Group items tagged

observation

A post-peak world will depend on detailed observation and good design rather than energy-intensive solutions.

not rely on weather forecasts but to learn to read the clouds,

“instead of researching the market, be the market”

businesses should be out there observing.

larger businesses tend to rely more on surveys and on second-hand information.

direct contact with customers.

move our idea of ‘capital’ from what we have in the bank, to the resources we have around us

not running a business on a constant high speed cash throughput with little or no capital reserves

lack of resilience in the just-in-time supply approach

a shift to storages of parts and materials, as well as the need to financially not be so dependent on debt financing

work slower with more financial reserves and take less risks, not building beyond what the company’s financial resources can support.

either to not borrow any money at all, or to borrow so much money that you can’t fail, being bigger than the people you borrow money from, so they have a vested interest in your succeeding!

energy efficient

long term

Looking to make buildings as autonomous as possible in a world entering energy descent is critical

see things that are flowing past and through the business that others don’t see as being a resource and having no monetary value as being valuable.

any intervention we make in a system, any changes we make or elements we introduce ought to be productive

This is instinctive to businesses

Obtain a Yield, in this context, is out of balance

much of business

have taken this to extremes

A well-designed system using permaculture principles should be able to self-regulate, and require the minimum of intervention and maintenance, like a woodland ecosystem, which requires no weeding, fertiliser or pest control.

moving from “we’re just obeying the law” to being proactive, acting before you get hit over the head with regulation and other vulnerabilities.

be able to put a foot on the break, not just going hell for leather on profit maximisation.

apply applied restraint, avoiding excessive, overfast growth that hasn’t been consolidated

looking for the negative feedbacks, from customers and from the environment in general

We need to increase the tightness of feedbacks.

Where nature can perform particular functions

we should utilise these attributes, rather than thinking we can replace them

Where nature can take some work off our hands we should let it.

a shift towards renewable resources

The emerging opportunities for businesses are things that are renewable. Renewable energy sources are the ones that will ensure a business’s stability in the long run. We can also broaden the concept of renewable resources to include things like goodwill and trust, things which a business can rebuild with good husbandry. Most business doesn’t just depend on law and competition, trust is at the heart of much business and it is very much a renewable resource.

The concept of waste is essentially a reflection of poor design. Every output from one system could become the input to another system. We need to think cyclically rather than in linear systems.

looking at our work from a range of perspectives

wider context

keep a clearer sense of the wider canvas on which we are painting, and the forces that affect what we are doing.

being strategic is important too

ask how is what we are doing part of a bigger picture, the move away from globalisation and towards the local, taking steps back from the everyday.

This can be done firstly by allowing space for Devil’s advocates, for black sheep, for hearing the voices of those outside of the dominant culture of the organisation and secondly by looking from a holistic perspective of how things interconnect, rather than just relying on experts who are embedded in detail. It emphasises the need to value the generalist, to give value to holistic thinkers.

allowing people to imagine different possibilities.

scenario planning

Permaculture has been described as the science of maximising beneficial relationships.

Solutions are to be found in integrated holistic solutions rather than increased specialisation and compartmentalisation

The challenge here is to move to seeing business as being part of the geographical community, as being rooted in place, rather than just part of a globalised community. At the moment for many larger businesses, the local is something one pays lip-service to as a source of good PR, something one is passing through, rather than actually being an integral part of the community.

This is a profound structural challenge for large organisations. Part of the resilience of the organisation comes from the degree of lateral integration. Resilience is in all solutions, it is the characteristic of ecological systems. If we apply these principles, resilience is one of the emergent properties

the notion that big is best needs to be challenged

new opportunities are very hard to understand and exploit from a macro level perspective, and are much better done from small scale perspective. It is here that the idea of appropriateness of scale becomes key.

more diverse systems have much more inbuilt resilience

have a diversity of small businesses, local currencies, food sources, energy sources and so on than if they are just dependent on centralised systems, globalisation’s version of monoculture.

not having all your eggs in one basket.

In the short term this kind of diversification could reduce profits, but in the longer term it will be more secure

this is about the reverse of specialisation, about having a mixed portfolio, and presents a big culture change for businesses.

it is a good strategy for business to keep a diverse portfolio of what sustains the business, keep some things that appear to be peripheral. They may not at this stage appear to be a serious part of how the business is run, but in this new world they will increasingly become so

‘edge’

the point where two ecosystems meet is often more productive than either of those systems on their own.

overlap systems where possible so as to maximise their potential.

recognising that innovation doesn’t come from the centre but from fringe thinkers.

giving status to the marginal

It is important that the business has as many fingers in as many pies as possible, as many interfaces, and recognises that every person working for the business represents it in the community.

