Published August 30, 2014

This is the third and final post, in a three post series. The series questions some assumptions underlying libertarianism, from an NLRBE-informed perspective. It expands upon a written dialogue I recently had with a libertarian friend of mine. I thought the topic might interest other NLRBE-advocates.

More specifically, the series covers the following three issues that my friend and I discussed:

• Sustainability and decentralization, covered in the first blog post;
• Property rights, morality, and government enforcement, covered in the second blog post; and
• Competition, cooperation, evolution, and morality, covered in this final blog post of the series.

So, on to competition, cooperation, evolution, and morality:

1. Introduction
2. Studies show cooperation helps species survive evolution better than competition
3. How could it could be that cooperation yields greater evolutionary fitness than competition?
4. How could cooperation could ever be rational, for an individual actor, facing limited resources, in a given moment?
5. How the supposed “benefits” to the evolutionary fitness of our species, claimed to be realizable by running a fully competitive economic system, which accepts the possibility of “the weak” simply being allowed to”die off,” are illusory.
6. How the “negatives” of running a fully competitive economic system, which accepts the possibility of “the weak” simply being allowed to “die off,” are numerous and disastrous, both for individuals and the species as a whole, and why we can’t rely upon morality to escape those negatives.
7. Why the common misperception that evolution favors the most competitive.
8. Conclusion

My libertarian friend’s perspective:

“Understand that competition is good. Survival of the fittest is good. Dog eat dog is good. It shouldn’t be too hard. It’s what got us here in the first place. Without competitive evolution, we’d be a lump of slime. Competition in markets and ideas is one of the most powerful tools humanity wields. It’s the most feared notion by the ruling class. Competition tends toward producing the best outcome…”

My perspective:

This is a commonly held view, to be sure.

But what if the opposite is in fact the case? That is, what if the evolutionarily “fittest” individuals and species are actually those who cooperate best, rather than those who compete best.

After a great deal of thought, study, and review of relevant research, I have concluded that the opposite is in fact the case.

That is, I have concluded that the individuals and species most likely to survive evolution are those who cooperate best, not those who compete best.

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Darwin himself concluded that those species most likely to survive natural selection (“survival of the fittest” was not his term, but Herbert Spencer’s) are not the physically strongest, nor the most cunning, but those who learn to mutually support one another, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the community as a whole.

Based on studies of numerous species, Darwin found that “those communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.” The Descent of Man, 2nd ed., p 163.

And the documentation of such findings, about the most cooperative animals being the ones that survive best, continued from Darwin’s time on. It is covered well in books like “Mutual aid: A Factor of Evolution,” by Peter Kropotkin and “Cooperation Among Animals,” by W.C. Alley, and “Darwin,” by Ashley Montague.

As summarized in the book “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” by Alfie Kohn, “[Researchers have concluded] not only that animals [who have survived natural selection] tend to avoid competition, but that their behaviors [are] overwhelmingly characterized by its opposite – cooperation.”

But why?

As also noted in the book “No Contest,” by Alfie Kohn, “It is in the interest of both individuals (or species) if they do not compete over, say, a watering hole; migration is one of many strategies that will allow both parties to survive.”

The example of the cooperative, win-win strategy of migration reminds me of ways in which some humans have learned to communicate cooperatively.

Pockets of humanity have experimented successfully with various cooperative communication methods. These methods permit fluid discovery of win-win “third ways.” These “third ways” are essentially mutually beneficial strategies. They permit all parties to survive, and even thrive, without the stress, death, and destruction so often accompanying competition.

Examples of such communication methods include interest-based negotiation, various consensus processes, and Nonviolent Communication™.

All of these methods essentially try to look underneath people’s incompatible strategies, of trying to acquire and exert exclusive dominance over the exact same item, for example. They look for underlying “interests,” or “needs,” and brainstorm creative strategies for meeting all the needs, in peaceful, nonviolent, cooperation.

I think of these communication methods when I read the migration example above. It’s as though each species discovered that their underlying need was water, not the identical strategy of drinking from the exact same watering hole, at the exact same time. It’s as though they used interest-based thinking, negotiating, and brainstorming, and thereby discovered the mutually beneficial strategy of simply traveling as necessary to access more watering holes. A doable way for all to drink and survive in peace.

And so, although it’s unlikely that many other species use anything like the human version of “interest-based thinking, negotiating, brainstorming,” they clearly do discover mutually beneficial strategies, thereby avoiding the death and destruction that so often comes along with competition.

So, you might say then that one way in which cooperation could yield greater evolutionary fitness than competition, is by allowing for the peaceful discovery and implementation of creative strategies, which permit more needs to get met, with less violence, death, and destruction in the process.

I love the way Alfie Kohn put this question, in his book “No Contest,” “The fact that we do not generally do our best in a competitive situation will strike some people as being beside the point. Here are two hungry individuals; there is one dinner. Here are 10 unemployed laborers; there is one job. How can the individuals involved be expected to do anything but compete? Isn’t competition the most productive response – indeed, the only rational one?”

I equally love his answer to this apparent quandary:

“The answer, I will argue, is that it depends on the perspective we take and even on our definition of rationality itself. Calling our basic assumptions into question tends to make habitual solutions seem much less obvious. . . . We can offer definite opinion – or any opinion, for that matter – only if we have accepted at face value a hypothetical situation (condensed into one sentence) that freezes the action.  . . . Competing for a job or plate of food is a reasonable choice only if we restrict our vision to the situation as it exists in a given instant – if we disregard causes, consequences, and context. Really, we should want to know why the desired object is in short supply, what might’ve prevented the situation from having developed in the first place, how a competitive response will affect the two individuals tomorrow (as well as what other consequences it will have), and so forth.”

We can see from contemplating the foregoing, how it could be that individuals and species who consider broader causes, consequences, and context, who proactively look for mutually beneficial ways to get all needs met cooperatively, might be the most “rational” of all.

In other words, while it may be relatively rational to compete in a given moment, when our short-term survival is at stake, when we have not taken preventative measures, and when we’re not aware of any immediately available, cooperative, win-win alternatives, wouldn’t it be most rational to prevent such dilemmas from occurring in the first instance?

That is, we might say that it would be most rational of all 1) to proactively and cooperatively prevent such tragic dilemmas from arising in the first place; and 2) when such dilemmas do nonetheless arise, habitually seek out and adopt cooperative alternatives whenever possible.

Likewise, perhaps we could see how those individuals and species who are most rational, in the foregoing sense, might also be those best equipped to survive natural selection; and how those individuals and species best able to establish such rational, forward thinking cooperation as their societal norm (in the observational sense, as in what’s usually or typically displayed, not in the moral sense), might be the best equipped of all.

Why might forward-thinking cooperation being the norm be so advantageous?

In a society in which cooperation is the norm, it seems safe to assume that all parties would regularly choose to cooperate, having been habituated and enculturated to make this choice, and having developed deep, justifiable trust that others would therefore make the cooperative choice as well. We can predict a “virtuous” cycle would ensue, in which cooperative outcomes and all concomitant benefits would become increasingly ensured.

Let’s examine all the aforementioned conclusions in the context of the classic Prisoners’ Dilemma game, so popular among psychologists.

The game presents a “frozen moment” in time, the type Alfie Kohn described in the portion of “No Contest” as excerpted above.

That is, in the game, cooperation is not the norm, immediate short-term well-being is on the line, preventative steps have apparently not been taken, and broadest consequences and context have not been considered.

Therefore, not surprisingly, it’s a situation in which players always “rationally,” i.e., in the lesser sense, described earlier, choose sub-optimal outcomes. The outcomes are sub-optimal for both each player as an individual, and for the two of them together, considered as a unit or small group.

The game goes like this, as explained here:

“Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. The police admit they don’t have enough evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They plan to sentence both to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the police offer each prisoner a Faustian bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other [to ‘defect’], by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent [to ‘cooperate’].”

Each of two players – under the above fact-pattern – simultaneously chooses to “cooperate” or “defect,” and their decisions, taken together, determine the rewards:

• Both cooperate (i.e., both remain silent, and each can be and is only convicted on the lesser charge):
  • You: 1 year
  • Other: 1 year
• One defects; the other cooperates (i.e., the defector testifies that the cooperator committed the principal charge, punishable by 2 years in prison, in exchange for being set free, while the cooperator remains silent):
  • Defector: 0 years
  • Cooperator: 3 years (convicted on both the primary and lesser charge)
• Both defect (i.e., both agree to testify that the other committed the principal charge in exchange for only being prosecuted for that principal and not the lesser charge, presumably):
  • You: 2
  • Other: 2

In addition to parameters already discussed, the game assumes that the prisoners have no loyalty to one another and they will have no opportunity for retribution or reward outside the game, which will be played only once. The game also assumes and factors in no awareness or concern about broader consequences, or internal individual reward from acting altruistically or cooperatively, either for its own sake or in the name of the common good.

