Governance without Government

Joshua Pryor

2

Humanity has been caught within a trap. Elites have dominated and manipulated

human culture, economics, and politics in order to maintain a vice grip on the future of

society. Escaping from the elite trap requires recognizing that the trap exists, and

designing new structures of governance that reduce or remove possibilities for

hierarchical, centralized, elite domination and control.

Governance without government identifies the possibilities for social order

without government institutions, bureaucracies, and representative leaders that forcefully

mandate acceptable behavior within society.1 Social order is understood as the ability of

humans to live with each other without killing, although conflicts and problems

inevitably arise. Governance identifies social networks that are created among

individuals that directly facilitate the achievement of goals. Governance without

government does not identify a post-political society where the need to talk and discuss

arising social problems does not occur, but rather a post-government society where the

mechanisms for social order are embedded throughout society, in the means of

production, processes of gifting and exchange, educational systems, and communications

apparatus’. Government, if it can still be labeled as such, is stripped of all authority and

power, becoming a table for social discussion, rather than a building, an actor separate

from society, dictating the present and future of society.

The rethinking of governance offered here relies on an eclectic blend of

theoretical and practical perspectives. Marxism, anarchism, workers cooperatives,

EMERGY(embodied energy) analysis, trends in the transference of wireless energy, the

growing importance of agriculture in creating plastic-like composites, and increasing

communications technology are mingled together to create a hopefully plausible and

applicable vision towards the future of governance. Throughout these perspectives the

primary unit of analysis is on the individual, and how individuals cooperate to form

communities, rather than on the nation-state or corporations, because individuals are the

base unit of any collective enterprise.

1 R.A.W. Rhodes has argued that the term governance has been used imprecisely and can mean up to six

different systems. He argues that governance means “self-organizing, interorganizational networks,” a

definition supported here. R.A.W. Rhodes, “The New Governance: Governing without Government,”

Political Studies 44 no. 4 (2008): 652-667. Problems of governance have been discussed in Sonja Walti et

al, “How Democratic is “Governance”? Lessons from Swiss Drug Policy,” Governance 17 no. 1 (2004):

83-113.

3

Section one will identify two primary mechanisms through which society is

controlled by elites, including our current system of exploitative production and the

creation of currencies by banks. Section two will identify several founding values that

create the underlying structure of governance, including free access to the means of

production, the right to pursuit individual pleasure and happiness free from government

intervention (negative freedom), the right of individuals to act, to become something

greater than themselves in a pursuit of self-awareness (positive freedom), the creation of

fraternity, a family of individuals who care for each other, and affinity, the organization

of society based on non-hierarchical lines. Section three outlines several social structures

that encourage the underlying value system, democratizing social production through

workers cooperatives; a system of currency and wealth generation based upon an energy

theory of value; a gift economy that encourages the giving away of productive surplus

rather than hoarding; an educational system based on imbuing the principles of freedom

and equality, rather than hierarchy and control; communication technologies that bind

society together through unlimited access to information; and a venue, or meeting hall to

discuss arising social disputes or problems, using direct democratic procedures to

implement solutions whenever a two-thirds majority is reached. Section four identify

several criticisms of government, and explain how they are overcome by governance.

Section five will conclude by identifying the means for transition from the current system

of elite control to governance without government through viral democratic

transformation, as well as specific policies that can be pursued in the nation-state to assist

in this transformation

Section One: The Elite Trap - Domination through Control

Through the formation of vast bureaucracies and state institutions, Western

humanity has become dependent on hierarchical structures that create exploitation and

desperation. Throughout history, the primary means to control society was through

military organizations, the hard-fisted use of force to achieve consent. With the advent of

political consciousness, and the pursuit of values such as freedom and equality, elites

have correspondingly adjusted their frameworks of control, eschewing violent coercion

for subtle economic manipulation. Acting through a hierarchical system of production,

4

combined with a currency mandating the creation of debt, individuals are consigned to a

jail of economic limitations.2

One of the foundations of materialist Marxism is the belief that the structure of

the means of production determines the behavior of individuals.3 Consequently, if the

means of production in any given society is based upon the exploitation of humans or the

earth, the society that rests upon the exploitative production system is itself inherently

and thoroughly exploitative. The means of production is not simply how people produce

material or ideational things, but is itself an expression of life, it is something more than

just the mechanical production of things, but a representation of how people live.4

Exploitative production is the reality of the modern capitalist world, and is

evident in the destruction of local production networks that previously supported

communities and individuals. The rise of Walmart and other major ‘big-box’ retail stores

embody the logic of exploitative production by having goods produced at the least

possible cost and then sold at a profit. While this may not be perceived by the consumer

as exploitative, as they are able to buy goods likely cheaper than elsewhere, the

destruction of local networks of production that existed previously ensures that

consumers are increasingly dependent on foreign sources of goods for their survival. By

being dependent on far-away producers, consumers lose much of their ability to influence

how goods are produced, as well as the impact producers have on the local economy,

creating numerous opportunities for exploitation as local communities have no means to

support themselves without relying on uncaring providers. Without viable local

production, consumers become prey to the whims of vicarious capitalist production

systems.

2 In addition to the creation of a sadistic economic system and currency, elites also manipulate society

through the use of mass media to perpetuate an elite dominated status quo, the neutering of revolutionary

technologies, and conspiratorial agreements among elites themselves. See Joshua Pryor, “Social Change

through Control: How Elites Shape Society,” unpublished manuscript. 3 Karl Marx, “The German Ideology,” in David McLellan, ed., Karl Marx: Selected Writings 2

nd ed.,

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 177. “What [individuals] are, therefore, coincides with their

production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus

depends on the material conditions determining their production.” Second sentence italics mine. 4 “This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the production of the physical existence

of the individuals. Rather, it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing

their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are,” Marx, “The

German Ideology,” 177.

5

With the loss in local means of production, consumers increasingly must rely on

trade and exchange to acquire goods, requiring fungible wealth transportation in the form

of currencies. Currencies are the lifeblood of the economy, and whatever supports the

currency determines the future of the economy. Herein lays the second major element of

the elite system of control, the utilization of commercially produced money from banks

as a means to continually indebt society.5 People money historically was a means to

transfer an individual’s time and labor into an exchangeable form to procure goods and

services, and is most evident in barter societies where people exchange of grain, tobacco,

wampum, or whatever commodity is deemed valuable.,. State money, in the form of

coinage, arose as a new means to extract wealth from society by taxation, and was the

first way money was used as a system of exploitation. The relatively recent arrival of

commercial money, as seen in the formation of the American Federal Reserve System in

1913, represents a wholly different form of money that exists for one purpose: to create

social debt and facilitates control.6

Disguised as ‘independent’ in order to insulate money producers (Central Banks),

who supposedly focus on the long-term sustainability of the economy, from the short-

term whims of politicians, Central Banking systems have become one of the most

disingenuous economic structures throughout the modern world. Rather than embodying

the labor of society, commercially produced money has no inherent value itself. The

value of money is consequently a social fiction, based partly on the amount of money in

circulation, and the confidence people believe the currency has.

Commercially-produced money inevitably leads to debt because of the way

money is created. A central bank, a quasi-independent currency creator, prints money

that is loaned to the government and other banks at a specified interest rate, in the United

States known as the overnight rate. Since the manufacturer of money is immediately

owed interest by the recipient, massive social and government debt is the only long-term

consequence because the money needed to pay the interest can only be created through

additional printings of money, requiring additional interest payments, leading to a cycle

5 On the three sources of money, commercial, state, and people, see Richard Douthwaite, The Ecology of

Money (United Kingdom: Green Books, 1999). The rest of the section is based on Douthwaite, Ecology of

Money. 6 The earliest record of commercial based money, at least in Britain, is 1633 from goldsmiths who accepted

deposits, which were then lent out for interest.

6

of debt production that ultimately paralyses an economy. Money is literally created “on

the basis of debt…[making] the economic system fundamentally unstable.”7

Underneath the debt basis of money lies the hidden explanation of why modern

society is based on a growth paradigm – growth for the sake of additional growth.8

Without growth, the need for additional printings of money to pay for previously accrued

debt would stall, leading to a cataclysmic collapse of the economic system. Already,

problems have begun to appear within this richety financial system, because central

banks are losing their ability to control the money supply. The advent of electronic cash

and increasing non-bank lenders unencumbered by reserve requirements, means money

enters circulation without having hard cash (money printed by the central bank) as a

support. This phenomenon is a signal that the end to this commercial-based system of

money is rapidly approaching.9 Due to these profound structural problems, alternatives

forms of money must be formed through which to grease the wheels of social exchange.

If, as Marx argues, the “nature of individuals…depends on the material conditions

determining their production,” then the exploitation inherent in the destruction of local

network of production and commercially-produced money must be addressed in

constructing alternative forms of social structures.10

In order to envision what these

alternative structures may look like, a system of preferred values must be acknowledged

to identify the behavior social structures should encourage.

Section Two: Founding Values and Behavior

In identifying the ideal of Spanish Anarchism, Ricardo Mella stated “liberty as the

basis, equality as the means, fraternity as the ends.”11

Each value, liberty, equality, and

fraternity binds society together to create a communal, self-organizing system of

governance. Liberty creates a foundation of unlimited human potential, the freedom to

become something greater than oneself, while concurrently the freedom from

unnecessary foreign domination. Equality tempers liberty, in that while everyone needs

7 Douthwaite, Ecology of Money, 23.

8 On how modern government is geared towards pursuing growth for growth’s sake, see Richard

Douthwaite, The Growth Illusion, (Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1999). 9 Douthwaite, The Ecology of Money, 73.

10 Marx, 177.

11 Ricardo Mell, “El Ideal Anarquista,” in Gason Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, ‘Chapter 1:

The Ideal,’ located online at http://libcom.org/library/collectives-leval-1#ch1.

7

to have equal access to food, water, shelter, clothing, and access to an evolving social

culture, liberty does not mean the freedom to destroy the life and needs of others for the

pursuit of ones’ own self interest. The purpose of liberty and equality is to create

fraternity, a global human family; the recognition that all humanity is connected by

genetic and emotional bonds far greater than the petty quarrels that often divides

humankind. Fraternity, in the formation of familial bonds throughout society, is driven

by the value of affinity, the belief that individuals pursue ‘mutual aid’ through social

networks, where by helping others they help themselves.

Liberty can easily become a dangerous value to base society on, as freedom

implies the ability to create, as well as the ability to destroy. While one may hope that

unrestricted liberty could lead to a social equilibrium of mutual benefit for all, underlying

the value are two contradictory forces, the freedom from control, as well as the freedom

to act.12

The freedom from control identifies the pursuit of self-interest without restriction,

which if left to itself, creates an empty world of self-indulgence with no meaning or

purpose other than immediate indulgence. An environment of unrestricted self-interest,

often described as negative liberty, creates a world ripe for corruption as those with the

most wealth and power would be unhindered in their pursuit of control. A world of only

negative liberty evolves into a world of no liberty at all.