Natural systems are constantly in flux, evolving and growing.

Remaining observant of the changes around you, and not fixing onto the idea that anything around you is fixed or permanent will help too.

be flexible, lean and adaptable

A healthy approach is to start with no complete plan, to allow the process to be emergent. This is not a time when we can work to a rigid plan as conditions will change so fast. Organisations will need to stay on their toes, without rigid management.

In a first phase, the commons simply emerges as an added alternative.

becoming a subsector of society, and starts influencing the whole

phase transition and transformation will need to occur.

how a commons-dominated, i.e. after the phase transition, society would look like.

At its core would be a collection of commons, represented by trusts and for-benefit associations, which protect their common assets for the benefit of present and future generations

The commons ‘rents out’ the use of its resources to entrepreneurs. In other words, business still exists, though infinite growth-based capitalism does not.

More likely is that the corporate forms will be influenced by the commons and that profit will be subsumed to other goals, that are congruent with the maintenance of the commons.

The state will still exist, but will have a radically different nature

Much of its functions will have been taken over by commons institutions, but since these institutions care primarily about their commons, and not the general common good, we will still need public authorities that are the guarantor of the system as a whole, and can regulate the various commons, and protect the commoners against possible abuses. So in our scenario, the state does not disappear, but is transformed, though it may greatly diminish in scope, and with its remaining functions thoroughly democratized and based on citizen participation.

In our vision, it is civil-society based peer production, through the Commons, which is the guarantor of value creation by the private sector, and the role of the state, as Partner State, is to enable and empower the creation of common value. The new peer to peer state then, though some may see that as a contradictio in terminis, is a state which is subsumed under the Commons, just as it is now under the private sector. Such a peer to peer state, if we are correct, will have a much more modest role than the state under a classic state society, with many of its functions taken over by civil society associations, interlinked in processes of global governance. The above then, this triarchy, is the institutional core which replaces the dual private-public binary system that is characteristic of the capitalist system that is presently the dominant format.

fundamental mission is to empower direct social-value creation, and to focus on the protection of the Commons sphere as well as on the promotion of sustainable models of entrepreneurship and participatory politics

the state becomes a 'partner state' and enables autonomous social production.

the state does exist, and I believe that we can’t just imagine that we live in a future state-less society

retreating from the binary state/privatization dilemma to the triarchical choice of an optimal mix amongst government regulation, private-market freedom and autonomous civil-society projects

the role of the state

“the peer production of common value requires civic wealth and strong civic institutions.

trigger the production/construction of new commons by - (co-) management of complexe resource systems which are not limited to local boundaries or specific communities (as manager and partner) - survey of rules (chartas) to care for the commons (mediator or judge) - kicking of or providing incentives for commoners governing their commons - here the point is to design intelligent rules which automatically protect the commons, like the GPL does (facilitator)"

the emergence of the digital commons. It is the experience of creating knowledge, culture, software and design commons, by a combination of voluntary contributions, entrepreneurial coalitions and infrastructure-protecting for-benefit associations, that has most tangibly re-introduced the idea of commons, for all to use without discrimination, and where all can contribute. It has drastically reduced the production, distribution, transaction and coordination costs for the immaterial value that is at the core also of all what we produce physically, since that needs to be made, needs to be designed. It has re-introduced communing as a mainstream experience for at least one billion internet users, and has come with proven benefits and robustness that has outcompeted and outcooperated its private rivals. It also of course offers new ways to re-imagine, create and protect physical commons.

stop enclosures

peer to peer, i.e. the ability to freely associate with others around the creation of common value

communal shareholding, i.e. the non-reciprocal exchange of an individual with a totality. It is totality that we call the commons.

It is customary to divide society into three sectors, and what we want to show is how the new peer to peer dynamic unleashed by networked infrastructures, changes the inter-relationship between these three sectors.

