Caractacus Pottshttps://youtu.be/cj_sL9bK6IE?si=-dxYlN6OiUg8EhIN
This is a video introducing the model for a post-capitalist economy, known as a #ParticipatoryEconomy #Parecon
YouTube
ZNet (unofficial)Mitchell Szczepanczyk, an experienced political activist and co-founded of the Chicago Area Participatory Economics Society, writes about how media might function in a participatory economy.
In this model, media production would be collective and planned by worker and consumer councils, without profit motives. Media workers would be paid based on effort, ensuring more equitable and diverse media production.
#Parecon #ParticipatoryEconomy #activism
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/media-in-a-participatory-economy/
A research article presents simulations of the democratically planned economies with encouraging results:
“…we explore one of these democratic planning models–#RobinHahnel and #MichaelAlbert’s model of a #ParticipatoryEconomy, focusing in particular on its allocation mechanism–a non-market, non-command-planning procedure known as participatory planning.”
After an overview of #parecon, the article offers experts the full #simulation model and future prospects.
Pseudocode and Algorithms for Computer Simulations of Democratically Planned Economies
The claim that “there is no third way” besides the economic models of capitalism and communism has faced a challenge from a new and growing body of research into a “third way” economic paradigm known as democratic planning. In this paper, we explore one of these democratic planning models–Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert’s model of a participatory economy, focusing in particular on its allocation mechanism–a non-market, non-command-planning procedure known as “participatory planning.” This procedure has recently been implemented in computer programs to explore its feasibility, the encouraging results of which have been published elsewhere and which we summarize here. But I present here for the first time the detailed algorithms and related pseudocode powering all of these computer programs for others to consider, examine, and build as their own programs. I also describe future directions for this avenue of research.
The BirdI think the reason I love solarpunk so much is twofold:
1. Solarpunk recognizes that our environment plays a huge role in our we survive. Adapting to our environment and working with nature not only protects us but also keeps the environment thriving for future generations. Technology is only used to assist people and the environment - not for profit.
2. Solarpunk definitely has a degrowth sort of approach to the economy. How society is rebuilt in a solarpunk world tends toward anarchist communes, participatory economies, library economies, and anti-capitalist modes of existence. Solarpunk is perfect for what Arturo Escobar calls the Pluriverse (taken from the Zapatistas of Chiapas description of a better world).
These ideas heavily influence how I build Elivera, my world-building project (that is the setting for majority of my stories).
I wrote a manifesto of my Solarpunk ideas here: https://cohost.org/TheBirdWrites/post/859437-my-solarpunk-ethos
What are your thoughts on solarpunk, fellow Mastodonians?
#Solarpunk #RandomThoughts #Degrowth #Anarchism #ParticipatoryEconomy #Pluriverse #LibraryEconomy
My Solarpunk Ethos
INTRODUCTION I recently discovered the term solarpunk in the last three years. As a science fiction writer that refuses to allow capitalism to exist in my worlds, I didn't realize there was a specific term for the type of non-capitalist worlds I was creating and the ideology I was developing. Solarpunk fit that ideology and practice perfectly. For a definition of it, I highly recommend Andrewism's What is Solarpunk? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHI61GHNGJM [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHI61GHNGJM] Every since I was a kid in high school, I created worlds that were full of life, diversity, community-based living, and communal activities. As I attended college and attempted to work (often losing my job due to disability or hating the job enough to quit), I developed these ideas by reading as many books as I could get my hands upon about community, Leftist thought, antiracism, decolonial thought, and similar topics. This is how Elivera became a solarpunk world. I'm going to dig into how I understand solarpunk, as that shapes why I crafted Elivera the way it currently is. WHY CAPITALISM IS BAD AND BANNED FROM ELIVERA It is perhaps a bit silly of me to carefully calculate the physics equations to make Elivera a retinal-world, meaning it uses retinal for photosynthesis, making most plants an indigo or violet color, but I wanted to make it visibly different from Earth. Another way I made it visibly different is it is slightly smaller with a slightly smaller gravity, thus allowing massive trees to grow to a kilometer high. The idea of cities being built in massive trees and other ecosystems, where the goal is to build with nature, is integral to my approach to solarpunk ideology. We must view nature not as a static place, but as an ever-evolving dynamic process that has every right to exist just as we have a right to exist. Capitalism doesn't view nature as a living and dynamic process. It only views nature as static resources to exploit. When our actions despoil or harm the ecosystems, thus degrading or destroying them, we harm ourselves and our ability to even have a future, but capitalism doesn't care about the future. It cares only for short-term profits, and to further grow profits in an unsustainable, endless growth model that devours everything in its path. When I was a kid, I watched Fern Gulley and was traumatized for life; it taught me a lot about environmental justice actually. The oil creature monster in that movie devoured all in its path and was an excellent metaphor for what capitalism is. This is one of the many reasons I reject capitalism and refuse to include it in my stories. Another reason is capitalism promotes unhealthy competition, individualistic selfishness, and greed. When I say unhealthy competition, this isn't to say all competition is bad; no, some competition can be in good sport or even help motivate people to innovate or create more art. Competition becomes unhealthy when it's goal is to destroy its competition, to exploit others in its attempt to win or gain more than one's fair share, and/or to destroy/exploit nature until ecosystems are destroyed or harmed beyond repair. That competition is vile and unhealthy and must be stopped at all costs. I also specify individualistic selfishness as capitalism tears down solidarity and human being's tendency toward community, collective care, and mutual aid. Capitalism must do this because mutual aid and collective