Negative liberty implies human behavior that is free to act without worry of

harmful reciprocation from governmental, centralized, or social coercion. Humans

should be allowed to organize, associate, network, literally, to act. The question remains,

however, how to ensure the pursuit of negative liberty does not corrupt and hollow

society. Negative liberty must be balanced with the identification of the material welfare

12

The liberty evoked here stems from Isaiah Berlin “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Henry Hardy, ed.,

Liberty: Isaiah Berlin, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002):166-217. Berlin’s identification of positive

and negative liberty has been criticized as being too narrow, where all liberty is at once positive and

negative, a criticism not shared here. See Robert Young, Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and

Positive Liberty (London: Croom Helm, 1986). See also G. C. MacCallum, Jr, “Negative and Positive

Freedom,” Philosophical Review 76 (1967): 312-334. See Hardy, ed., p. 36, “A man struggling against his

chains or a people against enslavement need not consciously aim at any definite further state,” in other

words, pursue positive freedom, “A man need not know how he will use his freedom; he just wants to

remove the yoke.” This section on positive and negative liberty is also inspired by Adam Curtis, “The

Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom,” Great Britain: BBC Television Program, 11 March 2007

8

of one with the welfare of all, to be reinforced through media, education, and most

importantly, the actual structures of localized economic (material) interdependence.

Liberty also implies positive freedom, the ability to act, change oneself and to

create a ‘better world’ based on whatever values a particular individual or group decides.

Similar to negative freedom, a world of unrestricted positive freedom also eventually

destroys all freedom, as social revolutions and military conquest are pursued as people

implement their desires to change the world to conform to their pre-existing image. In

one way or another, positive liberty has been at the heart of every revolution, and has

been described as “a specious disguise for brutal tyranny.”13

The human behavior implied by positive liberty is, similarly the freedom to act,

but where negative liberty primarily focuses on the pursuit of self-interest, positive

liberty identifies the ability to overcome one’s own weaknesses or limitations, to be

one’s own master, or in turn, to shape the world and to become the world’s master. The

problem of a world filled with positive liberty is the tendency to believe that a group,

such as the state, or a religion, has found the final answer to all social problems, and must

then spread that answer through violent or coercive force. To balance positive liberty,

media, education, and economic institutions must be imbued with an understanding of

Socratic rationalism; the recognition that “we are more familiar with the situation of man

as man than with the ultimate causes of that situation.”14

In other words, humanity is

ignorant of what truly causes our social problems, but by recognizing our ignorance we

understand that using force to make others comply with our beliefs only continues

successive serious of violent revolutions, and the original fundamental social problems

are never overcome. Humanity knows enough to know that it does not know much at all,

and this knowledge of ignorance creates a powerful barrier in using force to change

others.

Equality identifies the right of everyone to achieve basic elements of human

welfare, but does not mean that everyone should be restricted into the same material

world, of everyone equal in their own poverty. While impossible to stop inequalities in

13

Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 178. 14

Arthur Melzer, “Esotericism and the Critique of Historicism,” American Political Science Review 100

(2006): 287.

9

wealth from developing within any society, everyone must have access to healthcare, a

place to live, food, clothing, education, and access to the evolving cultural landscape.

In terms of specific behavior, equality means that every individual has the

opportunity to produce their own material goods, to not be restricted in social intercourse

based upon privilege or wealth, and equal opportunity to influence the pursuit of

cooperative projects and other political endeavors, the ‘good-life’. Equal opportunity

does not mean everyone’s actual influence will be equal, as some within society are

likely to excel in social organization than others. Regardless, no institutional barriers can

be constructed to hinder individual opportunity.

Fraternity identifies the construction of a social family among those inclined to

participate. Hence, artificial barriers maintaining the idea of the family in modern society,

such as blood or direct marriage ties, cease to be the primary ties linking individuals

together, but rather the recognition that all humans, at the species level, belong to a broad

family. Fraternity indicates human behavior marked by groups of people sharing similar

interests, supporting each other in the struggle for survival. Fraternity implies specific

behavior of treating each other individual as a member of the same family; problems

undoubtably will arise, but rather than seeking recourse to violence, mutual

understanding based upon recognition of similar interests leads to debate, explanation,

and discussion are the means to solve disputes.

Fraternity is a broad value, and anarchist thinkers have contributed considerably

in defining fraternity in detail. Affinity is a type of fraternity that articulates a pressing

need and capability to create desired social relationships of a non-hierarchical, non-

hegemonic manner in the immediate realm of the 'now,' or the “world in which we find

ourselves actually living.”15

Affinity based groups, grounded in a belief of 'mutual aid,'

where by helping 'thy neighbor,' one helps themselves, create organizations of freely

acquiescing individuals, “outside of the state or church...for all sorts of needs.”16

As free

networks based upon the evolving needs of its members, affinity identifies how

organizational behavior is not cemented within an 'institution' in the brick and mortar

15

Richard J. F. Day, Gramsci is Dead (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 120. 16

Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1989): 66-67, in Day, 121.

10

sense, but organization becomes liquid and fluid-like that unceasingly evolves as the

needs and desires of the members oscillate.17

Gustav Landauer has further propelled the logic of affinity beyond spontaneously

arising, self-organizing networks, by placing these organizations parallel to hegemonic

state apparatuses.18

By establishing means of survival for individuals who choose to

pursue an alternative lifestyle outside of the state, structures of affinity withdraw

participation of some segments of society towards relationships of an altogether ‘new’

kind, in effect making the state redundant.19

The purpose of this, however, is not to

crescendo into a massive social migration away from the state towards affinity-based

organizations, creating a hegemony of affinity, but to build alternative networks as not

only a reclamation of the individual, but as valuable social structures “in and of

themselves.”20

By recognizing the potential of affinity relationships, possibilities for

social struggle to replace the state arise by not necessarily confronting the state.

However, there is nothing to guarantee the re-emergence of dominant-subordinate

relationships, even within affinity based relationships. By disavowing the firm structure

of the modern state, with its institutions that ensure predictability and subordination,

affinity relationships are more uncertain, existing only so long as its participants wish to

remain within them.

Modern anarchist conceptions of affinity-based relationships have become built

upon the concepts of infinite responsibility and groundless solidarity.21

Infinite

responsibility describes a process where each individual learns to recognize when or if

affinity-based relationships have been compromised and must seek out new relationships

built upon the principles the individual seeks. Infinite responsibility inherently requires

“that as individuals, as groups, we can never allow ourselves to think that we are 'done',

that we have identified all of the sites, structures and processes of oppression 'out there'

and, most crucially, 'in here', inside our own individual and group identities.”22

Moreover,

in reshaping affinity-based relationships, they are based on the concept of groundless

17

Day, 122. 18

Day, 123. 19

Day, 124 20

Day, 124. 21

Day, 18. 22

Day, 200.

11

solidarity, defined as “seeing one's own privilege and oppression in the context of other

privileges and oppressions, as so interlinked that no particular form of inequality – be it

class, race, gender, sexuality or ability – can be postulated as the central axis of struggle,”

demonstrating that consensus and disagreement never become cemented at opposite poles

based upon a relationship between domination and subordination, but are “always present,

intermixing, and at play.”23

Consequently, affinity based relationships require

participants to abandon “the fantasy that fixed, stable identities are possible and desirable,

that one identity is better than another...that the state form should act as the arbiter of who

gets what.”24

Affinity leads to human behavior that reflects an understanding of the mutual ties

binding individuals together, as individuals working alone perish. Through cooperation,

individuals create communities that can thrive. However, what distinguishes affinity

from other understandings of cooperation is the recognition that cooperation is itself

transitory, and mechanisms to facilitate cooperation will shift and change as the needs of

society progress. Hence, affinity leads to human behavior that pursues human needs in a

system of constantly changing cooperative networks.

Liberty, equality, fraternity, and affinity are the primary values supporting

governance without government, leading to human behavior characterized by the

freedom to act to change oneself without fear of coercion, equal access to ‘the good life,’

and the use of non-violent means of conflict resolution in order to solve disputes.

Creating social structures that reinforce these values require the formation of a material

system of production that does not rely on exploitation through a cooperative and gift

economy; a system of money that is not based on debt; an educational system privileging

the student rather than the teacher; and a system of communication technologies that

creates the opportunity for individuals to become the mass media, each informing every

other of events within the community, providing unlimited access to all knowledge, and

providing the means for constant communication between individuals.

23

Day, 18, 189. 24

Day, 188.

12

Section Three: Foundational Structures

Where the structure of western institutional is hierarchical, creating opportunities

for exploitation of the many by the few, constructing alternatives must be guided by the

recognition that hierarchy must be replaced through diffusion by the dispersion of power

throughout the community, rather than through different branches of government.

Three different structures create the foundation for a system of governance

without government. First is the democratization of the economy through workers

self-management, which includes creating a currency based on an energy theory of value,

and a gifting system that redistributes the social surplus of production back to the workers

within society. Second is the implementation of a system of education that permeates

throughout all areas of society, utilizing student directed learning rather than authoritarian

teacher control and is not restricted to buildings called ‘schools.’ The educational system,

while not forcing anything explicitly into the minds of students, is a means society is

imbued with the principles of permaculture. Third, a system of communications

technologies that creates the social cement connecting society through access to

information. Finally, all the foundational structures will be combined together to

demonstrate how local cooperatives can use communications technology to facilitate

organization among themselves through a table-like venue, combining elements of

technological and face-to-face communication to implement direct democratic action.

Democratizing the economy, perhaps more than any other structural change,

provides the keystone to a creating an evolvable, post-sustainable society. Political

democracy, by itself, cannot possibly have as much of an impact because people may be

able to vote while still being constrained as wage or economic slaves. From organization

of the means of production, to the currency used to facilitate exchange, all elements must

be democratized in order to move beyond the economic limitations on individual action

imposed within modern society.

Workers self-management is the first step to a democratized economy. Examples

have proliferated throughout history, from the communes in Spain created during the

revolution from 1936 to 1939, to the more recent Mondragan Workers Cooperative

Complex. Generally, self-management indicates any form of collective business

enterprise where employees, either through forms of representative or direct democracy,

13

make the decisions that allow the enterprise to continue functioning. Workers self-

management does not have a ‘blueprint,’ in which all other workers cooperatives follow,

but rather evolve organically, specifically tailored to local situations. Nevertheless, an

initial example of how to create creating workers cooperatives can be extracted from the

most successful workers cooperative to date, the Mondragon Workers Collective.