In the current ‘cognitive capitalist’ system, it is the private sector consisting of enterprises and businesses which is the primary factor, and it is engaged in competitive capital accumulation. The state is entrusted with the protection of this process. Though civil society, through the citizen, is in theory ‘sovereign’, and chooses the state; in practice, both civil society and the state are under the domination of the private sector.

it fulfills three contradictory functions

Of course, this is not to say that the state is a mere tool of private business.

protect the whole system, under the domination of private business

protector of civil society, depending on the balance of power and achievements of social movements

protector of its own independent interests

Under fascism, the state achieves great independence from the private sector , which may become subservient to the state. Under the welfare state, the state becomes a protector of the social balance of power and manages the achievements of the social movement; and finally, under the neoliberal corporate welfare state, or ‘market state’, it serves most directly the interests of the financial sector.

key institutions and forms of property.

The state managed a public sector, under its own property.

The private sector , under a regime of private ownership, is geared to profit, discounts social and natural externalities, both positive and negative, and uses its dominance in society to use and dominate the state.

civil society has a relative power as well, through its capability of creating social movements and associations

Capitalism has historically been a pendulum between the private and the public sector

However, this configuration is changing,

the endangerment of the biosphere through the workings of ‘selfish’ market players; the second is the role of the new digital commons.

participatory politics

Peer production gives us an advance picture of how a commons-oriented society would look like. At its core is a commons and a community contributing to it, either voluntarily, or as paid entrepreneurial employees. It does this through collaborative platforms using open standards. Around the commons emerges enterprises that create added value to operate on the marketplace, but also help the maintenance and the expansion of the commons they rely on. A third partner are the for-benefit associations that maintain the infrastructure of cooperation. Public authorities could play a role if they wanted to support existing commons or the creation of new commons, for the value they bring to society.

if a commons is not created as in the case of the digital commons, it is something that is inherited from nature or former generations, given in trust and usufruct, so that it can be transmitted to our descendents. The proper institution for such commons is therefore the trust, which is a corporate form that cannot touch its principal capital, but has to maintain it.

Open Capital is defined as “a proportional share in an enterprise for an indeterminate time”

‘Enterprise’ is defined as ‘any entity within which two or more individuals create, accumulate or exchange Value”.

Value is to Economics as Energy and Matter are to Physics.

The Metaphysics Of Value

division between “subject” and “object”.

primary reality is “Quality”

formless and indefinable

not a “thing”

a non-intellectual awareness or “pre-intellectual reality”

but an event at which the subject becomes aware of the object and before he distinguishes it

Quality is the basis of both subject and object

distinguish between “Static” and “Dynamic” Quality

treating Value as a form of “Quality” as envisioned by Pirsig.

Riegel

defined “Value” as “ the Relativity of Desire” again implying indeterminacy.

Pirsig’s approach Capital may be viewed as “Static” Value and Money as “Dynamic” Value. “Transactions” are the “events” at which individuals (Subjects) interact with each other or with Capital (both as Objects) to create forms of Value and at which “Value judgments” are made based upon a “Value Unit”.

The result of these Value Events /Transactions is to create subject/object pairings in the form of data ie Who “owns” or has rights of use in What,

at what Price

accounting data

Neo-Classical” Economics confuses indeterminate Value with a market– determined Price –

Data may be static

This Data identifies the subject with objects such as tangible ‘Material Value’

Data may itself constitute ‘Intellectual Value’

It, too, may then be defined in a subject/object pairing through the concept of “intellectual property”.

Other forms of Value are however not definable by data:

“sentimental” Value

Emotional Value’

'Spiritual Value’

We may therefore look at the “transaction” or “value event” in a new light.

The creation and circulation of Value essentially comprises the concept we know of as “Money”.

Money / Dynamic Value

“The purpose of money is to facilitate barter by splitting the transaction into two parts, the acceptor of money reserving the power to requisition value from any trader at any time

money

value unit dissociated from any object

monetary unit

the basis relative to which other values may be expressed

The monetary process is a dynamic one involving the creation and recording of obligations as between individuals and the later fulfilment of these obligations

The monetary “Value Event”/ Transaction involves the creation of “Credit”

obligation to provide something of equivalent Value at a future point in time.

These obligations may be recorded on transferable documents

database of “Credit”/obligations is not Money, but temporary “Capital”

“Working Capital”

Static Value – which only becomes “Money”/ Dynamic Value when exchanged in the transitory Monetary process.

what we think of as Money is in fact not tangible “cash” but rather

the flow of data between databases of obligations maintained by Credit Institutions

or dynamic

Banks literally “loan” Money into existence

In exchange for an obligation by an Individual to provide to the Bank something of Value

Bank’s obligation is merely to provide another obligation at some future time

These Bank-issued obligations are therefore

claim upon a claim upon Value

The true source of Credit is the Individual, not the intermediary Bank

this Money they create from nothing despite the fact that it is literally Value-less

Thus there is no true sharing of Risk and Reward involved in Lending

issue in relation to Credit/Debt and this relates to the nature of Lending itself.

the practice of Lending involves an incomplete exchange in terms of risk and reward: a Lender, as opposed to an Investor, has no interest in the outcome of the Loan, and requires the repayment of Principal no matter the ability of the Borrower to repay.

Ethical problem

Money is not

an “Object” circulating but rather a dynamic process of Value creation and exchange by reference to a “Value Unit”.

Capital/ Static Value

Capital represents the static accumulation of Value

Some forms of Capital are “productive”

An ethical question

in relation to Productive Capital relates to the extent of “property rights” which may be held over it thereby allowing individuals to assert “absolute” permanent and exclusive ownership - in particular in relation to Land

our current financial system is based not upon Value but rather a claim upon Value

Financial Capital consists of two types:

“Debt”

“Equity”

Interest

obligations of finite/temporary duration but with no participation in the assets or revenues

absolute and permanent ownership/participation (without obligation) in assets and revenues

discontinuity between Debt and Equity

at the heart of our current problems as a Society

The Enterprise

‘Charitable’ Enterprise

‘Social’ Enterprise

Value

exchanged in agreed proportions;

Value is exchanged for the Spiritual and Emotional Value

‘Commercial’ Enterprise

‘closed’

Value are exchanged between a limited number of individuals

Early enterprises were partnerships and unincorporated associations

need for institutions which outlived the lives of the Members led to the development of the Corporate body with a legal existence independent of its Members

The key development in the history of Capitalism was the creation of the ‘Joint Stock’ Corporate with liability limited by shares of a ‘Nominal’ or ‘Par’ value

over the next 150 years the Limited Liability Corporate evolved into the Public Limited Liability Corporate

Such “Closed” Shares of “fixed” value constitute an absolute and permanent claim over the assets and revenues of the Enterprise to the exclusion of all other “stakeholders” such as Suppliers, Customers, Staff, and Debt Financiers.

The latter are essentially ‘costs’ external to the

owners of the Enterprise

maximise ‘Shareholder Value’

There is a discontinuity/ fault-line within the ‘Closed’ Corporate

It has the characteristics of what biologists call a ‘semi-permeable membrane’ in the way that it allows Economic Value to be extracted from other stakeholders but not to pass the other way.

Capital most certainly is and always has been - through the discontinuity (see diagram) between:‘Fixed’ Capital in the form of shares ie Equity; and ‘Working’ Capital in the form of debt finance, credit from suppliers, pre-payments by customers and obligations to staff and management.

irreconcilable conflict between Equity and Debt

xchange of Economic Value in a Closed Corporate is made difficult and true sharing of Risk and Reward is simply not possible

No Enterprise Model has been capable of resolving this dilemma. Until now.

Corporate Partnerships with unlimited liability

mandatory for partnerships with more than 20 partners to be incorporated

in the USA

it is the normal structure for professional partnerships

Limited Liability Partnerships

In the late 1990's

litigation

The UK LLP is supremely simple and remarkably flexible.

All that is needed is a simple ‘Member Agreement’ – a legal protocol which sets out the Aims, Objectives. Principles of Governance, Revenue Sharing, Dispute Resolution, Transparency and any other matters that Members agree should be included. Amazingly enough, this Agreement need not even be in writing, since in the absence of a written agreement Partnership Law is applied by way of default.

The ease of use and total flexibility enables the UK LLP to be utilised in a way never intended – as an ‘Open’ Corporate partnership.

‘Open’ Corporate Partnership

concepts which characterise the ‘Open’ Corporate Partnership

it is now possible for any stakeholder to become a Member of a UK LLP simply through signing a suitably drafted Member Agreement

‘Open’

supplier

employee

may instead become true Partners in the Enterprise with their interests aligned with other stakeholders.

no profit or loss in an Open Corporate Partnership, merely Value creation and exchange between members in conformance with the Member Agreement.