Given all the above, understandably, the prediction is that you will always get “rationally,” in the lesser sense, chosen double defections.

That is, the situation has not been proactively prevented, and, in the moment neither prisoner will have enough trust in the other, independently assured well-being, or other sufficient motivation, to “rationally” be able to take the risk of cooperating. Hence, both will defect.

So, with the game as originally structured at least, you will always get second best individual outcomes, and third best group total outcome (the latter because there are a hefty four years served total if both defect; three years total served if one defects and the other cooperates; and only two years total served if both cooperate).

Now, think of the Prisoners’ Dilemma in a different context. Imagine it in the realm of competition for resources to survive. And imagine players can communicate with one another. All other factors, such as cooperation not being the norm, etc., are the same.

In such a game, we might predict many would conclude it would be in their best interests to put their energy into trying to trick others into cooperating, while they defect. After all, in this version of the game, as in real life, players can communicate with one another. And, all appearances suggest that trying to trick others into cooperation while one defects would yield the best individual outcome, or at least the best narrow, short-term individual outcome, right?

And one might go further and argue that many of the wealthy in our world do just that. Consider the psychological manipulation, via advertising and propaganda, that the wealthy can afford to, and do in fact, research and apply. It is used to convince the masses to cooperate with, to literally “buy into,” a system that increasingly leaves them worse off relative to the wealthy (see page 20 of this thorough Unicef report).

But what if even the wealthy began to see that it was in their broader, long-term (and hence future short-term) best interests, to instead support all, including themselves, in regularly choosing mutual cooperation? What if they thereby became motivated to help create a society in which the most rational approach of all, proactive, mutual cooperation, was the norm and hence could routinely become the most rational choice for individuals in each moment as well?

Perhaps the wealthy might conclude and act on this, if there was more exposure to relatively recent research, demonstrating that the kind of inequality represented by 3-0 outcomes, is ultimately unhealthy and unsustainable for all, across the income spectrum. (For all the details and evidence supporting this conclusion, see section VI, below). And if there were greater understanding of the fact that mutual cooperation could help us survive as a species better than competition, as detailed throughout this post. And if there were more widely dispersed knowledge about how a cooperative economy, such as an NLRBE, could make cooperation the norm, and ultimately yield higher levels of short-term individual, as well as long-term and species-wide well-being, as detailed in this post?

Perhaps then, we might see more and more of the wealthy, and others who have independently secured well-being, doing whatever they could to help make cooperation the norm. This might, in turn, help proactively and preventatively minimize the number of Prisoners’ Dilemmas that occur in the first place.

But what’s the importance of “independently secured well-being”?

First, consider the following.

Some who have continued research into variations of the Prisoners’ Dilemma game have found that mutual cooperation is a more likely outcome when there will be an unknown number of repeated games played, and at least one party starts with cooperation by default, only responding with non-cooperation in response to a non-cooperative move by the other side, and periodically “forgiving,” i.e., cooperating despite a prior defection by the other side. Perhaps this works better because playing “nice” in this way helps build trust. For more on this research, click here.

Putting this research in the context of our real-life, competition-for-survival-resources version of the Prisoners’ Dilemma, we can hypothesize that players who are have independently secured well-being, e.g., who are independently wealthy or otherwise able to comfortably survive or “afford” a sacrifice of short-term gain, and who understand and care about the importance of establishing normalized, proactive, mutual cooperation, might be those most able to cooperate, even when the other side, predictably, defects.

And by making this choice regularly, and investing their wealth in creating contexts in which everyone can have independently secured well-being, or needs met by design, we could anticipate all “sides” becoming maximally able to “afford” mutual cooperation, and choosing it, regardless of any hypothetical risk of short-term loss from a defection of others.

And, most importantly, if contexts like these were plentiful enough, no one would have anything interfering with what would otherwise be their “intrinsic motivation,” to cooperatively contribute to the long-term, broadly conceived well-being of themselves and their species.

What do I mean by citing “intrinsic motivation,” and why might it involve such a desire to contribute?

For reasons explored more in section VI of this post, we know that when people’s needs are fully met, they have intrinsic interest in contributing to higher purposes, such as their and others’ broader, long-term well-being.

By contrast, when people’s survival is at stake, and they’re forced to choose between their narrow, short-term well-being and a higher purpose, they tend to choose the former, as suggested by the Prisoners’ Dilemma game. That is, they tend to move into flight-fight-freeze mode, becoming much less able and likely to make choices in line with broader, longer-term well-being.

Given this, if we can create a world in which needs are met abundantly, cooperatively, and by design, it seems we could expect that more people will be more likely to consistently cooperate and act in alignment with broader, long-term, species-wide well-being.

But how could this be done?

There are many possibilities.

One of these possibilities is something that I and many others are very intrigued with. That is, the creation of numerous, inclusive, fully-cooperative intentional communities, as a transition to cooperation as the new normal, hopefully someday the world-wide new normal.

That is, we’re intrigued with creating intentional housing communities, within which there is no competition for survival. We’re interested in communities which is there is free sharing, a use and access property system, income sharing, volunteerism, and egalitarianism.

In similar communities that already exist, like Twin Oaks, in Virginia, we see little to no crime or other destructive, unsustainable, uncooperative choices, let alone anything like Prisoners’ Dilemmas. Rather we see peaceful, sustainable, cooperative productivity.

That’s presumably because people are enmeshed in long-term, cooperative, trust-filled contexts,where their own short-term well-being is a relative given,and never pitted against another’s.

For more details and evidence regarding why we see, and can expect to see, such positive outcomes in such communities, or in a world-wide “community” of this type, see my description of the benefits of an NLRBE.

Speaking of the NLRBE model, many of us are particularly interested in creating high technology, low-labor versions of the aforementioned communities – closer to mini-NLRBEs in that way. See for example, One Community’s vision.

We believe higher technology and reduced labor communities can offer greater confidence in needs continually being unconditionally and uncompetitively met, and accordingly, lower fight-flight-freeze levels, and higher cooperation and innovation levels. We also believe such communities could better attract and hold mainstream interest and adoption, by offering maximally efficient, abundant, and comfortable styles of cooperative living.

Many of us are hopeful that, by creating such communities, which evidence less stressful lives and relationships, as well as significantly higher material and social abundance, we might gradually make cooperation the norm worldwide, and perhaps someday even advance to a full NLRBE.

I hope, from the foregoing, that it’s not too hard to see how it can be rational to cooperate, and most rational of all for us to work together to make proactive cooperation the trusted norm. I hope also the ideas proposed towards the end have given some reason to hope that a transition to cooperation as the norm might be doable.

Social Darwinists, over time, have argued that we should simply let the “weak perish,” in order to improve the human gene pool, and accordingly, improving our chances of surviving natural selection.

I bring this up here, because the implications of much of my libertarian friend’s commentary were essentially this.

So let’s dig into the ever-growing mountain of evidence related to the negligible supposed “benefits” to the evolutionary fitness of our species by accepting the possibility of “the weak” dying off, with the disastrous consequences, species-wide, of doing so.

(Please note, I find it extremely challenging to even discuss this in the hypothetical, haunted, as I am, by the knowledge of the slippery slope down which so many have tumbled who began by seriously considering this, going from Social Darwinism, to eugenics, to Nazi-ism and like-minded ideologies and practices. I carry on with it nonetheless, but solely to make the point that it is a nonstarter.)

First, it’s important to acknowledge that “the weak” don’t “die off,” so much as they fester, commit crime, protest, disrupt, and drag the entire society down.

Second, even if the foregoing were not the case, studies have increasingly shown us that how “weak” the vast majority of people are, is hugely related to their environment, rather than being a pure product of their genetic composition.

So, even if “the weak” dying off was likely, and something we were okay with – neither of which I believe is the case – that would arguably do little or nothing to improve the human gene pool.

And even if genes were the undisputed predictor of how well people contribute in this world, with rapidly developing technologies in genetics, we have every reason to suspect that people will soon be able to seek and receive gene therapy to alter virtually any gene they believe will limit their lives or productive potential. (Note, I am not advocating gene therapy at the initiative of anyone other than individual recipients themselves, except perhaps caring parents, under extremely limited circumstances.)

But, in any event, for the most common factors that limit human productivity, this kind of therapy would arguably be unnecessary.

Why?

Because, again, of the massive role environment plays in who we become, and how much we can contribute.

More and more evidence, from the fields of genetics, psychology, developmental psychology, pediatrics, and social science, has documented the profound impact of environmental factors, from prenatal to societal, on virtually every facet of who we become, and what we’re capable of contributing.

We are discovering that even the expression of many of our genes is influenced massively by our environment (see the study of epigenetics).