The Mondragon Collective started from the efforts of five college educated

pioneers from the Basque country in Spain. Soliciting funds from the local community

through informal, face-to-face discussions in an established social custom called the

chiquiteo, $361,604 in 1955 dollars was raised, which was used to purchase a facilitaty in

the city of Vitoria. Forming the first collective on November 12, 1956, growth has been

tremendous, beginning with one cooperative and 23 workers to 19,500 workers operating

over one hundred cooperatives by 1988.25

A schematic diagram of the constitutional apparatus’ of the Mondragon

Collectives is in Figure 1, and is a representative form of organization, but power

ultimately lies in the hands of each individual worker, operating on the principle of one

worker one vote. The general assembly is the primary power holder in the institution,

meets at least annually, and is comprised of each member of the collective. Voting is

mandatory, and if a member does not vote during a meeting, their right to vote during the

next meeting is revoked. Meetings of the general assembly can be called by the

governing council, which consists of members of the collective who have been voted to

act as representatives, or by petition by one-third of all commune members.26

The Governing Council is elected to four-year terms by the General Assembly,

without additional pay in excess of their normal salaries. Their purpose is to create

“management policies and programs,” to manage the cooperative and ensure continued

operations.27

A manager is elected by the governing council, who can be revoked at any

time, and serves a four-year term, with possibility for re-election after council review.

The council also elects the heads of each department, and the support staff for the

manager.

25

Whyte and Whyte, 3. 26

The following explanation of the Mondragon Collective organization is from William Foote Whyte and

Kathleen King Whyte, Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative

Complex (New York: ILR Press, 1988), 35-41. 27

Whyte and Whyte, 37.

14

Figure 1: Structure of a Mondragόn Cooperative

William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte, Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative

Complex (New York: ILR Press, 1988), 36.

15

The manager implements the policies conceived by the council, and similar to the council,

does not receive any additional payment for services. When either the assembly or council are

planning to vote either for decision-making or elections, “the manager has a voice but no vote.”28

Consequently, the manager only exists to streamline implementation of decisions reached by the

council, and has no financial incentive or decision making power beyond that given by the

council. Consequently, rather than being able to act like the executive of the United States, who

has significant ability to act differently than from the interests of the House of Representatives

and Senate, the manager must reflect the desires of the council and assembly, or face immediate

recall.

A third element of the Mondragon constitution is the audit committee, staffed by three

cooperative members elected by the assembly. They oversee the operations of all representative

bodies of the collective to ensure financial integrity and adherence to principles and procedures.

The management council is operated by cooperative manager, as well as the heads of

each department from marketing, finance, production, etc. The management council exists to

streamline executive decision making in a formal process, which facilitates oversight and

understanding of the operations of the cooperative by all.

While not existing when the first cooperative was created, as the collective grew, the

need for a Social Council became apparent, the original appearing in 1957. The Social Council

was created to provide an additional venue to increase workers participation in the management

of the cooperative. In 1966, the primary intellectual figurehead of the Mondragon cooperative,

Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta (Arizemendi) wrote in the Trabajo y Union, the Mondragon’s major

publication:

From the point of view of membership, we are all represented in the Governing

Council, but if that were the only organ for representation, our participation in the

firm would be very little, at least regarding the ordinary matters [of working life].

To avoid this passivity and to facilitate direct experience with many problems,

what we call the Social Council came into existence.29

The governing council and the manager were mandated by the Mondragon constitution to seek

the advice of the Social Council prior to implementing policies on various issues, such as

workers safety, compensation, and other day to day operations of the cooperative. Whereas the

28

Whyte and Whyte, 37, italics in original. 29

Whyte and Whyte, 39-40.

16

Governing Council is represented by the cooperative as a whole, each department elects

representatives to the Social Council, ensuring every area of the cooperative has a voice in

decision making processes. Originally, the Social Council was supposed have one representative

for every ten workers in any given cooperative, but as cooperatives grew, growth was limited to

around fifty persons to facilitate discussion. Primarily an advisory body, as the chairperson was

elected by the Governing Council, if disagreements occurred between the Social Council and the

Governing Council, issues can be deferred to the General Assembly, and a vote can be taken to

decide how to proceed, or to vote upon whether or not the workers should strike.

The actual procedure of voting in all councils and assemblies originally was weighted,

where managers and supervisors had more voice than the average workers. However, as lower

pay scale workers began to outnumber management, this distinction was removed as it made

little difference in the outcome of votes, and it also worked against the egalitarian values of the

cooperative.30

In terms of the actual mechanisms of voting, while not stating, the collectives

likely used plurality voting, rather than more exotic types of voting such as approval voting or

the Borda count.31

The Mondragon Cooperatives also implemented various profit sharing and financial

policies.32

The cooperative does not operate on the basis of private investors purchasing stock to

invest. Rather, finance is lended to the cooperative by the workers when they enter the

cooperative, contributing financial amounts determined by the Governing Council. Each

member was provided a capital account where profit shares are deposited on a yearly basis.

Additionally, ten percent of profits from the cooperative must be utilized for “educational,

cultural, or charitable purposes,” and an additional percentage, determined also by the Governing

Council, is set aside for reserve purposes, a ‘rainy-day’ fund. The remainder of profits are

distributed directly to workers, “in proportion to hours worked and pay level.”33

Salaries are determined following three principles. First, entry-level wages are

determined by being comparable to similar positions in private workplaces. Second, a belief of

internal solidarity stressed increases in pay for exceptional work, which was balanced with the

belief that social status based on different pay should be reduced as much as possible. Third,

30

Whyte and Whyte, 42. 31

On alternative voting types, see Erica Klarreich, “Election Selection: Are we using the worst voting procedure,”

Science News 162 (2002): 280-282. 32

From Whyte and Whyte, 42- 44. 33

Whyte and Whyte, 42.

17

information on salaries for everyone within the commune was freely available. Finally, and

perhaps most shockingly, pay ratios between entry-level workers and management could never

exceed 3:1, which due to fears that management would seek positions outside of the commune,

was increased to effectively 4.5:1, but only for management with additional work above and

beyond the norm.34

The Mondragon Cooperatives were much more than simply places to work. Numerous

support services were provided to enhance the quality of life for members. A program of social

security, which provided for the health and retirement of workers, was paid for through

deductions from member salaries. Additionally, as the cooperative grew and attracted employees

who migrated from other parts of Spain, a system of housing through construction cooperatives

was maintained, usually creating apartment high-rises near the area of work. Finally, a system of

banking was implemented in order to attract finance, service inter-cooperative transactions, and

ensure the cooperative could not fall into debt with exterior banking institutions. Consequently,

the Mondragon Cooperatives became an extended family of sorts, providing for the basic living

and retirement needs of their workers to ensure holistic communal growth.

As history as progressed, the Mondragon cooperatives have fared well, yet the

bureaucratic problems of representative social structures have slowly led to an increase in

management incomes, where the ratio of management to other labor has grown 10 to 1.35

As

Spain moved out of autarchy in the early 90s, and reduced barriers to trade, the Mondragon

Cooperatives received trade protection from the Spanish government, leading to business plans

that created industry abroad that often lacked the collective, worker controlled structure seen

within Spain.36

Meanwhile, the struggle for power between workers and management has been

under constant pressure, where eternal vigilance is required by the workers to reign in

management, demonstrating that regardless of checks and balances, representative governance

tends towards elite control.

The Mondragon Coopreative serves as a useful template in which can be tailored to an

individual regions needs, and should not be seen as the ‘be-all, end all’ of how to construct a

34

However, fears that management would leave the collective eventually were unfounded, as prior to becoming

management, workers became steeped in the ideology of the cooperative, and the work itself often was enough to

satisfy. See Whyte and Whyte, 45. 35

Alberto Letona, “In wealthy and business-savvy Basque region, the largest employer is a network of

cooperatives,” Associated Press Worldstream, 6 October, 2003. 36

Andy Robinson, Co-ops Face an Unequal Fight,” The Guardian, 2 January 1993, 31.

18

successful cooperative. Removing the ‘management middleman’ that exists in the Mondragon

Cooperatives requires new forms of organization that can be facilitated through evolving

communications technologies. Applying theories of the Gift Economy, as well as

communications technology to the Mondragon cooperative model, the representation branch of

organization can be removed and be replaced by a direct workers control.

The Gift Economy

The Gift Economy identifies a mechanism for the distribution of the social surplus, the

amount of wealth generated after accounting for all inputs.. The concept of the gift economy

may be one of the most misunderstood and least clearly explained phenomenons in modern

analysis. Rarely, if at all, is the gift economy explained in simple, straightforward parameters

that lends towards practical-based application. The gift economy, similar to the underlying

reasons people often give gifts, is often seen as a mystery. For clarity, gifts are material or

ideational ‘goods’ given to others without immediate reciprocation.

The phenomenon of gifting is often explained through language that clearly is mystified,

if lacking in any actual meaning. One example is demonstrated by Derrida, who argues that the

gift is “the impossible.”37

Identifying economics “as a science of exchange,”38

the impossibility

of the gift consequently means:

If the figure of the circle [i.e., return, reciprocity, calculation] is essential to

economics, the gift must remain aneconomic. Not that it remains foreign to the

circle, bit it must keep a relation of foreignness to the circle, a relation without

relation of familiar foreignness. It is in this sense that the gift is the impossible.

Not impossible, but the impossible. The very figure of the impossible.39

As such, the gift, becomes a phenomenon unidentifiable within economics, as gifts are not based

on reciprocity, and hence do not fit within systems of exchange. Political economy does not

speak of the gift because the theory argues that the marketplace has replaced the gift, and

unreciprocal gifting (i.e., gifting that is not based on some form of reciprocal behavior to be

expected sometime in the future) remaining in society is primarily embedded within familial ties,

37

Antonio Callari, “The ghost of the gift,” in Mark Osteen ed., The Question of the Gift: Essays across disciplines

(New York: Routledge, 2002): 256. 38

Callari, 250. 39

Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992): 7, in Callari, 257.