care will tear up its roots and capitalism will collapse. Thus, Capitalism socializes us into this individualistic approach to life: the me-first-everyone-else-last attitude. Individualism falsely claims the idea that we are all "self-made;" that we never needed, do not need, nor should need help from anyone; that we should all "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps;" and that collective care and community is bad. This gaslighting tries to claim that this is how humanity is - greedy and selfish; when in reality, humanity has never been purely that. Humanity has only been able to persist because of collective care, mutual aid, and community building. Individualistic selfishness shatters these bonds of solidarity between us, and does this to alienate us and keep us within strict silos so we can be better exploited and used as labor for the capitalist devouring engines. SOLARPUNK MANIFESTO Solarpunk rejects unhealthy growth. Instead, it embraces harmony with one's environment, degrowth and decolonial concepts that are rooted in unlearning our unhealthy and harmful socializations from past violent regimes. Where we instead build with nature in a collaborative way. Solarpunk embraces the Pluriverse, where there is no one way for all of society and people to live/exist, but there is a multiplicity in lifestyles, ways of being, and ways of constructing society. Finding the healthiest, care-centric, equitable, just, and accessible way of being in society requires collaboration and exploration by those within that community, and often is unique to that community. Solarpunk rejects binary models. Humanity and the natural world exists in multiplicity. There are multiple genders, multiple sexual orientations, multiple ways bodies can appear, and multiple abilities, which all have validity. Solarpunk embraces accessibility and inclusivity as the foundation in which to build society and relations with one another. Solarpunk rejects individualism. Instead, it embraces collective care and solidarity between fellow human beings and non-human beings and ecosystems. Solarpunk recognizes the dynamic and ever-evolving process that is nature as well as its right to exist alongside human being's right to exist. We are in community, and that relationship with nature and one another requires collective care and solidarity. Solarpunk rejects unhealthy competition and embraces instead collaboration and conflict resolution. To build a community requires collaboration and just conflict resolution strategies. Solarpunk rejects greed and hoarding of resources that is endemic to capitalism. Instead, solarpunk embraces sharing and collectively/publicly held goods, land, information, and resources. This isn't to say solarpunk is against us personally owning things, but to say that the land itself cannot be owned as property, that public commons is crucial to survival, that information should be open and free to access and use, that healthcare is free and accessible to all, that education is free and accessible to all, that goods needed for survival must be shared equitable so no one is left behind, that all our infrastructure is collectively held and maintained, that all of our society -- every aspect of our community is accessible to all who dwell in it. Solarpunk rejects exploitation of others and one's environment. Instead, it embraces collective care and mutual aid, where we honor and respect one another's differences, identities, abilities, and actively listen and care for each other. Where we seek to do no harm and if harm is done, actively hold one another accountable and do repair. Transformative justice is often the framework used in repair. Where we work in collaboration with one another and the ecosystems in which we dwell. That we sustainably source our materials and engage in repair to ecosystems, to give them time to recover for any extraction we do to meet our collective needs. To never take more than we need and to use all that we need to avoid waste. To create things made to last, where we can repair and mend what we have and share those skills within inclusive and accessible systems, like libraries of skills, goods, books, etc. Solarpunk rejects racism, rejects white supremacy, rejects ableism, rejects classism, rejects xenophobia, rejects homophobia/transphobia, rejects bigotry that treats a group of people as less-than. Solarpunk embraces equality and equity, where no one is left behind, where non-hierarchical, horizontal democratic practices are utilized. Solarpunk rejects borders. Borders are often used to punish migrants and asylum seekers and has been a source of violence against other groups of people that is rooted in supremacy, domination, and xenophobia. Thus, solarpunk rejects it. Instead, solarpunk embraces either open borders or no borders at all. Migrants are welcomed and needs provided for just like any person dwelling in that community. This isn't an exhaustive list, but this is how I understand solarpunk. It is how I write my Elivera world, and it is the values that inform it. You can read more about Elivera at my world anvil wiki: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/elivera3A-the-lost-ones-aidanbird/ [https://www.worldanvil.com/w/elivera3A-the-lost-ones-aidanbird/] Or at my blog: https://reshapingreality.org [https://reshapingreality.org] Thanks for reading. :) Edit: I decided to crosspost this essay into the housekeeping section of my homepage for Elivera.
I've been expanding on some of my articles in my WorldAnvil for my Elivera world.
Today I'll talk about the Sunik Nation: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/elivera3A-the-lost-ones-aidanbird/a/sunik-nation-article
It is also has one of the first cities to appear on Elivera after the liberation of humanity and the time of Silence. Supki, the capital of Sunik nation, is built inside of a mountain, which each level a built above the last, with the top-most level built at the mountain top and open to the sky; this project took generations. Much of Sunik nation is mountainous, so many communities are built similarly. Sunik has open borders.
One of the primary goals for the Sunik nation was to explore a participatory economy coupled with a library economy.
#ParticipatoryEconomy requires councils of everyday people like you and me who work together to plan, adjust based on incoming data, and adapt our work based on it. All people are given what they need to survive regardless of whether they are able to work at all. No one gets left behind in this economy.
Some of the biggest influences I had come from reading Cedric Robinson, Robin Hahnel, Project Drawdown, #DisabilityJustice (Sins Invalid), #TransformativeJustice models, Andrewism's Library of Things and Solarpunk YouTube Essays, Arturo Escobar, Solarpunk zines, and the Zapatistas of Chiapas.
