions besides tolerance building.
But these aspects are shared with real needs. One is the desperation
of an addict that doesn't get his need fulfilled. The person who is
deprived of food (uness they are on a fast, knowing that the fast will
end) usually feels the same desperation. Another aspect of addictions
is that they have power over the addict. Again, this is also shared
with real needs. A person who is thirsting is under the power of her
thirst.

So the way to distinguish an addiction from a real need is not by
measuring desperation or power over the person, but whether or not a
tolerance is built up, and (more difficultly) whether the external
"object" craved by the person satisfies a real need or not.

Now it is not easy in this culture (and in any culture of Empire) to
satisfy all our needs. Erich Fromm and Wendell Berry discuss this with
respect to a few needs. So we know that addictions are quite common.

In an imperial culture, some people at the core end up sucking
resources from periphery states. How do they do this? The most crude
way is with brute force. A more effective way is to make the people
who are being sucked dry to think that they need the empire to provide
some services (sanitation, protection, roads, education, governance
and entertainment are the most common) in exchange for the resources
they are providing the empire. That they are incapable of taking care
of themselves without the empire. That accepting the empire is for their own, and the empire's good. Thus mode of thinking is eventually believed by the people in the interior, not just at the periphery.
Note that this is already an
addiction because it substitutes for the real adult human need for
self-determination, the childish need for being taken care of by a
more powerful entity. There is security in a childhood where the parents take care of the children. There is a comfort in not having to make decisions for oneself, and having ones parents or some other external higher power or moral code make them for us. There is eroticism in being vulnerable and at the whim of the higher power.


Christianity and Buddhism co-opted by empire
This is one of the great ironies of history,
that Christianity (and a similar story for Buddhism, but instead of the Roman empire, the Chinese empire, maybe an indian precursor. See http://www.brill.nl/buddhism-and-empire ), which arose in response to the Roman empire, ended up being co-opted by that empire and being used for its own purposes. (There are still Christians who have not joined the mentality of empire: http://www.jesusradicals.com/book-review-come-out-my-people-gods-call-out-of-empire-in-the-bible-and-beyond-by-wes-howard-brook/ )
Instead of the addiction to the empire, a new substitute was found for
the need for self-determination: God, Spirit, the Church. This new way
of looking at the world also sometimes substitutes (the real needs of) communion with
other people or communion with nature for communion with God, where
God is seen either as a paternal figure, or as a fuzzy benevolent
intelligence larger than us (it's tricky because that can also be a
real need, perhaps better described as ego transcendence). I am not
denying the existence of either of these (I lean towards the second
though), but I want to bring your attention to how we interact with
either of these and how it can be a (double) addiction.

Before Christianity, the strategy used by empire involved only one step:
1. Acknowledge your helplessness in the face of the empire (and pay tribute).

With the advent of Christianity, the first step was sometimes modified
by substituting empire with "God", "Kingdom of God", "Spirit", or
internal foundation, and a new step was added:
2. All your other needs are secondary to the need for the first step.




Before the roman empire co-opted Christianity, change was not to be imposed on a person. A person would be helped to change either by asking for help or being moved from within by seeing an example of change (offered freely) that worked in another person or community outside of himself. 


After Co-option, Christianity was to convert people at the sword or by use of other imperial techniques.


I don't know that much about Buddhism. Certain versions seem to want to deny real human needs altogether, or at least eliminate the suffering caused by desire by also indirectly eliminating the joy emanating from it. Like all successful religions, it offers a way to live within an oppressive system with inner peace.


Example of addictions as need substitutions:
1. Relationshiops with pets instead of humans or wild nature
2. Power over (people and pets) instead of power with, self-mastery and self determination.
3. Mood altering (anti-depression and anti-anxiety) drugs/alcohol or expensive therapists instead of self-mastery, understanding, communion, right livelihood, and ego-transcendence.
4. Sado-masochism instead of intimate, honest, divine and primal relationships.


Sado-masochism
The last one needs more examination. There is ample literature on the connection between Christianity (and Judaism) and sado-masochism. I claim it is only the imperial version of these religions that is sado-masochistic.


Let's examine masochism starting from Fromm and Deleuze.