19

and is too small to be a major part of the economy.40

The gift, then, becomes “the excess over

exchange,” a phenomenon that occurs only when there is enough of a social surplus to allow

gifting, a surplus that while not requiring reciprocation, leads to the formation of integrating

social ties creating solidarity within a community.41

Within this milieu of discussion, the gift, by

being outside systems of exchange, “possesses the capacity to infiltrate and ultimately replace

economics,” although as to how exactly the gift accomplishes such things is left unsaid.42

The gift economy, in its most direct formation, is identified as “a system of action which

is characterized by the principle of redundancy.”43

By redundancy, the gift economy is seen to

embody one or a combination of five characteristics. First, gifts are actions that are above what

would be commonly expected, a normative offering that leads to responses such as “Oh, you

shouldn’t have!”44

Second, gifting economies may be marked by providing “no advantage to

their recipients,” meaning that the receiver does not gain anything from the gift, either because

they do not like the gift or already have it.45

Third, gift giving is marked by mutual reciprocity,

where exchange occurs between individuals, and the value of the gifts offset each other, creating

“no net benefits to their recipients.”46

Fourth, gifts may be objects that recipients have the

capability to acquire on their own, but for whatever reason do not, creating an additional

redundant quality. Finally, gifting behavior results from a ritualistic tendency to provide

numerous offerings even if only one gift is required “for the purposes of interaction courtesy,”

demonstrating that the recipient of a gift is overwhelmingly important to the giftor.47

The redundant quality of the gift economy means that gifting is not determined by the

cold “logic of necessity,” and is rather a requirement “for effective social co-operation in moral

economies.”48

From this perspective, the gift economy is the foundation in which a moral

economy, “a system of transactions which are defined as socially desirable (i.e., moral), because

40

David Cheal, The Gift Economy (New York: Routledge, 1988), 9. 41

On the relationship between gifting and social solidarity, see Aafke E. Komter, Social Solidarity and the Gift

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 42

Jack Amariglio, “Give the ghost a chance!” in Osteen ed., 268. By economics, the author refers to systems of

immediate reciprocal exchange. 43

Cheal, 12. 44

Cheal, 13. 45

Cheal, 13. 46

Cheal, 13, italics in original. 47

Cheal, 13. 48

Cheal, 14.

20

through them social ties are recognized, and balanced social relationships are maintained.”49

Existing in parallel alongside exchange-based political economy, moral economies express the

“emotional core of every individual’s social experiences,” creating social ties that are validated,

reinforced, or perhaps even destroyed, depending at least partly on occurrences within the gift

economy.50

The reputation and moral elements of the gift economy also provide an incentive for

individuals to give away much of their creative property. Much of the intellectual and creative

products within the modern economy are the result of gifting economies where programmers and

artists provide useful software and reflective art that is not paid for through monetary means, but

by creating reputation and acclaim, these contributions to the gift economy are paid for through

lasting moral relationships between society and the giftors. While not being paid monetarily,

gifting elements of society are provided the same means to achieving the good life as everyone

else in society.51

The gift economy, distilled to its essence, identifies a form of increased social solidarity

based upon gifting behavior that while not necessary for societies survival, creates recognition of

the interdependent nature of society. A gift economy in actual practice means that the social

surplus, the amount of wealth accrued within society after the costs of all inputs are taken into

account, is consequently given away and dispersed throughout society, rather than hoarded. The

gift economy is crucial in moving beyond the limitations of the current capitalist, state-based

system, because it forms lines of social solidarity that are created by interpersonal contact, rather

than enforced from above by state actors, such as the police, judges, or presidents. The gift

economy consequently balances negative liberty by ensuring people do not become entrapped

within lives of self-indulgence as they are constantly incorporated into society through gifting

relationships.

The gift economy has been criticized as requiring reciprocation in gift giving, even if

reciprocation is not immediate, the belief that there is ‘no free gift.’ There is “no obligation to

reciprocate” manifested in the process of gift giving, creating instances where gifting may occur

in the hopes of receiving something in return at a later date, but reciprocation never actually

49

Cheal, 14. 50

Cheal, 15. 51

On how gifting economies and open source software are related, see David Zeitllyn, “Gift Economies in the

Development of Open Source Software: Anthropological Reflections,” Research Policy 32 (2003): 1287-1291.

21

occurs.52

The gift economy creates a series of dependencies where people without things depend

on those who are willing to give their things away. While social stigma and other forms of moral

control can alleviate dependency, exchange-based distribution systems provide an alternative,

but parallel mechanism to reduce dependency throughout a society. Systems of markets and

exchange provide two mechanisms to reduce reliance on social bonds. First, by using a form of

monetary exchange, the importance of social bonds is reduced by reducing the cost of

association to only the exchange of materials, i.e., one person may not like another, but they can

do business together.53

Second, exchange interaction allows opportunities to “abandon the

[social] bond itself,” meaning that no one is forced to buy things in an exchange economy, and

are not directly dependent on others to receive their desires.54

The freedoms provided by an

exchange based economy allow individuals to pursue independence as long as they have some

form of means to be independent, freedom by “pulling us out of the social bond; in other words,

its freedom consists in freeing us from the social bond itself.”55

An overview of the Mondragon Cooperative, worker-controlled production systems,

combines the best elements of gifting and exchange economic systems. The cooperative

provides gifts to the workers in the form of profit sharing, creating a sense of social solidarity as

the production surplus is redistributed back into society. Because incomes of commune

members are available to all, people can see where distribution of the surplus goes, further

reinforcing collective notions of interdependence, as everyone literally sees how everyone else

benefits from collective work. Achieving the social surplus in the first place, though, is achieved

through exchange mechanisms between other cooperatives and the economies existing outside of

cooperatives, creating a sense of independence as the cooperative is able to produce many of its

own products and services.

Presumably, difference in pay will arise between workers, and concentrations in wealth

are likely to occur, which will be evident as salary information is available to all.56

To further

ensure the social surplus does not become consolidated, massive Potlatches, ritualized giving

ceremonies, presumably around the solstices, where those with substantial wealth are expected to

52

Alain Testart, “Uncertainties of the ‘Obligation to Reciprocate’: A Critique of Mauss,” in Wendy James and N. J.

Allen, eds., Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute (New York: Berhahn Books, 1998): 97. 53

Jacques t. Godbout, The World of the Gift (Ithaca: McGill-Quenn’s University Press, 1998): 191, 54

Godbout, 191. 55

Godbout, 191. 56

Salary information also must include income receive from the gift economy.

22

fund massive celebrations that further reinforce the interconnected relationship of society.

Morality, and social pressure, rather than strict codes and laws are used in instances where the

wealthy refuse to spread their savings. The avoidance of laws and the use of moral pressure is

more likely a tool to affect this behavior as by resorting to laws, baseline understandings of ‘bad’

behavior becomes institutionalized, which may lead some to explicitly pursue ‘bad’ behavior

simply because the rules say they should not. Moral persuasion, while providing a direct written

recourse if some wealthy members of society chose to not spread their wealth, creates an

inhospitable environment where the wealthy become ostracized. In extreme cases, the moral

pressure may reach such an extent that the wealthy may be hindered in accomplishing their jobs,

ultimately removing them from the cooperative economy, diminishing their wealth.

The Energy Theory of Value and Energy Currencies

Theories of value attempt to identify what constitutes the transactional worth of a human-

produced or environmentally extracted product, ideational or material. Theories of value lead to

value systems, the “intraphysic constellations of norms and precepts that guide human judgment

and action. They refer to the normative and moral frameworks people use to assign importance

and necessity to their beliefs and actions.”57

The debate over value systems has led to two major

schools, economic and ecological systems of value.

On one hand, economic systems of value have distinguished between use and exchange

value, where use value identifies how useful a good is for individuals to pursue their goals,

whereas exchange value a fungible system of value for the transference of objects from one

person to another. Economic systems of value have tended primary units of exchange, such as

Ricardian labor theories of value, where the value of an object is contained in how much labor is

required for production. More recent economists have centered theories of based on their ability

to satisfy human wants and needs, the value a good has in achieving “want, satisfaction, pleasure,

or utility goals,” labeled as consumer satisfaction.58

On the other hand, ecological systems of

value are more holistic, not just focused on human-centered exchange and usability but the

“degree to which an item contributes to an objective or condition in a system,” such as the value

57

Robert Costanza, “Value Theory and Energy,” Encyclopedia of Energy, volume 6, (2004): 337-346. 58

Constanza, 340.

23

of root systems to keep soil from eroding.59

Ecologists have proposed an energy theory of value

“based on thermodynamic principles in which solar energy is recognized to be the only primary

input to the global ecosystem,” which can then be used as a unit of exchange or as a means to

value the energy required to produce things.60

Economists have criticized the energy theory of value because does the theory does not

include consumer preferences. Similarly, anarcho-syndicalists have criticized the energy theory

of value because it “does not take into account the qualitative difference between human energy

(labor) and non-human energy.”61

According to Jeff Stein, choosing between economic and

sociological perspectives creates a theory of value that will always have hidden biases that

impact how the economic functions in a society. Rather than choosing a final theory of value

based on some form of fungible resource, the system for determining value must remain under

“community control and allow all citizens a voice as to how value should be determined.”62

Criticisms of the energy theory of value rightly point out the difficulty between managing

human and non-human sources of value, but the energy theory of value has evolved to find a

middle-ground. One of the reasons the energy theory was put forth was to move beyond a

preference-based value system, hence the criticism is taken for granted. Secondly, the means of

identifying the embodied solar energy in the production of goods and services use “economic-

input-output tables…[that] indirectly [allow] the energy theory to include human-sources in

determining value.”63

By incorporating at least marginally consumer preferences, the energy

theory of value can bridge the gap between economic and ecological systems of value by

returning to Ricardian theories of value that attempt to use labor, a currency, as the primary

comparable input in production. However, Ricardian and other single-commodity theories of

value were created prior to the development of thermodynamics, which defined energy as “the

ability to do wor,” 64

because “work is fundamentally an energy transformation process…value is

59

Constanza, 342. 60

Constanza, 343. 61

Jeff Stein, “An afterword by the translator,” in Abraham Guillen, “Principles of Anarchist Economics III,”

Libertarian Labor Review 16 (1994), available online at http://www.syndicalist.org/archives/llr14-24/16f.shtml. 62

Stein, last sentence. 63

Costanza 344. 64

Constanza, 344.

24

considered to be the result of work.”65

Energy can be labeled as the primary input for any good

because:

1. Energy is ubiquitous.

2. It is a property of all the commodities produced in economic and ecological

systems.

3. It is an essential input to all production processes.

4. Although other commodities can provide alternative sources for the energy

required to drive systems, the essential property of energy (the ability to do

work) cannot be substituted.

5. At the global scale, the earth is essentially a closed system in thermodynamic

terms (only energy crosses the boundary), so at this scale it is the only primary

input.

6. Smith’s three sources of exchange value (wages, profits, and rent) are

intermediate inputs in this global scheme and interconvertable using the

primary energy input.66

These six elements ensure energy can be used as the comparable element for all forms of human

production. Indeed, the relationship between energy and value has been empirically tested to

determine whether or not the amount of available energy is related to social production.

Comparing the ratio of energy consumption with Gross National Product (GNP), research has

shown that all changes can be directly attributed to the “quality of fuel” and the amount spent by

consumers on fuel.67

Another study, through an input-output economic model of 87 parts of the

American economy demonstrated that dollar value was “highly correlated (R2=0.85-0.98) with

the embodied energy” making the “empirical link between available energy cost and economic

value…rather strong.”68

Recognizing that energy plays the primary role in the functioning of an

economy leads to questions of how to turn energy into a system of money to facilitate economic

transactions.