And, when it comes to the effects of the environment, it’s garbage in, garbage out …

• Not lucky enough to have had adequate nutrition, between the ages of zero and two? That introduced you to significantly higher risk of developing a low IQ, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and anemia, on into adulthood, even if adequately nourished after the age of two. For more details as applied to the children of Guatemala, click here.
• Not lucky enough to have been breast-fed during the critical early years? That introduced you to a higher risk of developing a low IQ, behavioral and mental health problems, chronic obesity, almost every type of disease (from cancer to diabetes), etc.. For more details, click here.
• Not lucky enough to have been spared chronic stress as a child? That introduced you to a significantly higher risk of suffering developmental delays and later health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, substance abuse, and depression. For more details, click here.
• Not lucky enough to have grown up with a father in the home? That introduced you to a higher risk of poverty, educational deficits, being abused, becoming addicted, obesity, dying in infancy, emotional and behavioral problems, aggressive tendencies, criminal behavior,  incarceration, sexual activity and pregnancy as a teen, etc. For more details click here.
• Not lucky enough to have been born into a family living above the poverty line? That introduced you to a host of risks, including most of those already named, such as poor nutrition and chronic stress, and all the attendant risks of both of these. Also, and to some extent overlapping, it introduced you to a higher risk of experiencing hunger; premature birth; low birth rate; smaller head size and lower brain weight at birth; chronic health conditions, such as asthma, anemia, and pneumonia; lower levels of concentration and memory; greater dropout rates; educational deficits; higher tendencies to participate in risky behaviors, such as smoking and early sexual activity; behavioral problems; emotional problems, including depression, anxiety, withdrawal, and poor self-esteem; debility of parents, itself leading itself leading to poorer social and emotion outcomes for children; greater exposure to environmental toxins, e.g., lead paint and toxic waste dumps; greater exposure to violence and unsafe neighborhoods, introducing a greater risk of injury, violent behavior, criminal behavior and incarceration; adult poverty; poverty continuing into future generations; and homelessness, with accompanying higher risks of all of the above. For more details, click here.

And on it goes . . .

So, if we think about letting “the weak” die off, aren’t we really thinking about letting mostly the merely unlucky die off?

And how does that benefit our species?

And could such “benefits,” of which I see none, outweigh the mountain of negatives we suffer, individually and societally, when we accept the possibility of the merely unlucky dying off; when we compete, rather than cooperate; when we run a competitive versus a cooperative economic system?i

What negatives?

The first negative, of running a fully (and arguably to any extent) competitive economic system, which accepts the possibility of “the weak” simply being allowed to “die off,” is the fact that in reality you get struggle and mistrust, leading to the kind of the kind of sub-optimal group and individual long-term outcomes, described above, in the Prisoners’ Dilemma discussion.

The second negative relates to both the first, and  to points made earlier about the importance of cooperation to evolutionary fitness. That is, in fully competitive systems we can expect to see a lower chance of our species surviving natural selection.

The third negative relates to both the first and second negatives, and really is many negatives packed into one.

That is, it’s actually a long list of negative impacts, on individual and species-wide productivity and social stability, resulting from the insertion of “extrinsic” motivators.

What is an “extrinsic” motivator?

When you dangle out something, like survival, as a “prize,” for, let’s say, working, or doing something else to get money, when you could instead systematically provide it unconditionally as a society, you have thereby introduced an “extrinsic” motivator.

Similarly, when you threaten a punishment, like lack of survival, for failure to perform in a certain way, that is also an extrinsic motivator. These are contrasted with “intrinsic” motivators, which produce significantly higher quality outcomes.

As a simple example to illustrate the difference, if I am offered a gold star to read a book, that gold star is an extrinsic motivator. On the other hand, if I am drawn to read the book in order to satiate my own curiosity, fulfill a larger purpose or mission I have, or to meet my need for mastery, those draws are intrinsic motivators.

Competition, by definition, involves extrinsic motivators. This is because it involves striving against one or more others to be the “winner,” that is to be the one to receive a particular reward, and/or avoid a particular punishment.

And in every version of a libertarian system I’ve heard described, competition is king, and survival is effectively an extrinsic motivator. That is, for all relevant intents and purposes, it is effectively a reward for winning the opportunity to work, or otherwise secure money or goods. And lack of survival (and/or utter dependence upon unreliable charity) is effectively the punishment for failing to secure an opportunity to work, or otherwise secure money or goods.

In other words, in all competitive economic systems, extrinsic motivators are used to compel work. Reliance is not placed, by contrast, upon intrinsic motivation, as would be the case in an NLRBE.

Let me flesh this out a bit more, as it applies to economic systems specifically. Also, along the way I’ll explain why extrinsic motivators are so toxic to individuals and the species.

Many of those who have thoroughly analyzed what is possible believe that we have enough, resource-wise and technology-wise, on this planet, to meet everyone’s needs as a given. See, for example, the very recent and thorough analysis conducted by The Zeitgeist Movement, as well as the work of Jacque Fresco and Buckminster Fuller.

Yet some fear that simply meeting everyone’s needs by design, as would be the case in an NLRBE, would destroy motivation and innovation. Indeed, there is fear that we we wouldn’t even end up with the few number of volunteers necessary to maintain an NLRBE.

But this belief is based upon out-dated understandings of human behavior and motivation.

As evidenced by hundreds of relatively recent studies, well-documented in books like “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us,” by Dan Pink, and “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, As, Praise, and Other Bribes,” and “No Contest: The Case Against Competition,” by Alfie Kohn, referenced earlier, we are motivated to do the most innovative work when our needs are met as a given.

By contrast, even the mere offering of extrinsic motivators does the opposite, introducing a litany of problematic outcomes – ultimately problematic for both the individuals offered the motivators, and the species as a whole.

These problematic outcomes include:

• significant reduction in quality of output;
• lower rates of innovation;
• lower rates of accuracy;
• less creative problem-solving;
• less beneficial risk-taking;
• greater tendency to do the least necessary to attain the reward, or avoid the punishment;
• greater tendency to cheat;
• greater risk of developing chronic stress, anxiety, anger, or rebellion;
• relationship problems;
• less willingness to admit mistakes, and thereby seek and receive more learning;
• less and shorter retention of information learned;
• poorer understanding;
• poorer judgment;
• detrimental levels of focus on strategy over substance;
• and, perhaps most troubling, a long-lasting, pervasive, difficult to overcome reduction in intrinsic interest, which usually spreads beyond the rewarded activity to infect other activities the reward offeree finds similar. For example, if I am rewarded to read, I may no longer enjoy and seek out opportunities to voluntarily engage in reading . . . or math . . . or other academic subjects.

By contrast, when our needs are met, fully and unconditionally, not contingently, and we are allowed to simply contribute based on our intrinsic interests (e.g., broader purpose and mastery), we want to and eagerly do contribute, and do so in ways opposite of those listed above. The only documented exception to this may be in the case of extremely mundane and easily automatable tasks.

So, for all the endeavors that matter, when allowed to be motivated purely by intrinsic interests, we voluntarily and earnestly contribute in ways that generate higher quality output, greater levels of innovation, greater accuracy, higher levels of creative problem-solving, higher levels of beneficial risk-taking and “playing with the possibilities,” a tendency to go “the extra mile,” with more focus and  fairness, better mental health prognosis, better relationship health and social adaptation potential, more willingness to admit mistakes and thereby invite more learning, more and longer retention of information learned, deeper understanding, better judgment, more focus on substance over strategy, and retention of intrinsic interest.

And this makes so much sense, given our ever-increasing understanding of neuroscience.

We now know that when our needs are not fully met, in that we perceive our very survival may be at stake, most of the brain’s energy can get diverted to fuel fight-flight-freeze reactions, bypassing the reasonable, insightful, creative, playful, empathic, constructive, socially adept neocortex. Click here for more details.

The result? We “can’t think straight,” or produce as well, as individuals, or as a group.

The fourth negative for individuals and our species as a whole, of running fully or highly competitive economic systems, at least, i.e. systems, like libertarianism and US-style capitalism, that do not at least largely offset inequality through redistributive policies, is the high level of endemic inequality that can become entrenched and endlessly grow, and its devastating effects on all aspects of public health, across the income spectrum.

These negatively impacted aspects of public health include: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, violence, teenage pregnancies, child well-being, and trust and community life. For a quick summary of the data, I invite you to check out the TEDTalk at http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson. For greater details, check out the website at http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/research/why-more-equality.

The fifth negative of running any competitive economic system, relates to the resulting material and time inefficiencies, compared with the efficiencies of cooperative systems.

