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thoughts on value

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The LEFGOZERS together form an open source cooperation economy by adhering to the following rules: LEFGOZERS

• give each other freedom
• use that freedom to take up their responsibilities towards themselves and the rest of the world, including the future

Here freedom is affermatively defined as:

• Inner freedom is something that you can have, viz the emotional/intensional ability to behave adequately.
• Outer freedom is something that you can give to others, viz your help to them in taking up their responsibilities.

At the heart of the LEFGOZERS lies a cooperation process supported by a tool.

The LEFGOZERS

• are a large group of people constituting together an open source cooperation economy
• are not creating another society, they are only concerned with economy
• don't exclude another society but will be part of it
• don't replace the current economy but will be a settop on top of it
• don't form an additional or complementary economy but they form an open source cooperation economy
  • in which everybody is welcome as long as he adheres to the aforementioned rules
  • in which everybody can sustain himself (including future generations and consequently is sustainable)

Because of the aforementioned rules the LEFGOZERS:

• share all resources
• take no more than they need (implying abundance for Gandhi said: this world has enough for everybodies needs, but not for everybodies greeds)
• take all concerns into account with everything they do
• are transparant, the tool is worldreadable, with possible restrictions aiming at user safety

Transparency in it's turn ensures that the LEFGOZERS can:

• actually take each others concerns into account
• learn from and inspire each other
• enforce commitment and identify free riders

One way to become a LEFGOZER is to be conscious of our unity.

To live like a monkey or to live like a monk, that's the question.

Argumentation

Here I look at the economic aspects of our behaviour. In this context with economy I mean that what can be grasped using the following meta model:

• resources
• actions
• goals

I have two reasons for looking at our economy:

• I see many possibilities for a cooperation economy
• the world today experiences several crises (in my opinion: because of lack of cooperation)

My analysis of these crises in terms of this meta model is:

• together the goals are crisis prone (among others they are inconsistent, infeasible and unsustainable)
• actions do not meet the goals

I contend that we have a governance problem and that in order to expell these crises it suffices to change our behaviour (our actions) adequately, viz to behave mature.
Immaturity implies fear, whereas maturity includes consciousness and reponsibility.

The solution proposed is twofold:

• what: adjust the goals, this is a rule task
• how: adjust the actions to meet the goals, this is a coordination task

The rule task is easily solved theoretically. I contend that mature goals (ie goals set forth by mature people) will respect it's environment thus preventing current crises.
The coordination task currently also is obstructed mainly by fear resulting among others in intransparency. A coordination proces will be outlined below.

To understand maturity operationally I here give an affermative definition of (mature) freedom:

• Inner freedom is something that you can have, viz the emotional/intensional ability to govern (rule and coordinate) adequately.
• Outer freedom is something that you can give to others, viz your help to them in taking up their responsibilities (towards themselves and the rest of the world, including the future).

In particular outer freedom is not a carte blanche, neither when you give it, nor when you receive it.
Maturity implies both inner and outer freedom.
In particular mature people take all (mature) concerns into account with evertything they do.

A tool is foreseen to support both the ruling and the coordination.

Rule task

The above solution to the rule task is only theoretically valid. In practise people don't always behave mature. I propose three ways to tackle this problem:

• just do it: the LEFGOZERS dare to be free and constitute a cooperation economy. As such this model is a true life example of the next stage of economic development.
• millenium goals: instead of taking all goals into account we can start with (one of) the millenium goals.
• projections: any form of organisation can be viewed from the meta model perspective and many organisations mirror aspects of the next stage (cf Yosh Tandon: TATA: there are thousands of alternatives, as opposed to the Reagan-Thatcher TINA doctrine: there is no alternative). Examples are cooperatives and LETS.

Coordination task

Once the goals are set coordination can take place. I propose the following coordination process, iteratively but not necessarily in that order:

• administer all resources which gives rise to a state space
• administer all goals who are functions on the state space
• create plannings consisting of actions, each action being a transformation of the resources giving rise to a step in the state space
• administer completed actions, so that the current status is always known

Obviously the planning activity is the main activity. The tool will suggest plannings that take into account as many concerns as possible.

Planning in this open source cooperation economy is like laying a jigsaw puzzle. The tool will suggest actions (pieces to lay) but you can also create new pieces yourself.

Each participant attains his own equilibrium when he judges his goals and necessary actions are in balance.

This game could remind you of das Glasperlenspiel by Herman Hesse.

Development

In order to develop this open source cooperation economy several aspects of the tool can be developed in parallel:

0. Construct a framework in which the following modules can function:

1. How to describe resources?

The tool distinguishes between

• resource types
• resource instances

A complete set of possible resource instances is called a status.
All statusses together form the state space.

2. How to describe goals?

Goals are functions on the state space, defined in terms of resource types

3. How to descrtibe actions?

The tool distinguishes between

• action types
• action instances

An action type is a recipe, defined in terms of resource types, explaining how to transform resource instances into each other.
An action instance is the application of an action type to a specific set of resource instances.
As such an action instance is a jump from one point in the state space (representing the specific set of resource instances) to another point.
As such an action type is a set of such jumps.
Actions can be composed (associatively, but not commutatively).

4. How to describe subsets of the statespace?

An actionplan is a pair (action type, subset of state space). It says in which situations (states) the action should be performed.
A planning is a set of action plans.

5. How to calculate paths in the state space?

LEFGOZERS can simultaneously (but always asynchronously) plan actions. So in some points in the state space several actions may be planned. How to calculate all possible paths?

6. How to suggest plannings given the goals and how to sort them (in order of decreasing relevance)?

For the description of resources, goals and actions we will use a language consisting of

• vocabulary
• grammar
• logic

Connection with other developments

Although this open source cooperation economy might look rather exotic I contend that it is a very natural paradigm indeed:

First let us note that this type of economy is the way one-person households are organised. And families usually too. Even small businesses can be organised like this. As organisations grow larger internal politics can obstruct this paradigm.

Moreover when tribes were still autarchic this paradigm probably was the default. As globalisation commenced several millenia ago trust shifted from the kin group to money. In religions like islam and christianity projections of this paradigm can be found as khalifa and stewardship.

In my opinion neoliberalism neglects the necessary balance between freedom and responsibility and in this way neoliberalism is the structural expression of fear. By the way, there is nothing new about neoliberalism and it is as liberal as national socialism was social.

So in fact the LEFGOZERS paradigm is a transformation of the current economy to it's older roots whilst continuing globalisation. The internet gives us that opportunity.

And for a simple example: my neighbour is member of a foundation along the lines of the LEFGOZERS paradigm.