An energy theory of value requires an accounting system that converts the types of

energy required to produce things into a comparable constant unit of solar energy, a task

accomplished by EMERGY (embodied energy) analysis. EMERGY analysis is an accepted

system in order to derive

65

Andrew C. Haden, “Emergy Evaluations of Denmark and Danish Agriculture,” Ekologiskt Lantbruk 37 (2003): 20,

available online at http://orgprints.org/00002837. 66

Constanza, 344. 67

Constanza, 344. 68

Constanza, 344.

25

the direct and indirect use of energy in producing a commodity, resource, fuel, or

service, in energy of one type, usually solar energy. The solar emergy in a

resource, product or service is the sum of the solar energies required to make it.69

Emergy analysis starts from the fact that originally, all energy comes from the sun, and is then

converted into various different energies throughout the environment. What starts as sunlight

eventually is converted into natural gas, oil, shirts, shoes, and humans. Emergy analysis is a

means to reconvert the different types of energy into a single comparable statistic, the solar

emjoule, which can consequently be used to determine the transference of energy throughout a

productive, ecological, and social environment. The amount of energy taken to convert energy

types of one form to units of solar energy is called a transformity, the ratio of a solar emjoule per

joule of energy. Emergy analysis has become a mainstream, and is used by the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) and other state governments to identify and plot flows of energy

throughout societies.70

An energy theory of value can be constructed using emergy analysis that creates an

economy based on the amount of energy fluctuating throughout the system. Rather than basing

value on fluctuating commercial currencies that indirectly attempt to measure value based on the

number of currency in the total system, an energy theory of value grounds the value of things in

static, measurable amounts, explicitly identifying the value of non-subjective, external costs to

production such as environmental spillover, costs to produce a good. Subjective costs of

production, such as the value of human labor, can be added to the primary emergy cost of

production, creating opportunities for profit above and beyond material costs, leading to

competition.

There are several structural obstacles in creating an economy based on the energy theory

of value. While everything can be valued in terms of their embodied energy, economies require

mechanisms to facilitate the transfer of wealth, leading to the formation of currencies. The

successful implementation of a currency requires adherence to three principles: money must be

easily transferable from one person to another to act as a ‘medium of exchange’; money must

have a ‘unit of account’, a measure to interpret value (i.e., one dollar); money must act as a ‘store

69

Adam Fenderson, “Peak Oil and Permaculture: David Holmgren on Energy Descent,” Global Public Media 6

(2004). 70

The EPA has a freely available course on Emergy analysis at

http://www.epa.gov/aed/html/collaboration/emergycourse/presentations/.

26

of value,’ meaning its value should be stable over time. Fiat money is particularly unsuited for

money because they fail to be a ‘store of value,’ as they experience significant inflation or

deflation depending on how the money supply is controlled. Tailoring an energy-based economy

requires a currency that exhibits all three characteristics.

An energy currency provides a useful unit of account because the cost to produce a good

can be expressed as units of emjouls. Energy also acts as a stable store of value because one

joule of energy is a constant that is not changed if somehow more available energy is added into

the system. The most difficult problem for an energy currency is translating energy into a

convenient and easily transferable medium of exchange. Figure 2 identifies the material source

for an energy-based currency, splitting up total energy in the earth into stationary and

transferable types. Using EMERGY analysis, the amount of stationary and transferable energy

can be identified. Using transformity equations, Transferable Energy is used as the basis for a

currency because it represents the total potential energy in social system, which can then be

transformed into goods and services through human action.

Trends in energy technology, which may ultimately lead to the construction of wireless-

based energy transfer systems, create the possibility for the implementation of an energy

Transferable

(Fungible) Energy

Basis for Currency

Stationary

(Non-fungible) Energy

Total energy in the Earth.

Figure 2: All energy in the earth can be broken into two distinct types –

Stationary and Transferable. Energy can move between stationary and

transferable forms using transference.

27

currency, as similar to credit moved from one bank computer to another, energy could be

transferred ‘through the air’ from one storage device to another. The history of wireless-based

energy transfer began with Nikolai Tesla, who acquired two patents from the United States

government in March of 1900 on wireless energy transfer, patents 0,645,576 and 0,649,621.

Using transformer coils, energy is vibrated at specific frequencies, created a cocoon of energy

that allows appliances (laptops, automobiles, anything requiring energy to work) with receiver

coils tuned to the same frequency to accept the energy and be operable.71

While still in an infant

stage, wireless based energy transfers create the possibility of a global exchange based economy

using currencies backed by the emjoule, where products are valued based on how many emjoules

were required to produce them.

As the supply of energy increases into the system, the value of a single unit of energy

does not change, because one joule of energy converted to a solar emjoule is a static constant,

and not dependent on the amount of units in the system. As more energy is available in the

system, society is able to produce more, whereas less energy means less production. If the

amount of energy produced by society becomes unlimited, a primary signpost has been met for

the formation of a post-scarcity economy, a system not limited by material production.

If inflation and deflation do not occur on an energy currency, then what changes in the

underlying processes. What will change as total energy increases or decreases, is the

opportunity costs for production of particular goods, meaning that energy is distributed towards

modes of production that create the most amount of goods for the least amount of energy.

Emergy analysis uses an equation called the emergy yield ratio, which identifies whether or not a

specific type of human production creates more or less available emergy in the system. A value

of 1 indicates the economy has gained by the process, whereas less than 1 is a net loss.72

In

times of contraction, energy is likely to be concentrated in those areas needed for human survival,

whereas in times of expansion energy is diverted to less critical means of production for survival.

71

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer. MIT successfully transferred energy wirelessly 2

meters with a 40% efficiency rating. See http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/wireless.html. 72

David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (Australia: Holmgren Design

Services, 2002). 65.

28

Combining the Workers Cooperative with Anarchist Education Techniques

Workers cooperatives fuse production and society, creating an arena for discourse, action,

and affinity. Educational infrastructures are a key component of a successful workers

cooperative, allowing important values and ideas to be inculcated in the youth (and adults if

education is sought). However, the educational techniques used should not replicate the

deficient learning methods of state-run, and most private schools. Rather, student-oriented

learning, focusing on creating no-risk educational environments for experimentation should be

the primary venue for learning. Through a combination of anarchist educational methods

stressing the principles of permaculture, students are provided the necessary tools to understand

their relationship between humanity and the environment, with a fundamental orientation

towards the future. Moreover, rather than an ‘institution’ separate from society and the

workplace, schooling will permeate throughout all areas of society to directly apply the things

learned towards each individual’s life.

American schooling, and many others around the world, maintaining an educational

system that reinforces the hierarchies manifested in government. Students are placed in little

boxes called schools, must listen to teachers, who are the highest authority in the classroom, and

are then tested on the things the teacher said. When students misbehave, they are punished by

detention. Clearly, there is no democracy in the American classroom. The fundamental

structure, similar to television, is unidirectional, teachers provide the education, and the students

must learn. Perhaps more detrimental, the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act has created

an educational system focused on indoctrinating and testing slave skills of English and math,

creating workers who are finely tuned to operate cash register, but lacking in historical and

scientific knowledge that breeds critical thinkers.

Anarchist education operates on a different level altogether. Many do not exist in

‘schools,’ classes are outside, learning is spontaneous, and there is no ‘teacher,’ rather there is a

bidirectional transference of knowledge from the youth to adults, and from adults to the youth.

Bakunin envisioned education as a system where there:

will be schools no longer; [there] will be popular academies, in which neither

pupils nor masters will be known, where the people will come freely to get, if

they need it, free instruction, and in which, rich in their own experience, they will

teach in turn many things to the professors who shall bring them knowledge

29

which they lack. This then will be a mutual instruction, an act of intellectual

fraternity.73

Popular academies can be understood as any place where learning occurs, which does not

necessarily require a building. Rather, the academy should be seen as the workers cooperative as

a whole, each area providing new venues to discuss and learn not only about practical skills to

keep the commune functioning, but philosophical issues and other basic skills.

The curriculum will be comprised of as many subjects as members of the cooperative feel

capable teaching, without stringent requirements as to exactly what each student must learn.

Similar to the educational ideas of Maria Montessori:

The object is not to teach the child certain set subjects, but to develop its bodily

senses and powers of observation and reasoning, so that it can teach itself in

accordance with the prompting of its nature. The children in school are free to

talk, site where they like, work or watch others working, just as they choose…the

teacher is not there to coerce, but to stimulate.74

Throughout the commune, students are free to explore and discuss the daily workings and

operations of material production, as well as how the organizational systems of the cooperative

operate.

Of all the classes offered by the cooperative, special attention must be placed in

understanding the principles of permaculture, which saturate cooperative production systems.

While no student can be forced to learn about permaculture, its practice must be ubiquitous

throughout the commune such that every activity seen by students can be an opportunity to

introduce and refine their understanding of permaculture principles.

Permaculture is a vast scheme of organizational principles that has evolved from a system

implementing sustainable agricultural techniques to one of a “permanent (sustainable) culture.”75

A more recent definition, which does not include everything within the scope of permaculture, is

“consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature,

while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for provision of local needs.”76

Following

the principles of permaculture, society pursue long-term, evolvable social change that moves

73

Bakunin, in Colin Ward, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 55-57 74

Matthew Thomas, Anarchist Ideas and Counter-Cultures in Britain, 1880-1914: Revolutions in Everyday Life

(Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2005): 90. 75

David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability (Australia: Holmgren Design

Servicesw, 2002): xix. 76

Holmgren, Permaculture, xix.

30

beyond sustainability by recognizing that humanity must prepare for a period of energy descent

as reliance on non-renewable energy resources has created an unsustainable human environment.

Permaculture is a set of twelve principles that focus on local production, reliance on

renewable energy, and the recognition that social change is inevitable and creates opportunities

for positive social action. While distinct, the permaculture principles can be grouped according

to three primary elements: material production, social organization, and futures thinking, forming

three pillars in developing educational settings to promote environmentally friendly workers

cooperatives.77

Permaculture perceives material production as primarily based on the use of natural

sources, either plants or animals. In planning systems of production, the first principle, ‘observe

and interact’ leads the analyst to look towards nature to understand how the local environment

operates, and create agricultural and animal production systems that recognize and synchronize

with natural patterns.78

Second, the principle ‘catch and store energy’ uses EMERGY analysis as

a means to understand how energy flows through systems of production and must be harnessed

to pursue human ends. Third, ‘obtain a yield’ again uses EMERGY analysis to identify which

production processes produce more energy than they consume, and to subsequently shift

production towards those processes that yield the most energy.79

The fifth principle, ‘use and

value renewable resources and services’ reinforces the importance of reproducible inputs in the

means of production. Rather than using oil and other non-renewable resources to produce

plastics and fuel automobiles, production should shift towards agricultural mechanisms to

produce material goods, such as using cellulosic conversion to turn plant stalks into ethanol fuel,

and plant-based composites in order to create plastics. The sixth principle for material

production is to ‘produce no waste,’ meaning that all elements of the production process must be

recycled, either through composting mechanisms to create fertilizer or reused in other production

systems. The final permaculture principle for material production is to ‘use and value diversity’

meaning that single-plant, industrial agriculture mechanisms should be discouraged in favor of

multi-crop rotational strategies that treat the soil as a living organism rather than another input to

achieve profits. Following these principles, material production can be harmonized with the

environment, creating systems of production that fulfill human material wants while balancing

77

See appendix 1 for a list of all 12 permaculture principles. 78

Holmgren, 13. 79

Holmgren, 6.