Let’s list just a few of the efficiencies hopefully we can agree are realizable in a successful cooperative economic system, like an NLRBE, compared to competitive ones (for a more thorough analysis of these, I invite readers to check out my analysis in this blog post, as well as the astounding book, free online, recently published by The Zeitgeist Movement, “The Zeitgeist Movement Defined: Realizing a New Train of Thought”:

• fewer resources, both natural and human, necessary, when we all work together to create the best product;
• less duplication of time and effort;
• no resources spent on patent and copyright protection (in 2011 Google and Apple spent more on patent protection alone than they did on research and development);
• no time or resources spent to manipulate and addict people into buying products they don’t need and wouldn’t necessarily even want, if they were free from manipulation and addiction;
• no material resources wasted in products designed for the dump, to secure maximal profit, i.e., intrinsic and designed obsolescence, discussed more below;
• fewer resources by far required for a high standard of living, with cooperative use and access property systems, rather than exclusionary, competition-based, property ownership systems;
• no more time or resources spent on activities of monetary tracking, from accounting to banking; and
• no more time or resources spent on exclusion, punishment, or preventable disease treatment, from the prison system to the drug rehabilitation sector.

The sixth negative (and the last for now – although I’m currently reading about a lot more), of running any competitive economic system, is actually more of an elaboration of something I already mentioned above.

Remember the following two negatives of introducing extrinsic motivators; greater tendency to do the least necessary to attain a reward or avoid a punishment; and a greater tendency to cheat?

Consider those two, and all the other negative behavior responses to extrinsic rewards, and how extremely they might manifest themselves in a context where it’s not merely a gold star, or a gold medal at stake, but it’s your very survival at stake, it’s your ability to put food on the table for your child.

What are people more likely to do, when they’re back’s against the wall, survival-wise; when they’re not thinking clearly; when they’re not doing so well at the moment; when they’re in fight-flight-freeze mode generally; or when they’re simply petrified of falling from a high, comfortable place, into the unknown?

They are more likely to do whatever they can get away with to attain the reward of secured survival, and avoid the punishment of insecure survival. That is, they are more likely to engage in anti-social practices that we tend to consider “greedy,” “corrupt,” “cheating,” or even “criminal.”

Accordingly, amongst the poor, perhaps we needn’t be surprised to see a higher risk that they’ll commit common crimes.

And, amongst the wealthy, perhaps we needn’t be surprised to see a risk that they’ll]:

• commit white collar crime;
• study and manipulate others, encouraging them to fork over what little they have to them – studying their psychology and physiology, and using this to addict them and sell them things they don’t need (for more details, you can begin here);
• design in obsolescence to the goods they sell, aka engage in “planned obsolescence“;
• scrimp on input materials and thereby create intrinsic (or competitive) obsolescence (for details see pg 101 of the book “TZM Defined”);
• inadvertently cause all the unnecessary waste and resource depletion that comes with all three of the foregoing;
• underinvest in solving chronic problems, like cancer and water pollution, if/when you can instead profit from ongoing band-aid “treatments” for their symptoms (for more discussion of this topic, see the bottom of pg 133 of the book “TZM Defined”);
• squelch innovation that threatens their market share, of, for example, dirty fuels and technology, possibly squashing, or at least delaying the onset of clean fuels and technology (for more discussion of this topic, see the bottom of pg 122 of the book “TZM Defined”);
• and, most problematic for libertarianism … invent and manipulate large tools, like governments, legislators, monetary institutions (like the Federal Reserve System), and militaries, to acquire and hoard resources (this is why I fear libertarianism’s vision of a manipulation-free government and monetary system, co-existent with a fully competitive, survival’s-at-risk system, is likely inherently unstable) (for more discussion of this topic, see the bottom of pgs 125-132 of the book “TZM Defined”);

In short, when a person’s survival is not assured by the system, perhaps we needn’t be surprised to see levels of fight-flight-freeze insecurities that lead to anti-social action, even when it’s otherwise not in alignment with that person’s basic values, or with the sustainable viability of their children’s social or environmental habitat.

Some say morality is the answer.

But is morality either a reliable or realistic remedy to the aforementioned negative?

Have people’s efforts to promote and rely upon that been a remedy so far?

Has it or could it reliably ensure that enough people would give away enough in charity, in their massively insecure frames of mind, to make up for inequality, even if it even could?

Or, alternatively, has it or could it reliably ensure that enough people would just peacefully allow themselves and their children to wither away, rather than cheat, cut corners, manipulate tools at their disposal, or otherwise do whatever they have to do to secure survival, bringing down our environment, public health, and species as a whole, in the process?
And even if morality could be relied upon to do the forgoing, would we be okay with people en masse just dying off without struggle on their part or ours to prevent them from being excluded from equal access to the fruits of the earth?

Has it not, or might it not, instead just add to our problems, introducing irreconcilable arguments, unresolvable debates, and ideological wars, in the name of non-empirical versions of what is moral, disputes about who gets to say what is moral, and so on?

And, finally, in any event, to the extent some people believe in and value morality, would their values not be most fulfilled, by working to allow every human being to have equal access to the fruits of the earth, the way we so readily could, with an NLRBE. After all, we could thereby actualize the kind of love and care for all that most religions espouse, enabling people to remain calm enough to access their empathic neocortexes, so that they are most able to treat others the way they would like to be treated, also what most religions advocate?

Regardless, we have come to the end of the six negative of running a fully  (and arguably to any extent) competitive system, in which we accept the possibility of the “weak” simply dying off.

I hope you agree with me that all six negatives detailed above, would be both likely, and undesirable results of running a fully  (and arguably to any extent) competitive economic system.

I also hope you share my perspective that they are particularly undesirable given that they are not offset by any benefits, as described earlier.

And, finally, I hope we can agree that accepting the negatives of a competitive economy is unnecessary, when we could instead adopt something like the relatively promising, cooperative NLRBE model.

Why the common misperception that evolution favors the most competitive, if it’s in fact cooperation that evolution favors?

Kohn has three theories, explained in his book “No Contest.”

First, he explains, “cooperation is not always plain to the eye, whereas competition…can readily be observed,” as Allee put it.[fn omitted] Lapwings protect other birds from predators; baboons and gazelles work together to sense danger (the former watching, the latter listening and smelling); chimpanzees hunt cooperatively and share the spoils; pelicans fish cooperatively. . . . None of this, however, makes good television.”

Second, confusion in the use of language – and I think this is perhaps the biggest factor.

The theory of natural selection simply states that the better adapted a species is to its environment, and especially to changes in that environment, the greater the probability of its being able to continue to survive, to procreate and have its young survive to procreate in turn. The theory does not, by itself, opine on the issue of what strategies – cooperative or competitive – best equip a species to be selected for survival in that process.

Yet some use the term “competition,” in its metaphorical sense, to refer to nothing more than natural selection. That is, as Kohn explains, “If we find only one species remaining in a given area where there once were several, we might describe the winnowing process as ‘competition.’

The problem with such confusion in language is that listeners might assume “competition” is meant in its literal sense and, therefore, that competition, versus cooperation, is the best strategy for surviving the natural selection process, when the opposite appears to be the case.

The third possible explanation, for why we so readily assume competition is the key to surviving natural selection, “lies in the common tendency of the observer to project himself onto the observed…,” explains Kohn. We expect to see in nature what we see in our culture. And, in the western world at least, that’s competition. So we end up with a tendency to bias towards finding the same in other animals.

Then, compounding the problem, despite the fact that competition is nothing more than our learned cultural preference, we use our erroneous conclusion re other species to legitimate our cultural practices, in a circular fashion.

Yet, “should” we be surprised, that the more cooperative, and the less competitive, the more “fit” for survival through the process of natural selection?

I don’t think so.

Not given everything we have covered above.

So, I hope we can now agree that, despite our misperceptions, cooperation is better for us as a species, and ultimately as individuals, than competition.

Accordingly, I hope that we all work together to help make cooperation the trustworthy norm and, hence, as rational in each moment as it is in the broadest context.

Whether via creating fully cooperative communities, or through other peaceful efforts, I hope to see us work together to phase out competitive economic systems, avoid adopting fully competitive, libertarian systems, and voluntarily move towards a sustainable, decentralized but coordinated, fully inclusive and cooperative economic system, like an NLRBE.

I hope some of my thoughts were of value to you, whether you’re an NLRBE fan, or a libertarian. I value curious, open-minded, truly-truth-seeking exploration, in partnership with others. I only wish I had even more time for it. So, please, if you enjoy the same, feel free to comment. And I will strive to find time for a reply in turn.

Thank you.

By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public speaker, and author, working to help us transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons, cat and dog. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing, at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.

“NLRBE & Libertarianism (Post 3 of 3) – Competition, Cooperation, Evolution, More on Morality, and Conclusion” by Tiffany Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published August 30, 2014

This is the second post, in a three post series.

The series questions some assumptions underlying libertarianism, from an NLRBE-informed perspective. It expands upon a written dialogue I recently had with a libertarian friend of mine. I thought the topic might interest other NLRBE-advocates.

More specifically, the series covers the following three issues that my friend and I discussed:

• Sustainability and decentralization, covered in the first blog post;
• Property rights, morality, and government enforcement, covered in this blog post; and
• Competition, cooperation, evolution, and morality, discussed at length, in the third and final post.

