Introducing Life-Ennobling Economics (Part 2)
In this 2-part series we are excited to introduce a new area of our work. We have divided this first introductory publication into two short reflections to invite flexible engagement. As we continue to explore the concept and produce new multimedia materials we will update the links and images to reflect this emerging content. The modular, conversational design of this publication is intentional and has been created to respect the dynamic and collaborative nature of the initiative.
- Part 1: Life-Ennobling Economics: what is the idea and what are we hoping to stimulate by sharing it? (Linked here)
- Part 2: the philosophical framework: exploring the foundational questions of the LEE.
A downloadable interactive pdf of this full publication is available here.
Part 2 — the philosophical framework: exploring the foundational questions of the LEE
Using narratives, diagrams and images to open a generative dialogue
In our first publication we introduced two questions that we are using to navigate towards a foundational logic for Life-Ennobling Economics. In this next post we are using those overall queries to share some initial thoughts, together with the cascading questions that are continuing to arise. A strong reflection at this point is that it’s difficult to express many of the core sentiments of LEE using only words. The articulation of certain ideas feels premature and constrictive and this is something that we want to hold up to the light. On the one hand, it feels important to drive clarity and not to hide behind vague, even poetic phrasing. Yet on the other hand, a sense of humility, awe and deep curiosity makes us reluctant to distil and label these early ideas. How can we adequately express diverse interpretations, yearnings and fears for this future that we are daring to open ourselves towards? How might you as the reader? How might your children, parents or more-than-human relations?
Q1: What would a future economy look and feel like if it was rooted in the recognition of the full web of life, grounded by a non-bounded theory of value and enabled by technological ecosystems of care?
Q2: If the journey to get there involved moving beyond theories of property, labour, extraction, private contracts, governance and monetary colonisation what would we be shifting from and towards?
In the sections that follow we are outlining three core worldview philosophies that we think could underpin a desirable future economy. From there, we have identified six structural shifts that we are hypothesising would need to occur for that to become a reality.
3 WORLDVIEW PHILOSOPHIES
Philosophy 1
Rooted in the recognition of the full web of life: From violence, scarcity and separation to a thriving planetary community of interbecoming.
What would it mean to fundamentally reimagine ourselves as permeable, dynamic interbecomings, deeply entwined in diverse right relationships and joyfully part of a full planetary consciousness. This concept challenges the traditional economic view of humans driven primarily by rational, objectified, self-interest. Instead, it suggests a new understanding of self where our individual interests are indistinct from what we can collectively become.
This shift in perspective would call for a re-evaluation of the infrastructures that shape our lives and identities. It would question how we think about everything; from education and learning, health care and human development to the roles and functions of prisons and the judicial system. For example, what does justice mean in a world where we see ourselves as interconnected becomings?
What do we mean by when we use the term Interbecoming?
Interbecoming is an extension of the word Interbe which was invented by the Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. The becoming element signifies the emergent potential of what it means to verb as a community into the future. In this short video he describes how you cannot be by yourself alone, to be you need to be with everything and everyone else and therefore to be means to inter-be.
Philosophy 2
Grounded in a non-bounded understanding of value: From extractive profit-driven goals to entangled, intergenerational and distributed value systems.
In our current economy our measures of success are calculated using a narrow set of accounting rules. This is a collectively accepted norm, but can a genuine measure of value be bounded by time or context? In an interconnected world, externalities seem to be a delusion yet they are currently excluded from our calculations of profit and GDP. Imagine an economy where value was understood to be attributed to relationships themselves rather than the things that are related? How would our economy behave if the collective goal and source of status was increasing regenerative potential or stocks of care?
The illogical tyranny of metrics
“People becoming unhealthy can actually have a positive effect overall on GDP, as revenue from associated healthcare boosts growth. Similarly, the extraction of oil and gas pushes GDP up, while pushing us closer to the precipice of climate breakdown.” — Caroline Lucas, MP (UK Parliamentary Debate, 2019)
Hazel Henderson’s layer cake was the original inspiration behind Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics framework. It is a metaphor for how the current monetised economy (the top layers of cake) are entirely dependent on the non-valued, supportive lower layers.
Philosophy 3
Enabled by technological ecosystems of care: From the utilitarian ‘othering’ of technology to animistic interfaces of wisdom and care.