Proportional shares

in an Enterprise constitute an infinitely divisible, flexible and scaleable form of Capital capable of distributing or accumulating Value organically as the Enterprise itself grows in Value or chooses to distribute it.

Emergence of “Open” Capital

example of how ‘Temporary Equity’ may operate in practice

The Open Capital Partnership (“OCP”)

Within the OCP Capital and Revenue are continuous: to the extent that an Investee pays Rental in advance of the due date he becomes an Investor.

Open Capital – a new Asset Class

create a new asset class of proportional “shares”/partnership interests

in Capital holding OCP’s

Property Investment Partnerships (“PIP’s”)

Open Corporate Partnerships as a Co-operative Enterprise model

A Co-operative is not an enterprise structure: it is a set of Principles that may be applied to different types of enterprise structure.

Within a Partnership there is no “Profit” and no “Loss”.

Partnerships

mutual pursuit of the creation and exchange of Value

Partners do not compete with each othe

the crippling factors in practical terms have been, inter alia: the liability to which Member partners are exposed from the actions of their co-partners on their behalf; limited ability to raise capital.

they favour the interests of other stakeholders, are relatively restricted in accessing investment; are arguably deficient in incentivising innovation.

The ‘new’ LLP was expressly created to solve the former problem by limiting the liability of Member partners to those assets which they choose to place within its protective ‘semi-permeable membrane’

However, the ability to configure the LLP as an “Open” Corporate permits a new and superior form of Enterprise.

it is possible to re-organise any existing enterprise as either a partnership or as a partnership of partnerships.

the revenues

would be divided among Members in accordance with the LLP Agreement. This means that all Members share a common interest in collaborating/co-operating to maximise the Value generated by the LLP collectively as opposed to competing with other stakeholders to maximise their individual share at the other stakeholders’ expense.

facilitate the creation of LLP’s as “Co-operatives of Co-operatives”.

he ‘Commercial’ Enterprise LLP – where the object is for a closed group of individuals to maximise the value generated in their partnership. There are already over 7,000 of these.

the Profit generated in a competitive economy based upon shareholder value and unsustainable growth results from a transfer of risks outwards, and the transfer of reward inwards, leading to a one way transfer of Economic Value.

This,

will very often impoverish one or more constituency of stakeholders

A partnership, however, involves an exchange of value through the sharing of risk and reward.

Whether its assets are protected within a corporate entity with limited liability or not, it will always operate co-operatively – for mutual profit.

Open Capital, Economics and Politics

continuity between Capital as Static Value and Money as Dynamic Value which has never before been possible due to the dichotomy between the absolute/infinite and the absolute/finite durations of the competing claims over assets – “Equity” and “Debt”

Open Capital Partnership gives rise to a new form of Financial Capital of indeterminate duration. It enables the Capitalisation of assets and the monetisation of revenue streams in an entirely new way.

It is possible to envisage a Society within which individuals are members of a portfolio of Enterprises constituted as partnerships, whether limited in liability or otherwise.

Some will be charitable

Others will be ‘social’

‘Commercial’ enterprises of all kinds aimed at co-operatively working together to maximise value for the Members.

the process has already begun

Capitalism

superior

to all other models, such as Socialism.

It can only be replaced by another ‘emergent’ phenomenon, which is adopted ‘virally’ because any Enterprise which does not utilise it will be at a disadvantage to an Enterprise which does.

The ‘Open’ Corporate Partnership is: capable of linking any individuals anywhere in respect of collective ownership of assets anywhere; extremely cheap and simple to operate; and because one LLP may be a Member of another it is organically flexible and ‘scaleable’. The phenomenon of “Open Capital” – which is already visible in the form of significant commercial transactions - enables an extremely simple and continuous relationship between those who wish to participate indefinitely in an Enterprise and those who wish to participate for a defined period of time.

Moreover, the infinitely divisible proportionate “shares” which constitute ‘Open’ Capital allow stakeholder interests to grow flexibly and organically with the growth in Value of the Enterprise. In legal terms, the LLP agreement is essentially consensual and ‘pre-distributive’: it is demonstrably superior to prescriptive complex contractual relationships negotiated adversarially and subject to subsequent re-distributive legal action. Above all, the ‘Open’ Corporate Partnership is a Co-operative phenomenon which is capable, the author believes, of unleashing the “Co-operative Advantage” based upon the absence of a requirement to pay returns to “rentier” Capitalists.