So, on to the second issue, property rights.

My libertarian friend’s perspective:

“Shackle the government. They exist to protect us from foreign enemies, from domestic enemies, and to enforce laws and contracts. That means we need a military, a police force, and a court system. Nothing more. The government has a monopoly on one thing and one thing only. Retaliatory force. They cannot initiate force. Any initiation of force by the government for any reason whatsoever should be immediately prevented. For instance, if there are poor people and the government wants to help them, it must initiate force through taxation. This is to be prevented at all costs because the consequences are not only immoral but disastrous, as history has shown.”

My perspective:

I don’t have the time at the moment to thoroughly respond to this, although I’d really love to.

For now, I’ll just share a few thoughts.

*Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of-date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified “advice” is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurances of confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients).

First, for reasons I will outline in my third blog post, regarding competition, I believe that so long as we maintain a competitive economic system, the wealthy within it will always seek, invent, and manipulate large tools, like governments, to acquire and hoard resources. Just as I believe you will always have a criminal element, and other unsustainable symptoms of violence, unrest, and social and environmental pillaging, in such a system.

Why?

For a myriad of interesting reasons, which I will attempt to illustrate in my third blog post, I believe that in any kind of competitive system we would continue to see people engaged in unsustainable actions, taken out of an understandable and predictable place of insecurity, anxiety, and mistrust.

And here’s the second thought I’ll share at this point.

I have heard and felt quizzical about this argument before, this argument that it’s “immoral” to tax, but moral to use violence to prevent unlucky, dispossessed people from partaking of the fruits of the Earth, even to meet their most basic of survival needs.

To be clear, I don’t want to see force used at all. And the NLRBE model depends upon group consensus, utterly rejecting adoption by force.

But I’d like to take a moment with you to explore the assumption that force is any more preferable, or “moral,” when used as a tool to prevent people from accessing what they need, than it is when used as a tool to prevent people from dominating the fruits of the Earth to the extent that others cannot survive.

I feel troubled and confused about this contention.

Partly this is because I am an empiricist, seeing “morality” as nothing more than convention, after years of specialized study of this in school. (Prior to law school, I graduated magna cum laude, with a major in philosophy, specializing in ethics and political philosophy).

Partly I feel troubled and confused about it because I see property rights as another convention, also after years of study.

I’ll elaborate on the latter.

I have heard libertarians express concern about the “forceful taking” of property, citing, as an example, taxation.

The trouble is, without underlying group acceptance of the convention that certain people have a “property right” to exclusively possess, and exclude others from, the fruits of the Earth, it’s hard for me to see a basis to conclude that preventing such exclusion is a “taking.” In other words, concluding there has been a taking makes no sense to me, except to the extent we accept the convention of granting a select few the right to exclusively dominate and exclude others from parts of the Earth.

But why accept this convention?

Why accept any convention?

I would like to see us only accept conventions which are the most demonstratively sustainable, socially and environmentally, of all available alternatives.

In the realm of property rights, what convention would be the most demonstratively sustainable, socially and environmentally? Would it be a convention of limited and exclusionary ownership, or a convention of universally-shared, library-like, use and access, such as that offered by the NLRBE model, for example?

Philosophers have tried to defend the exclusionary view of property rights for thousands of years. But many have rigorously, and I believe compellingly questioned the defenses offered. See for example all those attempts described thoroughly in Chapter 9 of “TZM Defined.”

I believe a universally-shared, use and access property system would be much more demonstratively sustainable. Indeed, with today’s technology and a shared use and access property system, we could arguably meet all needs on the planet in luxurious, peaceful, sustainable abundance, according to most who have studied the issue. See the analysis and conclusions of Jacque Fresco and Buckminster Fuller, for example.

This is a fascinating topic, and one I would love to explore with you further. If not now, then perhaps later?

For now though I will just leave it there, although, as noted above, I do discuss morality more in the third and final blog post of this series. You can find this discussion included in that of the “sixth negative,” under section VI of that last post, coming up next.

By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public speaker, and author, working to help us transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons, cat and dog. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing, at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.

“NLRBE & Libertarianism (Post 2 of 3) – Property Rights, Morality, and Government Enforcement” by Tiffany Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published August 30, 2014

The series questions some assumptions underlying libertarianism, from an NLRBE-informed perspective. It expands upon a written dialogue I recently had with a libertarian friend of mine. I thought the topic might interest other NLRBE-advocates.

More specifically, the series covers the following three issues that my friend and I discussed:

*Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of-date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified “advice” is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurances of confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients).

As an aside, I try to keep a few things in mind when I have discussions like these, with those who hold differing views.

I continually strive to position myself as a truth-seeking partner, relative to the other person. My goal is to support us each in remaining as calm and curious as possible, rather than triggered into fight-flight-freeze reactivity. This is the only way I believe we stand a chance of ever changing the world, in a peaceful, stable, lasting way.

Here’s a song I wrote and performed, in which I tried to capture the flavor of what I aim for in these sorts of discussions:

Now, onto the first of our sub-topics, sustainability and decentralization.

My libertarian friend’s perspective:

“Innovation should proceed in two main categories: sustainability and decentralization. The former is obvious. The latter because centralized systems are easy targets for corruption, which is why the RBE is no solution in my mind, unless its somehow completely decentralized, which seems rather impossible, given its many similarities to a top down centrally planned command economy.”

My perspective:

I agree that sustainability, avoidance of corruption, and, to some extent, decentralization are key. And I believe the NLRBE model can deliver in these categories.

But, why do I say “to some extent,” when it comes to decentralization?

You noted that you thought decentralization was critical, “because centralized systems are easy targets for corruption.” (emphasis added)

So perhaps we can agree that the underlying goal is avoidance of corruption, with decentralization being merely a strategy for achieving that – as well as to meet the need for individual choice and autonomy?

If so, I agree, it is one strategy. And a helpful one I think. And, thankfully, it is one that the NLRBE model invokes, as much as is possible anyway, as I will detail a bit more below.

However, it is not the only corruption-avoidance strategy the NLRBE model utilizes. The model also utilizes the strategy of meeting all human needs by design.

The rationale is that decentralization removes the opportunity for corruption, but needs-met-by-design removes the incentive for corruption. For more on why this is the case, see the third and final blog post in this series.

But meanwhile, why do I say that the NLRBE model invokes decentralization “as much as is possible anyway”?

That’s because believe a certain modicum of organization and coordination will be necessary in our world, in order to achieve sustainability. That said, I believe that sustainability could be attained with a dramatically more decentralized and trustworthy system than we have now, which is what the NLRBE model offers.

Picture the open source software development process gone global, atop Bitcoin-style networking infrastructure. Picture as inclusive and transparent a system as you could imagine, with the only checks on innovation and choice being what’s either demonstratively unsustainable (socially or environmentally) or scientifically impossible. That is what the NLRBE model embodies.

For more details on the NLRBE system’s decentralized infrastructure, I highly recommend the video here (or, indeed, all three parts of Peter Joseph’s talk, for more context. You can find each of these parts linked from this blog post of mine).

You also might enjoy reading about exactly how the NLRBE system’s decentralized infrastructure could function, in Chapter 16 of the book “TZM Defined.” And, really, I highly recommend the book as a whole (so diplomatic, thoughtful, and well-researched, which I think you’d really appreciate). It can be accessed for free online, at this link,which will take you directly to Chapter 16.

By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public speaker, and author, working to help us transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons, cat and dog. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing, at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.

“NLRBE & Libertarianism (Post 1 of 3) – Introduction, Sustainability, and Decentralization” by Tiffany Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published July 31, 2014

The very next thing you will see from me is a three post, NLRBE-advocacy-related series, regarding libertarianism, after which the focus will shift back to intentional communities.

Specifically, I will be shifting to a discussion of visits my family and I plan to take over the next three months to, not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, but at least seven intentional communities, most as far off as Missouri!

In early September, our family will be in Missouri for two weeks. While there we will primarily stay at the large eco-village, Dancing Rabbit. But we will also visit Open Source Ecology, Sandhill Farm, Red Earth Farms, East Wind Community, Terra Nova, and possibly one or more others. As an aside, although Open Source Ecology is arguably not an “intentional community” per se, there is a community of people who live on-site, working the nonprofit organization, and the mission of the organization is to create all the open source, locally sourced, industrialized machines, needed to support high-tech intentional community life.

Then, in late October, my husband and I will be attending a weeklong conference at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) and Sowing Circle Community (SCC), in Occidental California. The conference will be all about how to create an intentional community.

*Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of-date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified “advice” is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurances of confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients).

I am so excited about all of this! We are so excited!