The accelerating technological complexity of our world can be seen as a threat. However, it could also offer new opportunities to nurture the capacity of society to understand itself more fully, rather than trying to mould and regulate it. Imagine a future where our governing institutions are empowered to advance and scaffold the continuous learning of a self-aware system. Where we can sense the unique, embodied value of every context, thus fostering care for the entangled impacts, both positive and negative. Ultimately we have a choice; will we use the stunning power of advanced technologies to embrace a new freedom to care, or will we use it to destroy everything we depend on and hold dear?
Busy fools?
‘We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom’- E.O. Wilson
The Cornerstone Indicators work is an example of participatory dialogues being combined with smart data, to create intuitively understandable multi-contextual indicators of care. In another live initiative, we are exploring ways of linking distributed currencies to participatory governance structures, as a pathway towards stewarding bioregional health.
6 STRUCTURAL SHIFTS
Shift 1
Beyond Property: From exerting control over ‘objects’ to seeking reciprocal relationships with the full web of life.
Words like property and ownership are often associated with ideas of dominion and control, allowing us to treat elements of the living world (such as land and rare earth minerals) as objects. Deep down though, do we really believe that timber holds more value than a forest? Or that a whale’s life is interchangeable with a barrel of oil? What would it mean to explore a world beyond property, a world of self sovereign agents who we are respectfully in treaty with?
The paradox of individual identity
The idea of self-sovereign agents is being used to express a conviction that life is not a sum of its constituent parts. Instead, both the whole and the parts co-arise with equal agency. The word identity is derived from the Latin idem, the same and identidem, again and again. We identify ourselves by our internal consistency, but this concept only exists in contrast to external self identifying elements (and vice versa). This idea has been expressed by diverse thinkers from Zan Zwicky to Henri Borthoft and is carefully explored by Daniel Wahl in Designing Regenerative Cultures¹ and Iain McGilchrist in The Matter with Things².
‘To shut ourselves off from these other voices…is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human’ — David Abram
Shift 2
Beyond Labour: From humans employed as resources to vocations of creativity, purpose and care.
In our industrialised economies humans are often framed as a functional resource. However, rapidly advancing technologies (such as machine automation and alternative distributed currencies) have the potential to weaken the requirement for labour to service financial capital. What would it mean to emancipate the idea of work from its current focus on hierarchy and external incentives? Could we build a future economy that harnesses our inherent, embodied intelligences and unleashes our intrinsic motivations and ability to discover? Perhaps this would be a future of virtuous flow where human satisfaction is rooted in low impact, transcendent goals.
Can a state of flow be virtuous?
Professor Tim Jackson has proposed the concept of flow as a pathway towards sustainable fulfilment.
Shift 3
Beyond Extraction: From extractive resource claims to the infinite guardianship of the global commons.
Even the word resource is innately extractive and predicated on violence. When we see a sentient animal or element of an ecosystem and name it as a natural resource, we are using language to justify collective violence in pursuit of private comfort. We have become highly proficient at accessing diverse fodder for the global economic supertanker; from the deep sea beds to the depths of the Amazon rainforest nowhere is considered too difficult to access if the price is right. What would happen if we erased ‘resource’ from our active vocabulary, and redirected our ingenuity toward stewarding the global commons?
Do words matter?
Inayan — “Unethical deeds”: Inayan is a word that doesn’t exist in the English language. For the Kankanaey people in the Philippines it expresses a community value of refraining from harmful behaviour towards living and inanimate relations. For example, it is inayan to pollute the rivers.
Shift 4
Beyond Private Contracts: From linear agreements that optimise for the few to multi-party, dynamic, digital treaties of respect.
Many of our existing contracts are structured as bilateral agreements. By design, these agreements ignore the complex interplay of values and the mutual need for care that is integral to most transactions. With the emergence of capabilities such as many-to-many and smart, self-executing contracting, we see an opportunity to revolutionise this root structure of the economy. For example, how would our interactions change if we could easily assemble contracts that recognise relational value? Could we collectively drive a bureaucratic revolution that would create new ways to acknowledge and manage the intricate, entangled flows of value?
Are these new contracts too technical or theoretical to engage with?
From a conceptual provocation (Smart Commons provocation) to a live multi-partner collaboration (Beyond The Rules Portal), we are working out loud to test the theory and practical applications of these new forms of contracting.
Shift 5
Beyond Governance: From centralised enforcement to nurturing institutions of stewardship.
Historically our dominant governance structures have sought to control and instruct. However, with the increasing complexity of both our societal systems and escalating risk pathways, this theory of governance no longer appears viable. From their top-down view, many governments are struggling to intelligently regulate the increasingly complex systems of property that they guarantee.
The most probable directions of future societal travel do not seem appealing. On the one hand we might fail to resolve our global coordination challenges and continue to experience ever intensifying crises (for example, individual countries reopening coal mines to reduce energy costs in the short-term ). Alternatively, we might find ways to overcome perverse incentives but the means to do so will potentially lead us towards authoritarian dystopias. With this in mind, how can we transition away from a centralised model of control, and embrace a governance style that fosters collective learning and empowers the entire system³.
Is there an adjacent, third option?
Consilience: the idea that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can “converge” on strong conclusions.
In Taiwan, the combination of open data and civic participation has created a transparent governance model that drastically reduced the impact of the Covid-19 virus.
Shift 6
Beyond Monetary Capital: From the accumulation of financial wealth to a social contract that regeneratively stewards the diverse capitals of life.
What would it mean if we understood capital wealth as an expression of crystallised suffering? Recognising that financial capital is intertwined and enabled by living and social systems could be an important pivot point towards a future rooted in mutually assured thriving. Perhaps then we would feel empowered to reject a monetary system that continues to colonise, exploit and exclude by design. Imagine how our relationship to financial capital might change if we understood the act of investing to be a commitment to our collective futures? What would a system look like where the ways of creating and stewarding money are decentralised and respectful of incommensurate value flows?
Is the plurality of existing alternative currencies a blessing or a distraction?
Bernard Lietaer who co-designed the Euro has proposed three core design principles that fundamentally shape the interaction between money and society: a) who issues a currency, b) the qualities it is given, and c) what it can be used for.
In this provocation we explore 10 design principles that could underpin a cohesive yet diverse regenerative monetary system.
What’s next and how can people become involved?
We have created these first two sections as a landing point for the LEE movement. The idea will be to leave this initial piece in its original form and update the links to new materials as they emerge. What happens next depends on who engages and in what capacity. When we initially proposed the idea, we had imagined that LEE might manifest as a collaborative book and we are still open to that possibility. However, we feel strongly that whilst a tangible artefact would be a powerful tool, it should not be the end goal. Instead, we are aspiring to create a container that can scaffold a distributed exploration and implementation of LEE principles.
Publications in the pipeline
We are working on the following pieces and will publish them soon:
- Exploratory conversations with critical friends who have read the early versions of the LEE concept.
- An outline of how Dark Matter Labs is organising itself to work on the questions raised by the LEE.
- Internal conversations: what would it mean for the different strands of our work if we embraced Life-Ennobling Economics as our overarching mission?
Potential pathways for engagement
We are interested to hear diverse perspectives and will adjust our approach depending on the feedback we receive. As an initial prompt perhaps one of these descriptions is relevant to you:
Funding support: we are hoping to convene a partnership of funders who can support, elevate and actively contribute to this vision. The scope of ambition is wide but we will curate the process as a series of modular steps. If you are interested in supporting us, either as a general contribution or as a standalone module, then we would be very happy to discuss your ideas. Email: jayne@darkmatterlabs.org
Collaborative support: We expect to organise a series of diverse gatherings and working groups. As a first step we will create a live database of potential collaborators and propose a series of online and in-person events following initial conversations. If this is something you would like to hear more about, we would be grateful if you could send us a short email to let us know your area of interest. Email: emily@darkmatterlabs.org
Staying updated: our hope is that the ongoing LEE work will provide a convening point for a wider body of thinking on alternative economies. Please feel free to send us your email contact and we will keep you updated on progress and new publications. Email: info@darkmatterlabs.org
This blog was designed and written by Martin Lorenz, Emily Harris and Indy Johar as part of Dark Matter’s Next Economics LAB.
References:
- Wahl, D. (2016). Designing Regenerative Cultures. UK: Triarchy Press. P92–96.
- McGilchrist, G (2023). THE MATTER WITH THINGS: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World; Volume II, Chapter 20.
- Daniel Schmachtenberger explores and expands on these challenges in this conversation about the dire need for an open society.