According to both of these thinkers, masochism is not at its root about obtaining pleasure from pain. Fromm claims masochism is one way of dealing with the burden of freedom and responsibility. It is an escape (which annihilates the ego) into bondage and  submersion in another being, one perceived as being greater in some way than oneself. DeLeuze adds some Freudian Oedipal story to this of how the masochist is trying to rebel against their father's taking their mother away and merge again with the mother (but what about nurturing fathers and cold mothers?). The idea of merging with another in a way that annihilates one's ego is there again. Deleuze also explains somehow why masochists are obsessed with contracts, but I haven't read that explanation. It seems to me that contracts are a way for the masochist to control their master or tormentor, and that the masochist wants not only to lose their ego through submission, but to feel a sense of control through contracts. Perhaps these people have been somehow violated (and most young people are, it doesn't have to go as far as rape, it could be just having their diapers changed, or having a medical procedure done without consent) at a young age, and are trying to work that out through the masochistic drama, a ritualistic recreation of those early events. This might also explain why masochists often like to be humiliated. Safety and total trust are also essential for the masochist. The master/tormentor must prove their trust by adhering to the contract.


I think masochism could be an attempt to experience vulnerability and trust at the same time. Vulnerability is essential for the basic need of intimacy, whereas trust is essential for the basic need of security. But why does it need to be combined with pain, possible violence and objectification? Somehow these intensify the experience in a culture where intensity is rare and mostly vicarious (The Image is the idol partially because that is where intensity happens, but the reality is mostly "vanilla"). But it is more than intensifying, what happens (or desired) is ego-transcendence, which is another basic human need. I think Fromm didn't quite get how important ego-transcendence is for humans. This is different than ego annihilation, or maybe only a temporary ego annihilation.


Masochism is useful for hierarchical organizations like the military or most corporations. Meme networks have evolved into hierarchical structures because this type of organization offers both stability and ability to make large adaptive changes (through changing one or a few master genes/memes, instead of the impossiblity of changing lots of genes/memes). I don't think masochism is the only way for complex organizations to operate, even if they are partially hierarchical. Wholistic interest (as opposed to self-interest or masochism) might be an alternative, where every part is conscious of the needs of the whole without losing its integrity.


Now certain interpretations (the mainstream ones, but some others as well) of Christianity also have something masochistic about them. These kinds of Christianity have a radical acceptance of the socio-economic situation, using broken human nature as an excuse for not trying to create better socio-economic systems. The confessed powerlessness of the individual (and omnipotence of God) can motivate some individuals to seek comfort within their current socio-economic systems and others to seek to create a better system (through the power of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit). Both interpretations are masochistic. Experiencing intense pain and powerlessness (and humiliation) on the cross, Jesus does something worthwhile for humanity (sacrifice, which is also part of the masochist psychology). He loses his human individuality to merge with a higher being (God). He asks us to take up the cross and follow him in this action. He submits to God and to political authority, and asks us to do the same. We have to have complete trust in Him, and Paul uses the image of slavery in our relation to Him. 


Just for the record, I don't interpret the crucifixion that way. I see it as an act of torture by the empire meant to ensure compliance. In other worlds, an act of sadism, not of masochism. Jesus' submission and surrender to the will of God has a classical masochistic element, but of course if he IS God, then it can't be interpreted as the annihilation of the ego which is what masochism requires. I interpret his surrender as non-masochistic even if he was just a very special human because he didn't want to annihilate himself, but was willing to die for a higher purpose, not as an escape. It is not surprising that once mainstream Christianity got co-opted by the empire, it turned to sadism. There is largescale sadism such as the inquisition or the Salem witch burnings. And then there are small, everyday acts of sadism:
Those people who seek to satisfy their
real needs are called addicts by the addicts to the empire (who usually
manage to fulfill their "secondary" needs by playing the game of empire). Similar to a man
swimming in water telling a man dying of thirst that he is addicted to
water and should pray to God, see a therapist, or take a class, and denying him access to the water. Jesus would have just given the thirsty man water, but some of the followers of Jesus are sadists.


I am not as knowledgeable about buddhism. It too, like all religions (buddhists often deny that it is a religion) has factions with different viewpoints. One that agrees somewhat with the views expressed here:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/americosmos_mandala_unenlightened_states_affliction

Now the pleasure aspect of masochism is somehow related to the erotic instinct, which is also related to the altruistic instinct, which is also related to the need for ego transcendence. None of these are bad things. The dysfunctional thing about masochism is the fatalistic powerlessness to make any changes beyond  one's own psyche and the sublimation of primal needs for self determination and power with/within, which get expressed as sadistic outlets instead (another example of addiction as need displacement). The masochistic mentality increases the fitness of the empire meme network.