31

the needs of the ecosystem. By having the youth and other students emmersed with a production

envirionment marked by permaculture principles, the factory, the field, and the home become

unique areas to promote education.

Students are also immersed in a system of social organization based on the principles

permaculture. First, the principle ‘apply self-regulation and accept feedback’ means that

behavior should first be ‘regulated’ by the individual, rather than resorted to technological

‘quick-fixes. Humans can regulate themselves through utilizing feedback, or ‘constructive

criticism’ rather than swift punishment, in order to foster a learning environment throughout all

social activities, where mistakes are bound to happen, and education, rather than violence,

becomes the solution. Second, ‘design from patterns to details’ introduces the concept of fractals

into social design. In short, successful organization and production strategies evolve “from

simple ones that work, so finding the appropriate patter for [a] design is more important than

understanding all the details of the elements in the system.”80

When combined with the principle

to ‘use and value diversity,’ designing from patterns to details means to try out many small level

experiments in social organization, finding which is the most successful, and then carefully

increase the scope of the design as necessary. Third, organization is based on the principle

“integrate rather than segregate,’ meaning that by working together, the workload of each

individual is reduced. Consequently, rather than pigeonholing individuals into only one task,

everyone should become familiar with as many roles as they desire, constantly becoming

involved in new areas of society and participating with social renewal. Fourth, ‘using small and

slow solutions’ means social organization should not jump on the newest solution, and should

think long-term, plan accordingly, and build social infrastructure from the bottom-up rather than

enforced from the top-down. Fifth and finally, the principle ‘use edges and value the marginal’

means rather than pursuing the vogue or currently popular solution, new solutions should

carefully be implemented to see if they offer benefits not seen in previous strategies. Altogether,

social organization through permaculture becomes a slow, carefully implemented procedure,

constantly producing feedback, looking for new means to satisfy human goals, while ultimately

maintaining a balance between human and environmental needs.

Permaculture concludes with the final principle, ‘creatively use and respond to change,’

which is given its own category here because the principle must be applied to both social

80

Holmgren, 127.

32

organization and material production. In permaculture, change is perceived in two ways. On the

one hand, change must be used by humanity as a means to control their environment in a

“deliberate and cooperative way,” while concurrently responding or adapting to “large-scale

system change” that is beyond humanities capability to control.81

As material and

organizations systems develop, society must be constantly geared towards identifying new trends

and plausible futures in which societies resources should be geared towards to create the ‘good

life’ for all. Firmly embedded within this concept of change is concept of emergence, where

“self-organization within complex systems results in activity, structures and behaviors that

clearly emerge from within the system but have the effect of either transforming it or producing

some completely new system.”82

As society progress, transformation becomes an inevitable

consequence of human action, and by using long-range thinking, constructing plausible futures

scenarios, and inculcating futures thinking throughout all elements of society, transformation

periods become an opportunity for positive change rather than an inevitable descent into crisis.

Permaculture is much more complex than presented here, but the primary foundations of

synchronizing with the environment, constantly looking towards the future, and moving beyond

sustainability towards a constantly evolving society altogether creates a profound educational

system. While the workers communes do not have a ‘schooling system’ as typically understood,

by saturating the commune with the principles of permaculture and concurrently allowing every

action in society to be an opportunity to further the education of all, the communes educational

system becomes a constantly evolving, changing structure, like the society itself. While no

restrictions exist for the creation of rooms and buildings where lessons can be taught and

typically schooling pursued, the trend is to remove students from the schooling box and make the

whole of society their educational playground.

Communications Technology:

Facilitating Organization and Acting as Social Cement

Communications technology is rapidly destroying the hierarchical systems of

organization and communication that currently manifest in government and business structures.

In the influential 1937 essay, “The Nature of the Firm,” Ronald Coase identified why humans

organized themselves into corporations and hierarchical structures in pursuing economic

81

Holmgren, 239. 82

Holmgren, 265.

33

activities, rather than through contractual relationships.83

Firms arise because transaction costs

corresponding to involvement with markets creates economies of scale that create a financial

incentive to form firms. While contractual relationships are the most direct means to hire

individuals for work, costs can accrue as the number of contracts increased, where “the more

people are involved in a given task, the more potential agreements need to be negotiated to do

anything, and the greater the transaction costs.”84

By creating firms, the many costs associated

with the market can be internalized, providing protection to the firm from price changes within

the market. Built within the market system of economics is a profound incentive leading to

hierarchical business structures, rather than webs of individual contractual obligations.

Changing trends in communications technology are dramatically reducing the transaction

costs previously associated with direct contractual relationships, creating an opportunity for

increasing social organization without the need for physical organizations. Prior to the

communications revolution, only two forms of organization were seen as acceptable:

organization through the state or the market, whereas self-organization by individuals was not

discussed and not seen as possible.85

Through the use of communications technology,

organization can occur without organizations through promises, tools, and bargains.86

A

‘promise is a reason for people to organize, the ‘tool‘ is a means to facilitate coordination , and

the ‘bargain’ is a set of rules or expectations. Rather than being a specific recipe to ensure good

cooperation, the promises, tools, and bargains paradigm describes loosely the ingredients needed

to create organization without institutions, and the actual style and substance of cooperation will

be determined as situations arise.

The ‘tool’ facilitating cooperation previously was limited by physical location. The

revolutionary aspect of communications technology, reducing transactional costs of

communication that facilitates organization are seen in the constrast between unidirection and

multi-directional communication. The old paradigm, seen in television and radio technologies,

was unidirectional in that central organizations used communication mediums to transfer

83

Ronald Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica 4 (1937): 386-405, available online at

http://www.cerna.ensmp.fr/Enseignement/CoursEcoIndus/SupportsdeCours/COASE.pdf. See also “The Nature of

the Firm,” Wikipedia entry, available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm. 84

Clay Shirkey, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations (New York: The Penguin

Press, 2008): 30. 85

Shirkey, 48. 86

Clay Shirkey, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations (New York: The Penguin

Press, 2008): 260-261.

34

information that reduced potential feedback. People listened to the news on the radio, and while

they may have been able to send a letter to the station to express their thoughts, direct

participation within the production of information were absent. Moreover, unidirectional

communication was difficult to spur social organization, as participants were unable to

coordinate action due to limitations in the distance signals could travel, and the ability to directly

communicate.87

Multidirectional communication, the new ‘tool’ that makes organization without

organizatioans possible,’ and is partly embodied in the internet, and websites like MySpace, and

www.linkedin.com, creates a venue for many-to-many communications that facilitates

communication and cooperation on a global level. However, while the current manifestation of

the internet embodies much of the concepts of multidirectional communication, the internet’s

institutional structure is still hierarchical, in that computers do not directly connect with each

other and must ‘springboard’ off either hardwire or wireless infrastructure maintained by internet

service providers and governments, central-servers.. While the internet assists communication,

significant communication costs are still maintained by the reliance on organizational structures

that act as ‘gatekeepers’ to the internet: if monthly fees are not paid, communication stops. By

providing obstacles to access, the revolutionary potential of the internet is circumcised by

governments and brick-and-mortar institutions by controlling access to information.

Figure 3 identifies the primary differences between peer-to-peer and server based

networks. A server-based system re-creates the hierarchies involved in modern bureaucracies

and government by creating a central server that acts as a meeting point for all other computers

to connect. The distribution of information and attempts at communication are subject to control

as the central server can be used to create firewalls and other forms of censorship. Under a peer-

to-peer system each computer is directly connected to each other computer, making central

control impossible unless some actor is able to take physical control of each computer in the

network. Peer-to-peer networks facilitate the unfiltered distribution of information, although self-

censorship is still possible.

87

On how unidirectional mass media was seen in the previous Mass Society Era, and how multidirectional

communication is the primary information of the currently evolving ‘Information Era,’ see Douglas Blanks

Hindman, “Social Control, Social Change and Local Mass Media,” in David Demers and K. Viswanath, Mass Media,

Social Control, and Social Change (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1999).

35

The only problem with peer-to-peer systems is creating an infrastructure that allows all

computers to connect directly. Three technological trends have increased the ability of creating

regional and global peer-to-peer connections, in the development of wireless mesh networking

tropospheric scatter, and WiMax. Wireless mesh networking is the creation of peer-to-peer

communications through the use of radio signals.88

Placing wireless routers in all computers

means each computer can communicate directly with any other, only limited by the strength of

the signal. The benefit to wireless mesh networks is that no single computer is dependent on any

other, and communications can be re-routed in case several computers lose connection.

Wireless technology currently has a small broadcast range, typically between 100 and

300 feet.89

Advances in wireless technology are in development that are taking the technology to

reach global capacity. WiMax is a new technology that increased the distance of wireless

communications to 70km, though at the greatest distance there is some loss in information.

Increased distance is impossible, due to the curvature of the earth.90

WiMax is an important step

in advancing peer-to-peer networking, but truly global communication is achieved when WiMax

88

Ian F. Akyildiz amd Xudong Wang, “A Survey on Wireless Mesh Networks,” IEEE Radio Communications

(2005): S23-S30. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network. 89

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi. 90

A. Ghost et al, “Broadband wireless access with WiMax/802.16: current performance benchmarks and future

potential,” IEEE Communications Magazine 42 no.2 (2005): 129-136. WiMax sales are soaring, see Jared

Heng, :WiMax Chip Production Jumps,” Computerworld Singapore 4 May 2008, located online at

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145461/wimax_chip_production_jumps.html.

Figure 3: Peer-to-peer networks create independent connections among all users, whereas

server-based networks allow centrally systems to control what information is received.

Pictures from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer available under the GNU license.

36

is combined with the phenomon of tropospheric scattering. Figure 4 demonstrated how

tropospheric scattering bounces signals off the atmosphere to avoid limitations in wireless

communications.91

This technique is primarily used to send radio and television signals, but can

be adapted to wireless communications technology. The only limitation is that the original

wireless signal must be strong enough to reach the atmosphere, a limitation that WiMax is

overcoming.

Combining wireless mesh networking with WiMax and tropospheric scattering creates a

global wireless network that is completely uncontrollable by a central organization; ensuring

participants have few institutional restrictions on the transmission of information or the

coordination of activities. While global mesh networking is still several years off, the

foundational technologies are in place to achieve the system.

91

On tropospheric scattering on non-line-of-site-propagation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-line-of-

sight_propagation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter. For additional information on non-line of

sight wireless networks, see D. Gesbert et al, “Technologies and Performance for Non-Line=of-Sight Fixed

Broadband Wireless Access Networks,” IEEE Communications Magazine (2002): 1-8.

Figure 4: Tropospheric scattering is a means to bounce TV and Radio signals off the

atmosphere to avoid limitations in signal transmission due to the curvature of the Earth. This

technique can also be applied to wireless networking to allow signals to span continents without

physical wired infrastructures. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter.

37

Global wireless mesh networking promises to fundamentally transform how humans

communicate and cooperate. A hint of its revolutionary potential is demonstrating by the Korean

news service, OhmyNews (OMN), which proclaims “All citizens are journalists.”92

While

labeled as a digital newspaper, OMN provides a forum for people to publicize stories of their

personal lives, neighborhoods, and beliefs. In 2004, 34,000 people were registered to publish

news articles, and the news outlet was pivotal in assisting candidate Roh to win the 2003 Korean

presidential election.93

Marked by a focus on social issues not usually covered by mainstream

newspapers, and the use of primarily internet publishing (there is a weekly supplemental paper

version) OMN demonstrates how peer-to-peer style networking creates a multidirectional media

that includes numerous voices and opinions that are often not seen in unidirectional media.

Expanding peer-to-peer types of communication to all elements of society, which wireless mesh

networking allows, creates a foundation for the spread of democratic principles in all areas of

governance.

Placing the Foundations Together:

Governance as Evolving Networks

Combining a production system marked by workers control, a system of exchange based

on energy accounting with an energy currency, a parallel gift economy that distributes the social

surplus back to everyone, ubiquitous education that permeates all elements of society, and the

use of communications technologies to democratize information flows and facilitate non-

instiuttionalized organization creates a plausible, though utopian vision of society.

Rather than using the Mondragon Cooperatives as currently seen in Spain, the use of

communications technology is able to restructure the form of governance to remove the

managemerial element and completely democratize production. Figure 5 shows how

management has been removed, and workers democratically control all elements of the

cooperative. This change is based primarily on how cooperatives functioned during the Spanish

Revolution from 1936-1939, where every decision and action of production “had to be decided

92

Chang Woo-Young, “Online civic participation, and political empowerment: online media and public opinion

formation in Korea,” Media, Culture & Society 27 no. 6 (2005): 930 925-937. On the radical element of

OhmyNews, see Eun-Gyoo Kim, and James W. Hamilton, “Capitulation to capital? OhmyNews as alternative

media,” Media, Culture, & Society 28 no. 4 (2006): 541-560. 93

Woo-Young, 931.

38

and ratified by the workers themselves through conferences and congresses.”94

The audit

committee also remains, and consists of randomly chosen cooperative members who monitor

democratic ballots to reduce prospects for corruption. Unlike the Mondragon Cooperatives,

decisions within the General Assembly are reached when a two-thirds consensus has been

reached, using a Borda Count, forcing compromise and discussion on every decision reached.

However, figure 5 is simplified, in that it uses the organizational categories like

marketing and personal to define areas for action. The actual structure is likely to look more like

a mesh network, in that workers will be not be categorized into specific areas of the commune

where they are forced to stay, but rather move around, learning multiple jobs and knowledge that

can be used by the individual to their liking. Regardless, the organizational compartments in

figure 5 are still kept in the diagram, because worker action is seen as coalescing around these

areas in some way as they are needed in order to produce and distribute goods that are produced.

Deliberations within the General Assembly occur simultaneously in physical and digital

locations, as demonstrated in figure 6, ensuring deliberation can occur even if workers have left

the commune for any reason. If digital voting is required due to absences, the legitimacy of

votes taken digitally is verified by the audit committee. The overall system of voting uses

plurality rule when only two choices are on a ballot, but if numerous options appear on a ballot

due to the vast amounts of decision-making that may occur through voting, the Borda Count is

used to ensure the result of voting most accurately reflects the desires of the voters. Voting is

discouraged, however, as through constant communication and deliberation, decisions can be

reached without the use of votes and instead by mutual consent.

Internally, workers cooperatives meet the material needs and wants of members by using

the energy currency. The total transferable energy reserves of the commune serve as the basis

for the currency, and the distribution of the energy currency is determined through the General

Assembly. Priority is first given to ensure all the communes resources provide health care and

educational services for all. The remaining surplus is distributed to the workers in accordance

with the General Assembly. Workers can then use their energy currencies to procure goods and

services within the commune, or if needed, they can exchange the energy currency with a nation-

state currency through the sale of energy units. The nation-state currency can then be used by

94

Augustin Souchy, “Economic Structure and Coordination,” in Sam Dolgoff, The Anarchist Collectives: Workers’

Self-management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939 (New York: Free Life Editions, 1974): 67.

39

the worker to acquire goods not produced by the commune, such as a gameboy, or other new

technologies, goods, or services.

Workers cooperatives are the primary means through which individuals acquire their

needs and wants, but often cooperation with people outside of the cooperative is necessary.

Figure 6 illustrates how this cooperation occurs, where each cooperative directly communicates

with each other in procuring goods and services, or exchanging ideas. Each arrow identifies

transactions between each commune, either as forms of exchange, gifts, or ideas. If mass

coordination is required, such as responses to massive global changes, coordination occurs at the

Governance Table, a digital forum for cooperative coordination where collective decisions are

discussed, and voted on. As in the general assembly, at least a 2/3 majority is required to lead to

action, but by acting as a forum, most decisions should not be determined by votes, but rather by

the mutual consent of all achieved through deliberation. The governance table is the place where

cooperatives can debate strategies to defend themselves from foreign invasion, combine their

efforts to slow down or reverse global environmental degradation.

40

Figure 5: Management and other bureaucratic institutions from the Mondragon Cooperative are removed, meaning direct

democracy in the generally assembly makes all decisions associated with the cooperative. The Audit Committee is a group

of rotating cooperative members inspecting fraud in elections. The educational system permeates all areas of society,

meaning learning occurs anywhere, both within the General Assembly and every area of production.

Ubiquitous Education

System

41

General

Assembly Peer-to-Peer Computer

Networks

- Handheld digital

communication device

- Immersed Digital Realities

ala ‘Second Life.’

- Legitimacy of connection

determined through Audit

Committee.

Face-to-Face Town-Hall style

Meeting Places: Located in

each individual cooperative

Figure 6: Methods to Cooperate within the General Assembly

42

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Workers

Cooperative

Governance Table:

Digital Forum for

Cooperative

Coordination

Figure 7: Cooperatives use communications technology to coordinate group activities, or to render judgments. FIGURE Is

SIMPLIFIED, Each cooperative has direct lines of communication with each other and the Governance Table.

43

Section Four: Solutions to Government Complaints

Several innate problems of government must be overcome in designing alternative

plausible government futures. Governments are often considered too bureaucratic, fulfilling

social obligations through a maze of complex rules, regulations, and offices that often provide

poor service, strip citizens of their dignity by making them dependent on the government

services, and privilege the power of rulers over the governed by creating unequal access the

powerful can often bypass the limitations of bureaucracies through financial incentives.

Governments are also too nationalistic, creating a fiction of social solidarity by placing the needs

and rights of the ‘nation’ over those of the individual and the community. Moreover,

governments are undemocratic, using either representative devices or outright military authority

to privilege elite and powerful groups over the masses. Governments can also be described as

murderous, identifying and then killing individuals and other countries deemed unfit to live.

Government privilege domination and masculinity over alternative forms of social organization,

and are often deemed as too patriarchical. Finally, governments are unfuturistic, reacting to

changes in society and the environment rather than actively planning for plausible future changes,

consequently favoring the needs of the present over those of the future.

Solving these criticisms of government requires a re-thinking of what government entails.

Governance without government perceives social organization as a series of networks, where

production, organization, the economy are immersed within continual democratic processes

facilitated through communications technology. Networked governance is overwhelmingly

democratic, does not have any ‘rulers, create social solidarity through production and education

rather than through myths of nationalism, utilize communication and understanding rather than

murder, and do not create masculine and feminine divides as no individual is privileged over any

other.

Governance is not bureaucratic because there is no bureaucracy, only individuals

organizing themselves without institutions to directly provide for the needs of the community.

Whatever tallying, counting, or other activities typically associated with bureaucracies, for

example the tabulation and distribution of energy, are monitored by communications technology

and directly controlled by the people. By removing management and ruling minorities, the direct

organization of community members ensures attempts to form elite minorities are swiftly

clobbered by the massive majorities required erect changes within the organizational structure.

44

The problem of nationalism is dealt through two powerful mechanisms of governance.

First, the currency is not based on a decree by the state, or even of the cooperative, but rather on

the universally understood and measurable value of energy. State-based currencies are an

insidious means of reinforcing the importance of nationalism by reminding the population that

their ability to acquire goods rests on the goodwill of the state. State currencies are literally

‘nationalism in the pocketbook.’ By removing fiat money, and replacing it with a universal

system of value based on energy, the value of a currency is not based on a state, but rather on the

ability of energy to provide for the wants of the people. Governance without government also

avoids nationalism by dismantling the institutions of government, leaving only a ‘bargaining

table’ to discuss social problems, rather than numerous institutions that create and use military,

police, and other extendable means of force to coerce society into following the will of the

government. Without the state, there is no ‘nation-state’ to be privileged over the community or

the individual, rather the individual is given every opportunity to participate in production and

organization within society in a democratic manner, ensuring everyone has access to ‘the good

life.’

However, by organizing in cooperatives that in effect take care of their own members,

there is the possibility that local, communal based nationalism may arise, rather than state-based

nationalism, privileging the community over the individual. Local areas are likely to take pride

in the things they produce, creating a collective awareness that influences the choices individuals

make. As a response, individuals still have direct means of participation within community

through the General Assembly, ensuring that whatever possibly disruptive social mores arise can

be debated and acted on accordingly

All representative forms of government are undemocratic, as they create a special class of

representatives that explicitly identifies who power-hungry interests must corrupt in order to

achieve elite goals. Networked governance creates no representatives, and concurrently

democratizes both collective decision making and production. Consequently, there are no areas

within society where elite minorities can form in ways that twist social organization explicitly

towards their personal benefit. Additionally, the use of a 2/3 majority in all collective actions

means that consensus based deliberation must be used in order to narrow the actions of the

cooperative towards a specific set of actions. The tyranny of the majority is absent, as too many

votes are required for collective action. Unfortunately, this also creates the opportunity for a

45

‘tyranny of the minority’ to manipulate voting patterns against what could otherwise be

beneficial action for everyone. The only solution to a tyranny of the minority in this system is to

continually pursue consensus-based decision making processes, finding common ground on

issues that may be divisive and difficult to achieve consent. Moreover, manipulation of the

voting system through shadowy means is exceedingly difficult as the 2/3 majority requirement,

combined with the use of communications technologies and the audit committee, ensures

everyone in society has an understanding as to whether or not most people agree with a particular

course of action. When discrepancies occur, issues can be debated and acted upon in the General

Assembly.