It’s all part of our journey towards exploring all the different options for creating transitional, hybrid, NLRBE communities. We see this journey as the first step in a series aimed at our family ultimately creating and/or joining an NLRBE-focused intentional community. And I see it also as a way to gather and share relevant information with my readers, to help them hopefully do the same.

The journey began last August, when we visited Twin Oaks Community and Acorn Community, two egalitarian communities in Virginia.

Between then and now, we also toured a couple of other, smaller intentional communities in California, Monan’s Rill, in Santa Rosa, California, and Southside Park Cohousing, in Sacramento, California, as well as OAEC and SCC, mentioned above.

But this next batch will be unprecedented in size and scope of coverage, and in significance to the mission of exploration.

In writing upcoming posts on these visits, I am especially interested in exploring the ways in which more non-egalitarian, non-income sharing, trade-based communities, like Dancing Rabbit, Monan’s Rill, Southside Park Cohousing, Sowing Circle, Red Earth Farms, and , compare with more egalitarian, income-sharing, and gift-economy-based communities, like Twin Oaks, Acorn, East Wind, Sandhill, and Terra Nova.

My belief is that the latter will continue to prove to do the most for me, in terms of embodying NLRBE values, and, similarly, being the most noncompetitive, low-stress, and equality-generating communities.

But I have found there is nothing quite like seeing communities function in the flesh to test one’s beliefs. And we continue to be surprised about what we learn on these visits.

We’re convinced that only after such fulsome, in-the-flesh experiences, with many different types of communities, will we be able to make an informed decision as to what type might best serve the mission of transition to an NLRBE – both for our family, and hopefully for many others as well.

Hope you stick around for the ride!

By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public speaker, and author, working to help us transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons, cat and dog. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing, at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.

“Upcoming: Posts re Libertarianism and Our Many Visits to Intentional Communities” by Tiffany Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published June 27, 2014

In our quest for community and NLRBE-style living and promotion, my family and I have been intrigued again with the idea of living in an intentional community someday.

And we’ve been particularly curious about the community being an integral part of a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) entity. That is, I have wondered about the feasibility of establishing a single legal entity, a 501(c)(3), that contains both relevant nonprofit work and a community doing that work. There are many reasons for this, including potential simplicity and financial and tax advantages.

But the intrigue comes, in part, from how much we believe we might enjoy living in a nonprofit, mission-focused, egalitarian community. We want egalitarianism, as this jibes so well with our NLRBE values. But we also want our daily work to be non-profit NLRBE promotion related, as opposed to for-profit, and would enjoy being around those similarly focused.

I know there are separate LLC, partnership-style (versus egalitarian) communities, which do focus most of their daily work on legally distinct, 501(c)(3) entities. Take, for example, the Sowing Circle Community, in California, with its focus on the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, a 501(c)(3).

And I wonder about the legal viability of having 501(d) egalitarian community members focused primarily on the work of a similarly distinct 501(c)(3).

*Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of-date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified “advice” is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurances of confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients).

However, I fear it might be challenging logistically to make this kind of 501(d)/501(c)(3) setup work in a way that is both financially sustainable and legally viable, let alone as simple or financially enabled as an all-in-one 501(c)(3) might be.

For example, it may be the case that one of the few ways to achieve that would be to try to set-up such work up so that 501(d) members are considered either volunteers, or workers for the 501(d), with the 501(d) acting as an independent contractor relative to the 501(c)(3)). And yet there are many traps for the unwary in trying to achieve this. For more on some of the potential complications with 501(d) members focused primarily on separate 501(c)(3) work, search for the phrase “outside income” in the handout from my talk about egalitarian communities, which you can find by clicking here. Also, I expect I may cover this topic more in future blog posts.

In any event, as stated at the start, I have also wondered about the possibility, potential simplicity, potentially increased community nonprofit-mission commitment and focus, and potential financial and tax advantages, of establishing an all-in-one, community and nonprofit-focused 501(c)(3).

On the one hand, I have many concerns about the legal feasibility of such a venture. I briefly referenced those concerns in the same handout linked above. And I hope to explore such legal issues in more detail in future blog posts.

On the other hand, part of me really wants to believe an egalitarian-community-containing non-profit could be designed in such a way to function in a fully legal fashion, for all the reasons noted above.

That part of me likes to take comfort in organizations that appear to have at least somewhat similar aspirations. For example, Open Source Ecology and One Community Global, two organizations, the missions of which I am insanely inspired by and hope to describe in future blog posts.

Yet, in reality, I am not certain that these entities have necessarily cleared relevant legal hurdles. I could imagine ways they might have cleared some or even all, but I am not sure of this at present.

When I looked for some evidence to that effect on One Community Global’s website, for example, the only information I saw related to this issue was a page linking the organization’s 501(c)(3) filing documents. The page contained a reference to the fact that the entity used Legal Zoom to craft its documents. That and the wording as a whole left me with the impression that the organization may not have consulted an attorney about the potential legal complications of concern to me. (The wording read, “We are not accountants and are not providing this information as filing advice or counsel and it is our opinion that documents like this are something you should have reviewed by someone specializing in non-profit organization creation before submitting your own forms. In our case we used LegalZoom.”) Of course, I may be mistaken about my induction. And, even if not, this wouldn’t by itself necessarily mean they are in problematic territory. Still, I didn’t find what I read as reassuring as I would’ve liked.

That said, there is a part of me that is nonetheless grateful to see people experimenting with an idea that I myself am so intrigued with, as I watch from the sidelines, and research the topic further.

I certainly hope the idea can work legally, as much for the inspiring organizations mentioned above, as much as for my family and others, with the resulting increased intentional community options this would open up for us all.

If you’re intrigued and hopeful too, stay tuned . . . .

By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public speaker, and author, working to help us transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons, cat and dog. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing, at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.

“Nonprofit Egalitarian Communities? Some Initial Thoughts.” by Tiffany Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Published March 28, 2014
Hello everyone!

Here is my first substantive “Dear NLRBE Diary” post. For the introductory piece in this “Dear NLRBE Diary” series, click here.

I’ll begin by bringing you up to speed on our family life, how it has related to the NLRBE vision, and how we arrived at our current focus on living gift economy/NLRBE principles.

Unbeknownst to us, this experiment really began when we managed to set things up so that I could stay home to offer attachment parenting and unschooling to our children. That is, intensive parenting gave us our first, real, adult opportunity to engage deeply with non-monetary, gift economy, collaborative elements of life, all of which I see as amongst NLRBE principles.

*Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of-date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified “advice” is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurances of confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients).

In what way did intensive parenting involve living key gift economy/NLRBE principles?

It’s my sense that childhood is the first place we experience gifting. In that case, we experience it as receivers. The young child cannot even live without the unconditional giving of adults around it. And she arguably cannot grow to her fullest potential without a mother’s attachment parenting gifts in particular – e.g., breast-feeding (for more details on this topic, click here).

Similarly, it’s my sense that parenthood, and motherhood especially, is often the first place many of us begin to really live gift economy/NLRBE principles as adults, only this time as givers.

In keeping with this, upon the birth of our first child, and the beginning of my time at home with him, we found that the lives of every member of our family were suddenly defined mostly by gifting – with my husband and I as the primary givers, and our son as the primary receiver.

More recently, another area in which we have begun to live gift economy and related NLRBE principles is through home food production.

We opted into intensive gardening this year for the first time, mainly in order to try to save money.

As we got into it, however, I began to have a feeling like I was, for the first time, fully embracing nature’s gift economy. I thought about how the sun shines and the land yields fruit, without demanding payment from beneficiaries first. Notwithstanding the fact that humans do try to divvy up and restrict access to the sun and land, this is not nature’s doing. The sun’s rays warm our skin if we simply stand in their midst. The land will support our bodies so long as we stand upon it. And the soil will produce food to nourish us, so long as it’s needs are sufficiently met.

So, since we, in our family, happen to have a little bit of that sun and land, why not stand, with open arms, in the stream of those gifts, thereby also removing ourselves to that extent from the monetary system? That is, why not replace some of our purchased food with nature’s gifted food?

Why not indeed.

True, as noted above, nature often cannot yield all of her potential fruit without her needs being met. But this is not a matter of an attempt to restrict access as a punishment, for not yet doing what she needs to produce fruit. It is simply the reality of her “biology,” if you will. (By the way, I’m speaking purely metaphorically, not trying to personify nature in any literal sense.)

Plus, I started to realize that this might be a way to enrich the gift economy we have between our family members as well. I was imagining everybody chipping in, as they were moved, to give to one another in a collaborative process of growing and processing our own food. And this has indeed been the way things have unfolded thus far.

These gift economy/NLRBE elements have been soooo unexpectedly sweet and nourishing.

That said, there have been some thought-provoking “downsides,” which I’ll get into in future posts.

Until then, thanks for “listening.” I hope this little glimpses into our process have been, and will continue to be helpful.

By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public speaker, and author, working to help us transition to a more sustainable and equitable world. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons, cat and dog. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing, at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.