Here is some more background on meme networks:
http://www.youtube.com/user/iuvalclejan/videos?view=1


It is interesting to me that both Klaus Barbie (The Nazi torturer) and Dietrich Bonhoffer were Christians, one (the sadist) allied with Hitler and the other (the masochist obsessed with obedience) tried to assassinate Hitler. Also, Fromm analyzes the masochistic tendencies of Luther and Calvin. Anne Rice, who wrote a few books on sado-masochism is also a Christian.


Newsweek article

This week's Newsweek (by coincidence?) had an article about modern female masochism, which wasn't impressive in the depth of its analysis, but did remind me of one of my favorite subjects, gender. I suspect that masochism IS more common with women than with men. Even though modern women may no longer be oppressed, some might fantasize about not needing to think and make decisions for themselves, consistent with Fromm's “escape from freedom” hypothesis about masochism. For most men this escape might be more natural with sadism rather than masochism. But I think for both men and women, much of this way of dealing with the issue of freedom is reinforced by living in a meme network of empire. Also, if someone has to be dominated and submit, the needs for self-determination and ego-transcendence are both being repressed. The need for ego-transcendence is being suppressed because there is a difference between being forced to submit, and voluntarily accepting submission. With the former ego-transcendence is much harder than with the latter. The need for ego-ttanscendence can be achieved for real with either saidsm or masochism, and so in this sense neither is an addiction. But the need for self-determination can't be achieved with either sadism or masochism and so it might surface in an addicted way, that is by substituting sadism or masochism for this need. This is especially true in a culture where no other choices are known or easily available. The motto of empires is: dominate or be dominated, and if one can do both so much the better, though it still won't satisfy the real need for self-determination lurking underneath. So the man who is dominated by his boss, comes home and dominates his wife and family. The woman who is dominating her husband at home or her employees at work, wants to be spanked.

I am not saying that gender or early childhood experiences have nothing to do with sado-masochism, just that these influences are all regulated by the master memes of empire. Even the term that was invented (initially for genes-”master genes”) is indicative of sado-masochism and (in feminist-speak) power-over relationships. Genes and memes organize themselves in hierarchies, but these hierarchies do not have to always exemplify a sado-masochistic, power-over relationship.

Are there any biological ties between power-over dynamics and sex? This is suggested by the writer of the article. There are simian societies where males are dominant and females are submissives, but also at least one (bonobos) where dominance/submission is not the main mode of interaction. There are human societies where dominance/submission is not the main form of interaction, but empire is not one of them. But still there is a biological association of power with sex, not just a cultural one. One can feel this power in a sexually dominant position, by "doing" one's partner, but this is not necessarily a gender-specific experience, nor necessarily a sadistic (or masochistic in the case of the partner being "done"). Dominance and submission in sex is an example of the mingling of power and sex, but it must be distinguished from sado-masochism. Perhaps the biological element comes from the anatomical differences between males and females and the evolutionary remnant from the submissive position taken by females of ancestral species. But sex in humans (and bonobos) did evolve into other positions and other more collaborative, communicative and nurturing forms. It would be interesting to study whether there is a correlation between the frequency of dominant/submissive sex and imperial cultures. I think empire is a factor, but not the only factor. Biology is another factor.

Pros and cons of diversity in genetic and memetic evolution

Diversity has become a liberal buzzword. But is diversity always a good thing?

Diversity is good in a biological or cultural ecosystem because it implies resiliency. Some of the resiliency is due to redundancy and some to complexity. If one pathway fails, another can be a backup. There are many sources of food and each species or culture has many functions

Diversity is also good for getting out of a local fitness maximum which is not global, in a very specific way.

But the resiliency/inertia of diversity can also mean being stuck in a rut (aka local but not global fitness maximum), due to inertia. In order to get from the rut to a better place, one needs not diversity within a group but unity of purpose. A small population with a single mutation in the right direction is more likely to overcome the  entropic or (negative) fitness "barrier" than a large population with a diversity of mutations. Many diverse groups (but internally genetically or memetically similar) have a better chance for at least one of them to find the right mutational direction for getting over an entropic or a (negative) fitness "barrier". Diversity helps to provide many possible mutations, but they must not interact, because they will effectively cancel each other out.