Governments create police and military forces, which are then used to kill people,

creating a murderous atmosphere that trickles down and poisons the underlying society.

Governance avoids the problem of being too murderous by removing the special caste of police

and military, where instead of a minority, everyone becomes involved in a collective feedback

system that identifies when destructive behavior occurs and uses education and discussion to find

adequate solutions. Morality, public reputation, and if necessary shaming are the primary means

to cultivate social cohesion regarding acceptable behavior, rather than the threat of death,

decreasing the likelihood of people killing each other as people are able to talk out their

problems. Furthermore, many of the underlying reasons people kill each other in modern society

have been removed, such as the economic divergences that create a rich upper elite and

impoverished, unhealthy masses. By providing everyone access to their basic material needs and

health care, the likely source of murders within society are psychopaths, those who not only

choose not to conform with society, but instead of talking out their differences to find mutual

common ground, resort to murder. Fortunately, psychopaths make up approximately one to five

percent of society, but unfortunately, the identification of psychopaths usually only occurs after

someone has been killed, so completely removing murder is unlikely.

Many governments are patriarchical, leading to environments where women are

persecuted simply because they are women. But the problem of patriarchy extends much beyond

simply differences between men and women, but extends to the existence of a dichotomized

relationship within society. On one hand are masculine or dominant individuals, seeking to

control others around them. On the other are feminine, or subordinate individuals, who accept

46

the domination fostered upon them by others.95

The clash between domination and

subordination is at the root of all exploitative relationships, and by providing democratic means

to solve social problems, exploitative relationships, patriarchy, dissolves.

Governments are unfuturistic, rarely thinking about the needs of subsequent generations

while wasting as ‘Rome burns.’ Incorporating futures thinking in governance is accomplished

by a ubiquitous system of education that permeates the principles of permaculture through all

areas of society. By resting on an agricultural and energy system pursuing not only

sustainability, but evolvability, the ability to react and evolve to changing circumstances in a way

that ensures the cooperatives prosperity, the needs of future generations are manifested in every

activity the cooperative pursues. Using agriculture techniques based on permaculture, rather

than expendable fossil fuels to create the material needs of society, the environment is

maintained as a living organism that can provide for future generations. By using a currency

based on energy and not the whims of banks or states, falling into ‘debt’ becomes impossible,

ensuring future generations do not have to pay for the financial liabilities of their parents.

Looking forward to the future is also reinforced in networked governance by creating a direct,

multidirectional information environment that catalyzes importance discussion about the future

of society and the role of individuals within it.

Networked governance avoids many of the pitfalls of government, and creates a society

based upon providing for the needs of all individuals. The major question now becomes, how

does humanity get from the current system of nation-states and exploitation, to a system of

decentralized production and information networks. The primary mechanism to create this post-

government revolution into a system of decentralized governance networks is called ‘Viral

Democratic Transformation (VDT),’ involving the use of positive liberty balanced by Socratic

rationalism, creating self-sustaining models of production that if successful, will be mimicked by

others. Coercion or other violent means of conformity must be completely absent from VDT,

and people must be given a choice to participate within the normal state-based system, or the

workers communes, a choice that must be changeable at any time as the individuals beliefs

change. VDT is a slow, long-term process, where successful and intelligently managed

cooperatives will succeed, while other cooperatives may fail. Throughout this transformation,

95

On the root of feminism as distinguishing between domination and subordination, see Kathy E. Ferguson, The

Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1984), 92.

47

the cooperatives are likely to organize with each other to increase their resiliency to changes in

the external, state-based environment. If the networked governance structures outlined are

successful, they will attract increased immigration from the state-based system, and may

consequently become violently attacked by nation-states who perceive their own power as being

threatened by that of the cooperatives. Communication and dialogue with nation-states must be

central to the development of workers cooperatives to avoid a violent outcome.

VDT also extends to participation within the current representative systems of the nation-

state. The nation-state, while not perfectly democratic, is still open to manipulation by organized

action groups, and several strands of legislation would dramatically assist in the future

development of networked governance. First, legislation providing significant subsidies for solar,

wind, and other sustainable energy sources increase the ability of individuals to survive without

reliance on a central organizational structure, facilitating the pursuit of networked governance.

The nation-state can also assist in creating the infrastructure required for creating important

networks, such as for mesh technology, wireless and smart-grid energy transfer, similarly

reducing the dependence of the individual on the provisions of the state once the infrastructure is

created. Finally, as Emergy analysis becomes increasingly used by nation-states understand how

energy flows create the foundation for all production in society, an increasing possibility exists

to transfer the nation-state from the current system of fiat money, to a currency based on energy.

The nation-state can be used to create much of the infrastructure for network governance, but the

actual task of organization and action fall to the responsibility of individuals. As technological

trends dramatically move human society towards a network interdependence, rather than

hierarchical dominance, increasing room exists for the formation of collective support systems

that are geared towards created freedom, equality, and fraternity for all.

48

Bibliography

Akyildiz, Ian F. and Xudong Wang. “A Survey on Wireless Mesh Networks.” IEEE Radio

Communications (2005): S23-S30.

Cheal, David. The Gift Economy. New York: Routledge, 1988.

Coase, Ronald. “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica 4 (1937): 386-405, available online at

http://www.cerna.ensmp.fr/Enseignement/CoursEcoIndus/Supportsde Cours/ COASE.pdf.

Costanza, Robert. “Value Theory and Energy.” Encyclopedia of Energy 6 (2004): 337-346.

Curtis, Adam. “The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom.” Great Britain: BBC

Television Program, 11 March 2007.

Day, Richard J. F. Gramsci is Dead. London: Pluto Press, 2005.

Demers, David, and K. Viswanath. Mass Media, Social Control, and Social Change. Ames,

Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1999.

Douthwaite, Richard. The Ecology of Money. United Kingdom: Green Books, 1999.

Douthwaite, Richard. The Growth Illusion. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers,

1999.

Dolgoff, Sam. The Anarchist Collectives: Workers’ Self-management in the Spanish Revolution

1936-1939. New York: Free Life Editions, 1974.

Fenderson, Adam. “Peak Oil and Permaculture: David Holmgren on Energy Descent.” Global

Public Media 6 (2004).

Ferguson, Kathy E. The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy. Philadelphia, Temple University

Press, 1984.

Gesbert, D. et al. “Technologies and Performance for Non-Line-of-Sight Fixed Broadband

Wireless Access Networks.” IEEE Communications Magazine (2002): 1-8.

Ghost, A. et al. “Broadband wireless access with WiMax/802.16: current performance

benchmarks and future potential.” IEEE Communications Magazine 42 no.2 (2005):

129-136.

Godbout, Jacques T. The World of the Gift. Ithaca: McGill-Quenn’s University Press, 1998.

49

Guillen, Abraham. “Principles of Anarchist Economics III.” Libertarian Labor Review 16

(1994), available online at http://www.syndicalist.org/archives/llr14-24/16f.shtml.

Haden, Andrew C. “Emergy Evaluations of Denmark and Danish Agriculture.” Ekologiskt

Lantbruk 37 (2003), available online at http://orgprints.org/00002837.

Hardy, Henry, ed. Liberty: Isaiah Berlin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Heng, Jared. “WiMax Chip Production Jumps.” Computerworld Singapore 4 May 2008, located

online at

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145461/wimax_chip_production_jumps.h

tml.

Holmgren, David Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Australia:

Holmgren Design Services, 2002).

James, Wendy, and N. J. Allen, eds. Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute. New York: Berhahn

Books, 1998.

Jorgensen, S. E. “Emergy and exergy stored in genetic information.” Ecological Modeling 178

no. 1-2 (2004): 11-16.

Kim, Eun-Gyoo, and James W. Hamilton. “Capitulation to capital? OhmyNews as alternative

media.” Media, Culture, & Society 28 no. 4 (2006): 541-560.

Klarreich, Erica. “Election Selection: Are we using the worst voting procedure.” Science News

162 (2002): 280-282.

Komter, Aafke E. Social Solidarity and the Gift. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Letona, Alberto. “In wealthy and business-savvy Basque region, the largest employer is a

network of cooperatives.” Associated Press Worldstream, 6 October, 2003.

Leval, Gaston. Collectives in the Spanish Revolution. Located online at

http://libcom.org/library/collectives-leval-1#ch1.

MacCallum, Jr., G. C. “Negative and Positive Freedom.” Philosophical Review 76 (1967): 312-

334.

McLellan, David McLellan, ed. Karl Marx: Selected Writings 2nd

ed. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2006

Melzer, Arthur. “Esotericism and the Critique of Historicism.” American Political Science

Review 100 (2006): 279-295.

50

Osteen, Mark, ed. The Question of the Gift: Essays Across Disciplines. New York: Routledge,

2002.

Rhodes, R.A.W. “The New Governance: Governing without Government.” Political Studies 44

no. 4 (2008): 652-667.

Robinson, Andy. “Co-ops Face an Unequal Fight.” The Guardian, 2 January 1993, 31.

Shirkey, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New

York: The Penguin Press, 2008.

Thomas, Matthew. Anarchist Ideas and Counter-Cultures in Britain, 1880-1914: Revolutions in

Everyday Life. Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2005.

Walti, Sonja, et al. “How Democratic is “Governance”? Lessons from Swiss Drug Policy.”

Governance 17 no. 1 (2004): 83-113.

Ward, Colin. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Whyte, William Foote, and Kathleen King Whyte. Making Mondragon: The Growth and

Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex. New York: ILR Press, 1988.

Young, Robert. Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty. London: Croom

Helm, 1986.

Woo-Young, Chang. “Online civic participation and political empowerment: online media and

public opinion formation in Korea.” Media, Culture & Society 27 no. 6 (2005): 925-937.

Zeitllyn, David. “Gift Economies in the Development of Open Source Software:

Anthropological Reflections.” Research Policy 32 (2003): 1287-1291.

51

Appendix 1

The 12 Principles of Permaculture

• Observe and Interact with the Environment

• Catch and Store Energy

• Obtain a Yield

• Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback

• Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

• Produce No Waste

• Design from Patterns to Details

• Integrate Rather Than Segregate

• Use Small and Slow Solutions – Slow/Steady wins the Race

• Use and Value Diversity

• Use Edges and Value the Marginal

• Creatively Use and Respond to Change