Rushkoff: Rebooting work: Programming the Economy for People

A pleasure.

I've always been in favour of what is now being called "degrowth", decoupling "value" from monetary representation. After all, as feminist economists like Prue Hyman have been pointing out for years some of the most valuable work done in society, such as managing a household and caring for children, is only recognized by the money economy when someone from outside the household is doing it as a job. I'm not against money and markets. As David Graeber points out in 'Debt', they are technologies that have emerged in many different times and places to facilitate exchange between strangers. But I'm all for finding non-monetary ways to recognise and reward people's work, while still keeping money around as just one platform among many for facilitating trade, just as FarceBook is (or should be) just one platform among many for social networking. In other words, we can continue to produce and enjoy values as a societies, without "economic growth" as measured in money.

What to do about employment is perhaps the critical problem of the current transition, and I'm thrilled to learn @douglasrushkoff is writing a book on it (I really enjoyed Life Inc.). I've read a number of good books that address these issues, such as 'No More Throwaway People' by TimeBank founder Edgan Cahn, and 'Free' by Wired editor Chris Anderson (although I don't agree with his pro-capitalist conclusions his analysis is insightful), and some I've yet to read, such as 'The Wealth of Networks' by Yochai Benkler, and 'The Zero Marginal Cost Economy' by Jeremy Rifkin.

Last weekend I stumbled upon the book Throwing rocks at the Google bus (and bought it). Only then I realised it was this Rushkoff I/we were conversing with here. The guy that changed my beliefs in a fundamental way with Life Inc. I guess saying "I am really bad with names" does not quite cut it this time ;). My apologies for any stupid things I may have said (but do not know about). Going to read the rest of the book now...

Really looking forward to getting hold of this book. Just read a CNET interview with Doug about it, with included this gem of a quote:

The worst problem is that [the Google Bus] epitomizes the way that digital companies extract value without distributing wealth. They're taking money and value away from us and storing it in share price.

EDIT: I've started just reading 'The Internet is not the Answer' by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen, author of 'The Cult of the Amateur', and harsh critic of internet evangelism. Keen identifies many of the same problems Doug talks about - domination by Big Data companies, panopticon surveillance etc - but makes the same mistake Andrew Curtis does in his BBC doco 'All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace'. Both fail to distinguish between genuine digital libertarianism, as represented by free code software, Wikipedia, CreativeCommons, BitTorrent, Loomio etc, and the corporatists using libertarian language as a smokescreen to defend their pursuit of their own personal and commercial self-interest (AirBnB, Uber etc), as identified by Yochai Benkler in his talk to the CreativeCommons Summit 2014.

So glad you found it organically! And you couldn't say any stupid thing to me that I couldn't say right back.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid4737475051001?bckey=AQ~~,AAADf1OjKiE~,mDP7QD494oAFZ4aKbZ1R-V15ZQuwI0mU&bclid=4740425276001&bctid=4799749120001

This seems like the best thread to ask what's best to do about the feedback generated by the Throwing Rocks book. I'm getting maybe a dozen emails a day from people wanting to know what to do now. Towns wanting to develop alt currencies. Farmers wanting to network and establish guilds. Companies wanting to switch to platform coop. Corporations looking to transition from capital gains to dividend models. Students wanting to graduate and create their own companies. Traditional corps looking to choose either a multi-purpose or benefit corp structure. An electric company looking to develop a better model for smart grid contributions. And so on.

Basically, these are people, municipalities, and companies in need of cooperative enterprise expertise. Not only can't I do it all, but I'm not qualified to do it all. And while the solution set may be made up of similar items, a distributed economy means that they will be executed differently in different situations. There's no one-size-fits-all PDF for this.

So, either there's some "place" I should refer everyone to - or I need to create some sort of "angie's list" of reputable alt business consultants.

I just set up http://throwingrocks.loomio.org

I'm happy to co-host that space with you if you're keen?

What's needed here is the Open Cooperative Development Agency (OCDA) that Michel Bauwens talks about and which you can see in the video clip at http://p2pfoundation.net/Main_Page

Our attempt to progress that concept, which we styled as an 'Innovation Cooperative', but which effectively fulfils the role of the OCDA is outlined at http://networks.coop/innovation-cooperative

We produced a much more detailed paper on the whole concept, and although the core thinking in that remains solid, much of the discussion around those ideas is looking rather outdated given the substantial changes in the interim.

The need for this OCDA is not going to go away. Indeed, as more and more people like @douglasrushkoff set out the arguments, demand is only going to increase. As can be seen from the diagram in the video clip referenced above, the OCDA is an underpinning chunk of infrastructure, and as such I'd argue that its establishment is a mission critical task. Without an effective OCDA we'll continue to see the fragmented approach that characterises much of what's happened to date.

I believe it requires serious financial support in order to make it real. Back in 2008 we estimated about $100,000 to prototype and run on a very lean basis for a year or so. In today's money that more like $200,000. Once established and with traction it could be financially self-sustaining. Indeed that is a key design element. I'm very happy to collaborate to make the OCDA real, and enter into serious discussions with potential partners who have access to the resources to help move this forward.

(The reason I qualify the offer is that I've spent many hundreds of hours involved in discussions with well intentioned folks who aren't serious and who aren't able to bring serious resources to bear, and to be honest, whilst some of them have had good ideas, it's not been a good use of my time.)

Hey, Doug (@douglasrushkoff), we keep ending up in the same places! No surprise. FWIW, I have started connecting networks and commons-builders here in Asheville, NC.

I could use some advice on gathering community leaders together for a meeting where I can share what I've learned from Ann Arbor and Madison (and others). Any advice? :-)