“Dear NLRBE Diary: Living Gift Economy and NLRBE Principles” by Tiffany Clark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

What do I mean by “resource-based economy” (RBE)?

I use the acronym “NLRBE” (natural law/resource-based economy), all over my website. But the NLRBE model merely builds upon the RBE model, as explained by this blog post. So, if we want to understand the former, it helps to first understand the latter.

So, what am I referring to when I say “RBE,” or resource-based economy?

I am referring to my spin on a concept fleshed out by Jacque Fresco.

Fresco, and his organization, “The Venus Project” (TVP), were apparently not the first to use the phrase “resource-based economy.”  Nonetheless, I’m talking here about my spin on their vision (and to the extent my spin differs significantly from theirs, I’m okay to have what I’m describing considered a “hybrid RBE”¹

*Important Reminder* Please remember that, by using this site, you agree to leave no confidential information in blog post comments or elsewhere on the site, or to rely upon anything in this post, or on this site generally, without qualified, independent, confirming research (per this site’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which you agreed to by accessing this site). Why? Unfortunately, on this website and in my blog posts, I can and do offer nothing more than expressions of opinion and general information, which could be inadequately researched, inapplicable to your situation, out-of- date, and/or mistaken. Thus, no statement on my website or blog posts is intended to guarantee any particular outcome for you, or to constitute any kind of advice, legal or otherwise. Qualified “advice” is customized to your particular circumstances, current, accurate, and offered in direct relationship with a qualified professional. And qualified advice is critical to obtain before you take action. I do offer qualified legal advice and assurancesof confidentiality, but only within the context of attorney-client relationships, which are formed exclusively via written attorney-client fee agreements, not through blog posts, blog post comments, website pages or communications, or any other means whatsoever (however, please visit my Services page to see whether or not I am currently accepting new clients).

This could get us into a whole discussion about terminology generally.  That is, how do we decide between using a term in a loose, inclusive way, and a strict, narrow way?  On the one hand, the former can allow people who are mostly on the same page to find one another and discuss their differences, by searching the relevant common term they are using.  On the other hand, the latter offers the most clarity about what everyone using the term is talking about.

I use the term “RBE” in the looser, more inclusive way though.  In other words, I prefer to use the term to indicate agreement with a general “train of thought,” as Peter Joseph of the RBE-aligned Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) puts it.

That’s in part because I’m more concerned about mostly-like-minded people finding one another, than creating a different term for each person’s slightly different perspective, in the name of precision.  This is the same reason I’m OK with using the imprecise term “pencil,” rather than using a different term for each individual, slightly varying pencil.

And it’s in part because, Fresco, TVP, TZM and I all claim to be willing to adjust our perspectives, based on the emerging knowledge that the scientific method continually brings.  So to lock all the specifics of the vision into place for all time, despite constantly emerging knowledge about relevant topics, from psychology and physics, would seem to contradict a core RBE principle of relying on science rather than fixed belief.]).  Their vision is covered pretty thoroughly between TVP’s 48+ minute video (to the left), and TVP’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

So, here’s my interpretation of Fresco-TVP’s RBE model.  First, I’ll put it in a sentence.  Then I’ll break the sentence down.

The RBE model, in a sentence:

An RBE, fully realized, would be a voluntarily chosen, border-free, world-wide economy, in which a critical mass of the world’s people would agree to make optimal use of the scientific method, green-energy, technology, automation, shared property access, volunteerism, and the world’s carefully tracked resources, in order to make ongoing, sustainable, high quality, and equal abundance for all a reality, which would 1) leave little need for “greed,” “corruption,” labor, or restriction/force-based, reward/punishment-based strategies, such as poverty-forced labor, trade/money/debt/credit systems, prison, war, or crime, and 2) result in an exponential increase in quality of life for all, in part due to the foregoing, and in part due to a likely significant increase in public health, across the board, and in rates and quality of art and innovation, made available to all.

Breaking that down, here are what I see as the key, underlying components of an RBE, along with supporting evidence:

• Probably not attainable in anything but a fully-realized RBE:
  • Border-free world; and
  • World-wide adoption by a critical mass of people.
• Some would argue possibly attainable in pockets,² as we hopefully transition to a full RBE:
  • Egalitarian decision making³, through which participants ultimately choose:
    • Optimal emphasis on conveniently shared raw resources, property, and property access, versus property ownership.  This would allow us to make the most out of the earth’s finite resources (think car lending libraries, where just the kind of car you need drives itself to your door when you’re ready to go), and allow for maximal innovation (think open source intellectual property, which allows rapid innovation upon innovation to occur – for evidence of this, see discussion later in this post).
      • This is not to say I don’t share the growing recognition amongst RBE-fans that there will be a role for at-home, customized manufacturing of goods as well (albeit combined with appropriate resource-use considerations and recycling protocols), given the continuing development of 3-D printers.  I’m not certain whether or not Fresco-TVP has integrated this reality into their vision.  However, it would seem in keeping with a key underlying RBE principle, of utilizing/accomodating emergent scientific knowledge, technology, and human tendencies, to the extent consistent with other RBE principles.  In any event, again, to the extent Fresco-TVP would disagree, I’m fine considering my tweaked vision a “hybrid RBE.”
    • Optimal use of technology, automation, computing, and artificial intelligence, versus labor.
    • Volunteerism, versus production that’s forced, via threat to short-term survival of the “self”⁴ (to the extent labor is even needed, with optimal automation);
    • Careful tracking and management of the earth’s resources;
    • Optimal use of green energy sources, versus polluting energy sources; and
    • Optimal use of the scientific method⁵;
  • In order to make possible:
    • Sustainability of the earth and its inhabitants;
    • Needs of all met as a given, rather than contingently;
    • Needs of all met abundantly, with little labor required;
    • Equal access by all the world’s people, to abundant goods and services;
  • Thereby eliminating:
    • The need for most labor (given optimal automation and innovation);
    • The need for restriction/force-based, reward/punishment-based strategies, such as:
      • Poverty-forced labor (since when their needs are met, people are generally eager to contribute voluntarily⁶);
      • Trade/money/debt/credit systems (since consumption would be based on desire, need, and sustainable/optimized/automated availability, not enforced restriction or artificial scarcity imposed to secure profit as the only means to short-term survival of the self);
      • Crime or imprisonment (given the use of technology to work around people’s tendencies, e.g., driverless cars rather than drunk driving law and enforcement; given that it appears most crime and imprisonment are directly or indirectly associated with poverty and/or inequality, which would both be eliminated in an RBE; and, given that, in an RBE, people would be helped rather than punished, to the extent problems still existed);
      • War (given shared resources, versus fighting for sole ownership; given no need for acquisition of profit, via such things as sales of munitions; and given a voluntary, gradual shift to science-based decisions, versus controversial religion-based decisions).
    • The need for “greed” or “corruption”:
      • Equal access to abundance-by-design should eliminate any incentive for “greed” for the purpose of trying to “keep up with (or surpass) the Jones’.”  It appears those who research the effects of inequality on societies would agree.
      • Secure abundance-by-design should mean individuals would no longer gravitate towards “greed” or “hording,” in a fruitless attempt to quell ever-present anxiety borne by knowing they are “on their own,” as they are now, in our monetary market system.  Similarly, such secure abundance would presumably eliminate the incentive to “cheat,” engage in “corruption,” or otherwise overlook what would typically be people’s natural, intrinsic motivation to contribute to long term societal and environmental well-being,⁷ out of sheer desperation to secure short-term survival of the self.
  • Resulting in dramatically higher quality of life for us all, even those now the wealthiest amongst us, given the foregoing, as well as:
    • Likely dramatic increase in everyone’s happiness, physical health, and relational health, from living in full alignment with our evolutionarily-beneficial, physiological tendency towards empathy and compassion, as suggested by numerous studies.
    • Likely exponential increase in public health, across income levels, from living in a state of equality, per relevant research.  According to recent research out of the UK, greater equality generates increased public health, for even the wealthiest individuals.  The research is described in this TEDTalk and on this site.  It shows that, for each of eleven different health and social problems, outcomes are significantly worse, across the board, in more unequal rich countries.  The areas of public health that are significantly better in more equal rich countries, compared with more unequal rich countries include:
      • Physical health (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Mental health (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Drug abuse (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Education (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Imprisonment (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Obesity (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Social mobility (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Trust and community life (click for graph and more details);
      • Violence (click for graph of data and more details);
      • Teenage pregnancies (click for graph of data and more details); and
      • Child well-being (click for graph of data and more details).
    • Likely exponential increase in quantity and quality of art and innovation, and resulting technology, for all to enjoy:
      • More creative and higher quality innovation:
        • In an RBE, people would have their needs met as a given, not as a “reward” for doing this or that.  Hence we’d get more creative and higher quality innovation.
        • But how can this be?  Don’t we need to put people’s survival at stake in order to “motivate” them to contribute?  That is, don’t we need to tell people that they’ll only get rewarded with survival to the extent they contribute?  And, likewise, tell them that they’ll be punished, with survival-threatening deprivation, if they don’t?
        • As it turns out, the answer is generally “No.”
        • As hundreds of studies confirm, generally speaking, when people’s needs are otherwise met enough to be able to contribute, and they are not rewarded for contributing, or punished for not contributing, they want to contribute, and they contribute in more innovative and higher quality ways.⁸
        • By contrast, when we only meet people’s needs contingently, on an if-then basis (e.g., pay for performance), we generally get lower quality, less innovative production.⁹.
        • That’s in part because psychological effects of punishments and rewards shift people’s focus from what would otherwise be their “intrinsic” interest in doing whatever is being rewarded, to the “extrinsic” motivation of getting the reward or avoiding the punishment.  This shift generates either distracting levels of anxiety in compliance, or a rebellion of sorts, where people do as little as necessary to get the reward or avoid the punishment.¹⁰.
        • Put another way, we get more innovative, higher quality output when we allow intrinsic motivations, such as the desire for contribution, mastery, purpose, and autonomy, to be the only motivators.  Whereas, when we distract people from their intrinsic motivations, by inserting extrinsic motivators, i.e., punishments and rewards (e.g., you’ll only get to survive, to the extent you spend your time and energy acquiring profit, or even to the extent you truly contribute to others), we all suffer the consequences, in terms of lower quality, less innovative production.
        • Even if we were able to create laws to try to make it so people would only get to survive to the extent they spent their time and energy truly helping people and the planet – not just if they profit financially – the research cited above suggests we’d end up problematically distracted from our intrinsic interest in truly helping people and the planet, and we’d do a poorer job at it to boot.
        • By contrast, if we met people’s needs by design, then just got out of their way, their intrinsic motivations would suffice to do all the motivating, and quality of output would increase naturally, with no need to suffer the poorer quality and creativity that comes from punishments and rewards, and no need to divert energy into the extensive efforts involved with devising and enforcing punishments and rewards.
        • There are many reasons for this, alluded to above, and supported and described by the research mentioned previously.¹¹  The only exception to this phenomenon may be, to some extent, in cases of very low skill, menial tasks.  However, these are arguably fully automate-able, and so would be in an RBE.
        • Let’s consider just one of many ways we get lower quality output in our current reward/punishment-based monetary market system: “planned obsolescence”¹².
          • “Planned obsolescence,” involves designing and manufacturing products that need replacement sooner than is technologically necessary.  This adds up to massive overuse of raw materials and landfill space over time.
          • Why would corporate CEOs permit this?  It’s clearly not in alignment with anyone’s deepest, intrinsic motivations to contribute to the long-term well-being of all, including current and future generations of CEOs’ families.  What might the answer be?
          • One possibility is it’s because CEOs, like all of us, are constantly threatened with a punishment of lack of survival, to the extent they don’t attain profit.  Or, put another way, they’ll only be rewarded with survival to the extent they consistently achieve profit.
          • Not surprisingly then, we find CEOs typically doing whatever they can get away with in order to achieve maximal profit, even when at odds with their intrinsic motivations.  For example, they’ll go along with designing products to break prematurely, when they see this will bring repeat purchases and, hence, higher profits.  And they’ll go along with this despite all the destruction this design strategy brings to their children’s and grand-children’s social and environmental habitat and well-being.
          • “Planned obsolescence,” can thereby be seen as a natural result of having distracted CEOs from what would otherwise be their natural intrinsic motivation to truly contribute to the well-being of their own family, the human family, and the habitat they all occupy.  And the distraction comes from the extrinsic motivation of a threat to their short-term survival if they don’t maximize profit.
          • We’d like to believe the solution is to simply create laws that prevent such outcomes, within the current monetary market system.  That is, we’d like to believe we could legislate our way into forcing people to make rewarded profit only the type that’s good for people and the planet.  For example, we might think by aggressively preventing the formation of monopolies, we could keep competition strong enough to prevent planned obsolescence
          • I have two concerns with this approach:
            • First, even if we could institute laws that made it so that only true contribution was rewarded, we’d get lower quality and less innovative contribution, per research cited previously.
            • Second – and this is key – I see it as unlikely that we’d be able to consistently institute such laws in a system that starts by rewarding profit (with short-term survival).  The trouble is, in a system that starts by rewarding profit, you’ve already distracted CEOs from their intrinsic motivations, training CEOs to seek profit first and foremost, and by any means plausible – including intensive, and often successful, lobbying against measures that might limit profits.  That is, the mere presence of reward for profit, distracts from the otherwise naturally present intrinsic motivations to truly contribute, or even support laws that require true contribution, when those laws also in any way threaten such profits.
          • The net result is, we, understandably and predictably, run around marauding the planet, our quest to find the shortest possible route to profit.  And we do this despite how at odds this behavior is with our intrinsic motivations to contribute to the long-term, real well-being of ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and the planet they call home.
          • This is a key reason why I’d like to see a system that supports us in reversing this course.  That is, I’d like to see us shift to a system that meets our needs by design, and thereby stops the systematic interference with our otherwise naturally present intrinsic motivation to truly contribute.
      • Faster pace of innovation:
        • We could expect this in an RBE because, for starters, we’d have a much greater  number of the world’s people able and interested in contributing.
          • With everyone’s needs met by design, we’d have billions more out of poverty, educated, and otherwise physically, mentally, and emotionally able to and interested in research, creation, and innovation.  And, as we learned in the prior section, people with their needs met unconditionally have such intrinsic motivations to contribute, and are able to in the most innovative and highest quality ways.
        • Also, we’d have a much higher percentage of all that available human energy relieved from the need to focus on war, crime, law enforcement, book-keeping, accounting, taxation, making money off of money, etc, and instead free to produce real benefit, for all to enjoy.
        • In addition, innovation could happen at a faster pace in an RBE, because this is what’s possible when intellectual property is shared, rather than protected.
        • All we have to do is look at the “open source” software phenomenon to see this principle in action.
          • Open source software is software that is specially licensed to allow people to freely improve upon it, so long as they allow their improved version to also be improved upon by others.
          • This kind of software has resulted in rapid and high level innovation, of phenomenal quality, comparable to propriety software (and even higher quality than proprietary software when the programs aren’t huge, due to standardized processes proprietary software companies alone can afford to implement for larger scale projects, suggesting that open source software could be better at all sizes, if better resourced).
          • But, “How can this be?”, the world asked, when the phenomenon was first discovered.  For, unlike proprietary software, open source software is created by programmers getting their survival needs met elsewhere, then working for free on open source projects, in their spare time!  As it turns out, consistent with the science previously mentioned, when people’s needs are otherwise met, then you merely let them, they will innovate – and, all things being equal, they will do so in higher quality, more creative ways!¹³
          • Given the foregoing, when we merely allow access to all potential innovators, who otherwise have their needs met, rather than allow access only by relatively drastically limited number of paid staff, the mere power in numbers can allow so much more innovation to occur overall.
          • In other words, open source innovation is innovation that “shouldn’t” have occurred at all, and that only some can currently “afford” to contribute to, in this world where needs are not met by design.  Just imagine how many more creative, eager, nourished minds could and would join in the innovation in an RBE, creating even more innovation where there otherwise would have been none.
        • Unfortunately, however, we currently place significant obstacles in front of potential innovators who want to improve upon pre-existing intellectual property, inevitably slowing the potential of rapid innovation upon innovation.
          • We do this my saying that people “own” their intellectual property.  And ownership means they have the exclusive right to profit from and improve upon it.  This means others need to seek permission from the intellectual property owners.  In addition, in circumstances under which they’re able to get that permission, they typically must pay for the privilege.
          • Needless to say, all this erects significant additional barriers to volunteer innovation upon innovation, and must limit it accordingly.
          • Why do we erect such obstacles to volunteer innovation?
          • Ironically, it’s because of we’ve assumed people need such ownership rights in order to want to innovate in the first place.  That is, we’ve assumed that people need “extrinsic” motivation to innovate, e.g., rewards, if they do innovate (i.e., profit and what’s needed for short-term survival of the self), and punishments, if they don’t (i.e., deprivation that threatens short-term survival of the self).
          • Yet recent psychological research¹⁴ , and the open source software phenomenon, belie this notion.
      • Thus, I believe the RBE model would produce more and better quality art and innovation, at a faster pace, with what we now know to be true from psychological research and the open source software movement.  Otherwise meet people’s needs, and then just get out of their way.  All else being equal, the results should be more, higher quality, and a much faster pace of innovation.

So, now you know what I mean when I say “resource-based economy,” or “RBE.”  Because I have so much hope in the RBE model, I refer to it a lot.

Footnotes: