~1~ Reimagining Civilization: Self governing, decentralized, autonomous, collaborative, micro communities
Some time ago @aggroed presented a challenge to the Steem community to describe their ideal society. Since this is a subject I dwell on quite often, I immediately jumped on the opportunity. However, for me, the subject matter requires more than a single post. This will be the first in a series of posts describing and conceptualizing what I've dubbed the "self governing, decentralized, autonomous, collaborative, micro community" model.
This is purely conceptual, I’m not presenting these ideas to convince others or suggest we should actively try to dismantle the current systems in place. I believe every thinking citizen of the world should participate in this discussion. I’m no utopian, I tend to swing from the poles of idealism to pessimism depending on the seasons. I know humans have the capability of great good and great evil, we are highly susceptible to xenophobia, hate, fanatism, and group think. We are by nature creatures of hierarchy, and form pecking orders no matter the context or group. With that in mind, the question becomes how do we build a world that doesn’t incentivize those behaviors, but instead encourages the better human traits such as collaboration, creativity, empathy, and courage. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking the current systems, and more generally the large State governments and empires, have failed to do this.
The problem of Scale
Humans evolved to function in small close knit, cooperative communities of mutual dependence. I believe we function optimally in these conditions and the majority of what ails our political systems dissolves when social structures are decentralized and allowed to self govern on a micro scale.
Large populations require complex hiarchies and hyperspecialization to maintain order and compensate for the loss of energy due to its neccesity for conversion and distribution. It has an exponential problem of scale, as the hierarchy expands, the more specialization is required to maintain the system. As specialization expands, the more conversions and distributions are required, resulting in a greater energy requirement and loss. The conversion and distribution both require proportional hierarchy to operate, thus continuing the exponential and inescapable negative feedback loop. The more specialized (read fractured) knowledge, the less whole knowledge; the cycle continues indefinitely until the system becomes top heavy, overly complex and inevitably crumbles. We’ve been able to maintain our current system past the point of systemic failure through the unsustainable extractions of people and earth.
Horizontal not Vertical
As population densities increased our solution thus far has been to scale vertically, a more complex and higher hierarchy. I think it’s time we consider the possibility of scaling horizontally: Duplicating small maintainable systems of order that collaborate to meet the demands of survival, health, happiness, peace, liberty, and abundance.
Blockchain to the Rescue
Before the age of the internet, and blockchain humanity didn’t have a means of maintaining global networks of dispersed tribes. Dispersion and disconnection will lead to cultural isolation, stagnation, and prevent collaboration this would inevitably devolve into the loss of technology, and the growth of xenophobia, fear, and tribal warfare. History would repeat itself and the dominant tribe would end up expanding into a centralized empire once again.
However, with the internet we have means of global collaboration, trade, contracts, and consensus without the need for a centralized power. Blockchain has the power to serve all the functions of government without violence, force, or centralization.
- Currency
- Ownership
- Escrow and trade
- Intelectual property
- Consensus
- Social safety nets
- Volunteer redistribution mechanisms
- Education
- All forms of management
Manufacturing
“Corporations" would cease to exist and manufacturing opporations would function as decentralized, self governing autonomous entities established by individuals and or communities to meet needs or generate wealth. There is no shortage of models that these entities could adopt. Worker proposal based, open source, worker owned, to name a few.
However, most goods can be made without the need for human work as automation reaches actualization, instead human creativity and consensus would be the main “work” required for manufacturing and creation of equipment and goods not possible through traditional crafting.
Ownership
The communities will set their own rules of ownership, whether equal distribution or free market. This would allow for the testing of millions of different economic models, and allow the strongest to survive, the weaker ones to dissolve, and new ones to borrow the best ideas present and expand further. This mimics biological evolution, but instead of gene mutations, it would be societal structure mutations. Unhindered by force or controlling interests, solutions will arise almost instantaneously as apposed to over the course of centuries and millennia.
Food production
Ideally, the food would be produced on site. There is no reason why a community can’t provide the food for themselves unless they are an extremely specialized community, in which case their food is provided through trading with nearby communities.
Energy production
Each community should be able to provide their own energy needs with renewable energy sources. A centralized grid is prone to failures, waste, and abuse. However, energy can be tokenized and distributed as needed within reason.
Infrastructure
If infrastructure is needed it would be submitted as a proposal and be up to the affected communities to come to consensus and pay for the project. A maintenance plan would also need to be agreed upon.
Education
Education would also be decentralized in the manner of all the others. There would be no standardization, the communities that educate their people well will be successful, whether that be in practical skills, liberal arts, or STEM. People interested in education which their community does not provide can pursue education by moving to another community or paying for it in some agreed upon manner. Apprenticeships should become the preferred mode of higher education, as learning is most effective when it is hands on and performs some real world utility.
Citizenship
Citizenship is expressed by a share of ownership in the community. Everyone is free to leave and join another community if the community is willing to accept them in, and a community is free to revoke citizenship based on it’s own rules and consensus.
Land
Ownership of land, can it be owned, who decides who owns it, how is it transferred, who has the right to occupy it, all set the foundations of government and large societies. It’s not an easy problem to solve, land ownership will always give an unfair advantage to those who’ve had it passed down to them, and those who must earn it. This is why I believe land should be cooperatively owned by the community. Every individual owning an equal share of the land. Moving outside of the community requires one to sell their share and buy a share from a new community. Outside of this land should not be owned by any entity or individual, as land rentals are a form of feudalism and slavery.
With that said, each group is able to set their own rules on land ownership with the land they occupy, the successful models will thrive and the weak ones will die out. If every community is required to produce their own food, water, and energy, they will not extract their land, and other’s won’t allow their land to be extracted or poisoned. This keeps the land protected without any need for a centralized ruling force. Communities that are dumb enough to rape, or let their land be raped will fail, and nature will repair in time.
Collaboration
When collaboration is needed between multiple groups, a new entity can be created with it’s own rules that must be agreed upon by consensus by all parties affected or involved. Once the contract is fulfilled, the entity dissolves.
Courts, trials and tribunals
Every group is free to set their own rules of behavior from within. And set up their own forms of criminal justice. If an individual commits a crime against another group, the other group is likely to ban all trades which would put the group of the criminal at risk. They would be forced to work out the grievance and come to some agreement. But it is up to the community to work things out; no institution will parent their behavior. The communities that train and deal with conflict well will thrive as resources won’t need to be wasted on prisons or complex judicial systems.
Mobility
This model is assuming the lines between city, town, county, state, and nation are dissolved. This society will be without military and centralized governance of any kind. Moderation of the system would be a colaborative effort amongst groups and open to continued evolution. The wealth of a community is dependent on the wealth of their cluster of communities.
Mobility is key to regulating the abuses of groups. If one does not like the structure or culture of his or her’s own group they are free to leave to another. Because each group is unique, each individual will have a wide array of choices; from egalitarian communes, to traditional conservative communities, to STEM institutions of research that function like universities. The options are limitless, and most groups should be willing to take people in who are willing to contribute.
The next post in this series will be exploring all that can potentially go wrong in this system, the prerequisite conditions that would allow a model like this to become a reality, and some real world examples of folks already implementing similar models successfully.
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Thank you for writing this! I enjoyed reading the text and found myself nodding in agreement over most of the ideas.
Since my teen years I've had this...feeling that people would live better in a stateless society, a band / clan/ tribe society with deep and strong connections, without all that competition, more cooperation, more self-reinforcing bonds.
As a matter of fact, our local populations lived that way for thousands of years. Most of the Thrace tribes in our lands in the period 1000-500 BC lived without any central governance and even at the height of the Thracian kingdom, it was more of a federation of tribes, not the centralized empire we see 500 years later in Roman times.
Even during the 200 year rule of the Byzantines and 500 year Ottoman rule the main social pattern remained almost intact. People here were grouped in an almost independent villages, usually started by a family - a clan of extended families, a kin.
We're currently working in that direction. Re-creating the social structure that was dismantled in the last 100-200 years with the industrial revolution which lead to the centralization of power to previously unthinkable levels.
Sorry that I cannot write at length, it's 2am here and that's been typed on my phone. Will try to follow up tomorrow!
Thanks so much for the reply. I’m glad to have another person here on the same wavelength. I’m trying to compile as many historical examples of people that functioned well and peaceably without succumbing to statehood and empire. I appreciate your example here, and if you’re up for it I would love to chat in more detail on Discord. I think the Roman Empire snuffed out most of these examples and that all of our modern day empires are just extensions of Rome. This is almost a 3,000 year struggle, it’s deep.
There is a theory that most people cannot comfortably keep more than about 150 people straight and familiar in their heads. Consequently, It’s about this size of group which tends to split or fail. Often as not issues arise over leadership. I’ve seen This play out in churches, social clubs, teams, and the like. It almost seems as if human beings are wired to the group no larger than 150.
I actually am going to dig into that concept in my next post. There has been studies proving this. The majority of human existence has been in small tribes of 200 or less. We’ve evolved to function in these types of small communities. Like you said, you can see this play out in almost any community even in modern times. Once 150-200 threshold is met, the group begins to deteriorate and moderation, relationships, and engagement requires more energy to maintain. I think this is where most governmental type structures find their origin.
you and I think a lot alike it appears.
Great food for thought! While I agree with a lot of what you've said, I'd like to add to it. It's my understanding that corruption/competition/greed happens when people operate in a scarcity mindset. Read The Soul of Money. In addition to The Soul of Money, NASA funded a study of past civilizations and what eventually led to their downfall. Their conclusion is that, as the population grew, resources became stressed until the elite started hoarding more (from a place of scarcity) and leaving less for the lower classes. The class gap grew until eventually the society collapsed. The same story is told through Mayans, Chinese, Roman, Gupta Empires, Mesopotamian Empires, etc.
However, as a farmer, I'm overcome by the fact that the soil wants to provide, plants want to produce fruit...all we have to be is good stewards of the land and there's more than enough food to go around. For me, this is the foundation of my abundance philosophy. There's enough energy to go around (solar and wind and other creative ways), there's more than enough food to go around, there's more than enough money to go around, there's more than enough love. I think a majority of society's ailments can be solved by transitioning from a scarcity mindset ("I don't have enough time", "I don't have enough money", "I'm not loved enough") to an abundance mindset.
While I am creative a home and family unit that very much reflects your ideal society, I have a hard time working in groups. The few groups that I've worked in (work and school), I always find myself annoyed at members who don't pull their fair share. But maybe that's coming from a place of scarcity too :)
Thank you for your words, and I can't wait to read your follow-ups! Together I think we can really make a difference!
We have a small, tight group of friends that all think along these lines. We often talk late into the night about decentralization and self governance and living as an independent tribe and what that would look like. I think I’ll share this article with them next time we get together to give us some new meat to chew on. Thanks for some new points of view to think about! I’m looking forward to part two. :)