The most successful sequence for getting out of a rut, finding a better fitness maximum and then being able to be resilent and responsive from there, is:
1. form many groups, each having a single mutation within the group, but different than all other groups.
2. Once the group gets over the fitness or entropic barrier, reintroduce memetic or genetic diversity into the group.


There are many examples of groups that were united in one meme and able to get out of a cultural rut into a new culture:
The Amish, the Bruderhoff, the Hutterites, the Hare Krishnas. Whether these groups are resilient or not remains to be seen and depends on how much diversity they introduce.

There are also examples of groups that have not made it out of cultural ruts because they are paralyzed by  premature diversity.

A proposal for funding a blueprint of a village-based technology ecosystem

Creating Local Economies for Basic Goods

Project Summary

This project will focus on providing the technological tools to enable a small (in terms of land and number of people) local, democratic, agrarian and craft-based economy as an alternative to the global, factory-based economy.  It will provide this alternative primarily with regard to basic needs and services, which are defined as those associated with food, water, shelter, clothes, and healthcare. The project will test the hypothesis that individual freedom, creativity, healthy human interdependence, initiative, intellectual discourse and ecological sustainability can better exist within the context of a basic needs local economy than the current global economy. After a R&D stage, a village of about 200 people will be built, tools and land bought initially, but after two more years all basic goods will be produced in the village.  Alternatively, an existing third world village will be given tools and training to produce all their basic needs locally in a way that encourages the above desireable qualities, Expenses not related to basic needs will be paid for by profitable businesses developed in the village.

Background

The industrial revolution has enabled a large growth in population and was partially motivated by ideas of a better standard of living for more people, but it has led to several problems.  These problems manifest as lack of time to pursue creative endeavors, lack of ability to provide for one’s basic needs without having to sell one’s time in a non-democratic work environment, a widespread automaton-like conformity and lack of critical thinking abilities,  lack of ability to have deep relationships with people on a village, tribal, family or community level, an infliltration of market values into all human relationships, an interest in power more than in truth, and manipulation of the masses by the most economically powerful.  The latter two have existed prior to the industrial revolution, but have been enabled to unprecedented levels by tge industrial revolution. Though some of these problems are political, we claim that they can be partially solved by localizing production of basic goods.

There have been many critiques of factory-based industrial global economies, but few pragmatic proposals for alternatives (or proposals for piecemeal engineering, in Karl Popper's words).  Before the industrial revolution in Europe, most people participated in a local craft and agrarian-based economy, at least for basic needs. There were serious problems with feudal governance, healthcare, and with the relative lack of individuation of medieval villagers. While not romanticizing such periods as the Middle-Ages, it may be that a modern adaptation and improvement of their craft-based production system could solve some of the problems that have been generated by the global economy.  Local, craft-based economies have been proposed by Gandhi, Michael Schuman, Lanza del Vasto, Peter Maurin, Erich Fromm,  E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry and many distributists. These proposals have almost never made it to the implementation stage, partially because of a technology and information gap. Given all that the human race has learned in science and technology since the Middle Ages and even since the time of Gandhi, it may be possible to improve on the technology of the Middle Ages while avoiding some of the social, psychological and environmental problems due to our global technology and economy. This is expected to require an initial investment of capital before a local economy can compete and offer an alternative to the global market economy.

Need for local economies

It is conjectured that a local, craft-based basic-needs economy may have the following advantages over the current, global economy:

• Transparency, leading to humaneness and connection:

It is harder to hide what one is doing when the activity is in one's town rather than in a far-away land.  There is growing evidence that much of the wealth of western countries is at the expense of the well-being and resources of third world countries. Rationalizations for the mistreatment of those people have been made, but they will be harder to make when one is confronted with exploitation in the concrete rather than in the abstract. ReferencesIt is expected that people will want to better treat their friends who share work and vision with them, than anonymous, abstract humans who are seen only as a labor pool. Refereces

• A solution to the agency problem:

A local, basic needs economy avoids middle-men who are usually the agents referred to in the agency problem. Resources are directly produced and consumed by the participants of the local economy, with no need for an agent to allocate them, automatically avoiding the agency problem inherent both in global market capitalism and state socialism.  It is proposed that the basic needs local economy will have a planned aspect (thus small scale socialism), and still allow participants to engage in the global economy for non-basic needs. The rise of self-interest in large scale bureaucratic institutions possibly originates from the tendency of humans to not care about each other as much in the abstract as in the concrete and be able to hide immoral behavior behind large institutions.

• Psychological well-being:

Though a few people today are engaged in a livelihood that requires creativity and/or craftsmanship, the majority of people earn a 'living' as cogs in a machine, having work that is not conducive to psychological well-being. Their production is usually not beneficial to their community in obvious ways and their work is not something they can usually share with their families because its purpose is too abstract. Having an abstract job is better than being unemployed, but meaningful employment that produces basic needs and that can be shared with one's family even better. Ideally, people could participate in basic needs production and have a more abstract specialty if they desire. In contrast, a local economy can contribute to and support collectivist needs that are present in most humans and avoid the temptation to satisfy those needs with fascism, state communism/socialism or primitivism (see: http://culturalspeciation.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-society-and-its-enemies.html)

•  Freedom:

If one is dependent only on one's skill, work ethic and one's neighbors for a livelihood, one is harder to control than if one is dependent on an impersonal market which is unevenly controlled by large corporations and governments. If one owns the means of production and has a significant voice in production decisions, one is harder to exploit.

• Ecological responsibility:

Companies that are tied to a place are more likely to treat that place well, in an environmentally responsible manner, than companies that operate all over the globe and see any particular place only in terms of profit and legal compliance.

• Minimizing Uncertainty:

Being a much simpler system than the global economy, a local economy is easier to understand and easier to influence. Thus both the cognitive and manipulative aspects of consciousness that Soros identifies are going to be more accurate, less prone to fallacies.

Other similar efforts and charting new terrain with this project

There are many current small efforts to produce various components of local economies, mostly centered around local food, though these tend to be underfunded and disconnected from each other. The main shortcomings with the local food movement are that production is limited to a small percentage of the population who owns relatively large chunks of land, or a few inner city folks who do not have access to enough land to  grow grains and beans or graze livestock. . Many inner city people are not very attracted to community gardens, which provide mainly vegetables. They are able to get cheap, salty  processed food, consisting mainly of meat, grains, beans, dairy and fat, which are usually not possible to produce in community gardens. Community gardening is typically a hobby, and at best can only catalyze public interest. The farmers who are supplying local food are operating as part of the global economy and in order to survive in that economy have to charge more than what most people are willing to pay. In order to create a local economy that offers full democratic and meaningful employment, more land must be made available in order to practice extensive ecology-based agriculture, food processing has to be included in the economy, as well as maintenance and manufacturing of tools and equipment. Other aspects of a basic needs economy besides food have to be included. There are already some efforts at local manufacturing at Factor E Farm and Aprovecho as well as many individual inventors, but as with local food, they are underfunded and not well connected to each other. Rather than abolishing disempowering handouts and cheap processed food, it may be useful to create an equivalent "Manhattan Project” (not for building a nuclear bomb, but for building local economies in a serious, concerted way), bringing many current efforts together, funding them well and demonstrating a vibrant, ethical and environmentally responsible economy and community, leading by example.

Details and Timeline

During all stages, decision-making will be hierarchical, but with feedback from all, and weekly meetings for strategy, brainstorming and coordination of different departments. Each department will be assigned a manager, and each department will have daily or weekly (depending on need) meetings every morning to discuss what work is to be done that day and report on challenges from the previous day and anticipated challenges in the next few days.

In the initial stage (estimated to take one year), the goal is to research and plan a self-sustaining production and consumption system that does not need any more inputs from the global economy besides the initial ones described below. Engineers, craftspeople and tradesmen, entrepreneurs, farmers, systems programmers, historians of technology and artists (about 10-20 people) will be hired as consultants. A team headed by Iuval Clejan and Chris Theal (see page 9, “Project Management and Location”) will devise a plan for food, housing and other basic needs from local energy and materials, starting (but not ending) with tools, land, seeds and food that is bought from the global economy.  


This step could be done with a collaborative project management software, and it could be web-based, so that some expert contributors do not have to be physically present. The software would impose the locality constraint as well as "global" (meaning for every person in the local village) goals, such as food, shelter, etc. It would keep track of needs and outputs for each producer in the village and display these in a graphical form, and make sure that each arrow eventually pointed, through a network of other arrows to one of the "global" goals. 

Examples of typical problems to be solved include:

-planning of a local agriculture that provides optimal nutrition and variety in a sustainable manner.

-how to employ both draft animals and  simple machines

-how to efficiently make and maintain the tools and machines

-how to provide irrigation.

-how to preserve and store food,  how to make the best stoves for cooking and heat.

-how to cut wood with hand-saws, and how to make them.

-how to make natural herbal medicine, and whether it is practical to purify antibiotics and other medicines.

-how to find talented people and get them to cooperate in a democratic, hierarchical, not-for-profit corporate environment.

- Evaluating the tradeoffs between hand tools and different machines.

Unlike the approach of Factor E Farm, this project will initially eschew electronics (except in calculating and simulating during the planning stage), high energy consumption and materials requiring much infrastructure and will only build tools that directly contribute to production of basic needs. It will start with pre-industrial technology and attempt to improve on it.  It will start with food, shelter, medicine, clothes, and water, and branch out to technologies, tools and materials to support these. This is in line with Popper's idea of piecemeal engineering, except in this case what one starts with is not the current technology, but a pre-industrial technology which was already largely local. One then makes incremental changes to reduce labor, and distribute ownership of tools and land, based on criteria mentioned below . This approach is different than state socialist planned economies because it is local and hence not subject to the abuses of bureaucracy (abstraction, agency problem and one-size-fits-all). It is also different than current global free market capitalism for the reasons outlined above.

Though the initial stage is largely a theoretical, planning stage, there will be some experimentation with both hardware and software.

Next will be an implementation stage (estimated to take two years) for production of basic needs, recruitment of about 200 people, buying land and tools, and maintenance of tools. A portion of the initial consultants along with additional people will be recruited, trained and put to work in production of all basic needs (described above) for the community of participants. Though initially paid a conventional stipend, these people eventually will be paid by what they produce and enjoy (basic needs), not with money. Production goals will be established from the previous stage, based on a rational evaluation of nutritional, housing and other basic needs, with the goals of minimizing time per person spent on production (an initial goal for  yearly average labor per person is 20 hours per week), full employment, democratic participation and encouragement of individual creativity and initiative. The basic needs economy will thus be distributist with some planning on a small village scale.

. Existing crop optimization software will be used to maximize nutrition and soil fertility, and to minimize water and labor.

The next stage (2 years) will involve continued meeting of production goals set during the first stage, but also implementation of  maintenance of existing tools and housing,  as well as building new tools and housing from locally available materials. Some technologies may need to be abandoned, some rediscovered and some invented.  During this stage it is expected that no support will be needed from external sources, but that income will be generated from businesses and that income could be used for personal (non-basic) needs and for funding replica projects.

The last stage will be the propagation of the technologies used for the previous stage (ongoing) to those who might want to participate in such an endeavor.

Project Management and location

The project will be based at the Open Space Community in Atlanta GA (a non profit corporation, EIN number 271518327), and the Possibility Alliance in La Plata Missouri.

Alternatively, after the R&D stage, it can be based in a third world village.

It has so far been funded by private donations.

There will be three project leaders, members of the board of trustees:

Iuval Clejan, the Chief Science and Engineering officer, has been a physicist, an engineer, a molecular biologist, a farmer and an inventor. His experience has trained him to easily navigate between the big picture and details of implementation. He was born in Israel, which gave him a taste for the pros and cons of collectivism.  He travelled a great deal in the US, which gave him a taste for the potential of freedom and individuals. He has started a household that gets electricity from solar panels, water from the rain (hot water from sunshine and wood stove), heat and cooking from wood stoves. He is trying to make a career by combining his love of science and technology with his love of people and nature.

Chris Theal, the energy, water, and ecological advisor, has been the facilities manager for Southface Energy Institute over 10 years. He has experience with many alternative technologies and the compromises that sometimes have to be made between vision and current realities.

Ethan Hughes, the director of human resources, has had much experience managing people in democratic work environments. He lives at the Possibility Alliance in La Plata, MO.

Metrics and Impact

This project does not seek to eliminate global trade and communication. Its scope is limited to production of basic needs on a local scale, in order to further individual freedom and vibrant communities. Metrics for evaluating success of the above proposal  will be developed . The easiest kinds of metrics to  quantify are calories produced and consumed from the land, how many other basic needs are provided by the land, how much food still needs to be bought, how many hours are contributed for the satisfaction of basic needs.  

If the project is successful, it can be advertized by word of mouth and over the internet (minimal funds), so that besides an impact on US middle class society, there can also be impacts on developing nations which see an example of something sustainable they can replicate from the first world.  Besides citizens of developing nations , an example of a vibrant life can impact disenfranchised people in the US, who can be incorporated into village economic, social and spiritual life, rather than being disempowered by handouts, or expected to join an economy that is partially creating the conditions that they find themselves in.

Possible pitfalls and solutions:

Pitfall: The project takes over people's lives and becomes a cult or company town

Solution: There is a 40 hour workweek (max) so people have time for other aspects of their lives. People have individual or familial living quarters when they are not working on the project.

Pitfall: The project employs people who can't work well together.

Solution:  Careful applicant screening and reference checking of participants, and a probationary period.

Pitfall: Participants tempted to buy basic goods from the global economy (e.g. clothes) because they are cheaper than basic goods manufactured by the village.

Solution: A prerequisite for working on the project will be that all basic goods will be produced and consumed (except for surplus, which may be exported) on the premises. This is a social contract which will be mostly self-regulated, but the director of human resources could fire anyone who breaks the contract. The same mechanisms of government regulation and individual self-regulation operate when people in the global economy refuse to support slavery, even though products manufactured by slaves may be cheaper than those manufactured by wage earners. Market values have to be subordinated to ethical/moral values, not the other way around.

Pitfall: Participants do not have enough financial incentive, especially after the initial stages, when they stopped getting paid.

Solution:  If the project is successful, the incentive for continuing to produce and consume basic goods locally is more time to pursue creative activities, deeper human relations, more individual empowerment and more connection to nature. If people want to make money in the global economy they will be free to do so as far as luxury goods (or surplus of locally manufactured basic goods), and may be subject to the financial incentives of the global economy.

Pitfall: Some people perform in a substandard manner.

Solution: Just like in any company, there are performance evaluations and opportunities to change direction. In the initial stages, people can be fired, but later substandard performance will be corrected by economic means, that is by participants not bartering with or buying from the substandard performers, just like in any free market.

Pitfall: Interpersonal conflict.

Solution:  Conflict is unavoidable, but there are ways of dealing with it gracefully and these will be studied and implemented (e.g. Non Violent Communication). Also friendly competition can stimulate creativity.

Pitfall: The initial group may be exclusive and isolationist.

Solution: An attitude of service, philanthropy and social justice will be cultivated. Some initial isolationism and exclusivity is necessary to start the project, but will be detrimental if continued after the first few years. For more about why isolationism is not a bad thing for the initial stages, see the hyperlink on page 4.

Pitfall: Economists will balk at local economies because they think that they do not take into account comparative advantage, even for basic needs like food.  

Solution: http://culturalspeciation.blogspot.com/2011/07/comparative-advantage-and-local.html 

Pitfall: Strictly Local Production of the basic goods of food, water, shelter, healthcare and clothes will not be possible.

Solution: Some technologies are better than others when the strictly local constraint is imposed. If a technology leads to non-local production, it will be abandoned in favor of one which can be kept local.
Pitfall: The project sounds like socialism.
Solution: The project does involve a planned aspect. But this planning is for a technology ecosystem, not for an economy. The economy that evolves from this technological opportunity is unknown. It may involve market economy, gift economy, coops, etc. The other reason this is not a socialist project is because the planning (and implementation) is on a village scale, not on a notion-state or more global scale. Also, thought the initial planning is partially hierarchical, the governance of the village is not determined at this stage. I hope it can be run by consensus.

Conclusion:

This is an opportunity for x to fund an innovative quest for solutions to some entrenched ills of the industrialized global economy and to preserve that which is best in our civilization in the face of dwindling fossil fuel supplies.  With the risks of widespread social disruption from a financial or economic collapse, it is essential to develop diverse, local safety nets, which will protect and empower resilient communities of free individuals.  Luxury lifestyles notwithstanding, the basic needs of a small group can be met with local, appropriate, environmentally benign technology.  When this foundation of Local Economies for Basic Needs is laid, a society is more likely to stay open than slide into fascism.