Book of the Day: Creating Sustainable Societies, towards the “Principles Societies” model of governance

As envisioned, a Principled Society is a membership organization. Other well-known membership organizations include AARP, the National Organization for Women, and your local Chamber of Commerce. Unlike these, however, a Principled Society is not a nonprofit. Nor is it a profit-maximizing corporation. It is a socially responsible corporation that is a blend of both. Like a nonprofit, it seeks to maximize the public good. Like a for-profit, it does not rely on charity for funding its ongoing operations and expansion. A Principled Society is managed by its members through collaborative direct democracy. As such, a Principled Society is its members. It is an association of people who choose to cooperate.

The above quote is from the book:

* Creating Sustainable Societies: The Rebirth of Democracy and Local Economies, by John Boik. CreateSpace, 2012.

This book proposes a new central institution for our societies, that would replace the dominant role of for-profit corporations.

The author John Boik explains that:

“The “Principled Societies” concept outlined in the book Creating Sustainable Societies is a blueprint for sustainable financial, economic, and governance systems, intended for local implementation. The book starts by pinpointing the central problems within our financial, economic, and governance systems that have lead to high unemployment, massive debt, environmental degradation, mistrust of Congress and big business, and hyper-inequities of wealth and political power. It then proposes a practical, bold plan for addressing these concerns and creating meaningful change.

Rather than a call to transform society from the top down, the strategy calls for transformation from the bottom up. The book describes a technology that would allow new, sustainable financial, economic, and governance systems to be implemented at the local level. Involvement occurs via Principled Societies, special types of volunteer membership organizations. A Principled Society acts as a booster for local economic development and engagement in democratic self-governance. It is designed to produce tangible social and economic benefits for its members and all people within the local community.

The operational infrastructure of a Principled Society is a Web-based software system that will be developed by the open-source community in conjunction with interested academics and other social leaders. The software acts as a transaction and accounting system for a proposed local currency, facilitates self-governance via collaborative direct democracy, and serves as a hub for community organizing and communications. Through use of the system, members support local businesses, provide startup funds for new socially-responsible businesses, and generate revenue for local schools, nonprofits, and social service organizations.”

In the Foreword, monetary reformer Bernard Lietaer writes that:

“I have spent the past 30 years studying monetary systems, both conventional and innovative. During this time, I have written more than a dozen books, have spoken to thousands of audiences around the world, and have taught in half a dozen universities in the United States and Europe. Everywhere, I find dissatisfaction and hunger for a breakthrough to another way of working, of cooperating, of contributing. People are eager for change and are awake to the need for change, even if most public officials, constrained by politics or timidity, appear incapable of rising to the challenges of our time.

In distilling the results of my investigations, I arrived at the sad conclusion that the missing piece in all our monetary arrangements is appropriate governance. This is true for both the official money system (the Federal Reserve and all other central banks in the world) and innovative systems of complementary currencies. This missing piece is what John Boik brings to the table. At first glance, his proposal might appear to center on a complementary currency system, but more accurately it centers on appropriate governance. On the one hand, it proposes a means for collaborative direct democracy as applied to finance, corporate behavior, and social organization: the “Principled Society.” On the other, the very mechanics of the proposed monetary and corporate model, including its transparency, are a manifestation of democratic ideals.”

So, how can we implement such a change? John Boik proposes the following strategy:

“Many see the need for transformation, but the best means to achieve it is still open to discussion. Some advocate the top-down path, which calls for citizens to regain control of Congress, wresting it away from big business and other special interests. Many in the Tea Party, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and in between are natural allies here, even if they differ on some social issues. Change would involve reforming election finance laws and restricting lobbying activities, not to mention changing banking and investment regulations and pressing government at all levels for greater transparency. All of this is indispensable work. But the top-down path is not the focus of this book.
It would be almost impossible to replace financial, economic, and governance systems with better structures through the top-down pathway. Drastic change would be too risky for the nation, too abrupt, and too chaotic. And it would be politically unfeasible; the push-back would be ferocious. The surest way to bring about core structural change is to demonstrate it voluntarily at the local level, in a subset of the population. This is the bottom-up path. For this, no new legislation is needed. If we can successfully demonstrate tangible economic and social benefits of new systems at the local level, then in time the concepts will spill over into society as a whole.

The central strategy examined in this book is to implement new financial, economic, and governance systems at the local level, managed through an online software application. The application would facilitate, for example, business and financial transactions, and rule-making and other aspects of self-governance.

It would be the world’s first comprehensive Internet project aimed at a fundamental transformation of society. Think of it as components of Facebook, Kiva, Quicken, RocketHub, KickStarter, LendingClub, MindTools, Groupon, LinkedIn, Innocentive, and more, all integrated into a single application developed and managed by users. Its purpose is to stimulate local economies, demonstrate direct democracy, and maximize the common good. In short, it is the maturing of social media into a powerful, user-created, agent of change.

The code for this application would be developed by the open-source community, and as such would be a publicly shared resource. Programmers, writers, graphic designers, and other volunteers nationwide and beyond would be invited to participate in its development. Although the development project itself would occur nationally, the actual implementations would occur at the local level. Once the code is available and thoroughly tested, perhaps via large game simulations, people in each metro region would be encouraged to form a Principled Society—a special type of corporation that would demonstrate the new systems and manage the local software application.

As envisioned, a Principled Society is a membership organization. Other well-known membership organizations include AARP, the National Organization for Women, and your local Chamber of Commerce. Unlike these, however, a Principled Society is not a nonprofit. Nor is it a profit-maximizing corporation. It is a socially responsible corporation that is a blend of both. Like a nonprofit, it seeks to maximize the public good. Like a for-profit, it does not rely on charity for funding its ongoing operations and expansion. A Principled Society is managed by its members through collaborative direct democracy. As such, a Principled Society is its members. It is an association of people who choose to cooperate.

Quite likely, only a small percentage of the population in a given metro area will decide to become members of a Society, but that is not a problem. In fact, it is an advantage. Demonstrating new financial, economic, and governance systems would be easier in a small subset of the population. The target is to achieve a participation rate of 10 percent. This would be enough to produce substantial economic impacts and provide a solid test of the new systems.

While successful demonstration of new systems in a small subset is not by itself sufficient to transform society as a whole, it is a crucial and dramatic first step. Thus, this book is concerned with Phase I—getting Principled Societies up and running. If all goes well, over time Phase I will naturally turn into Phase II – wider implementation of the new systems and a more complete transformation.”

The proposed Framework of a Principled Society

“A Principled Society is envisioned as a local entity, but its core elements would be designed to overcome several major weaknesses seen at the national level. In this way, Principled Societies would be extensible to wider implementation in the future.

The proposed framework consists of three core elements:

1. A new type of local currency system, called a Token Exchange System. Tokens are an electronic form of currency that circulates within a Society, in conjunction with the dollar. They are used by businesses and individuals to purchase goods and services, as well as fund local development and community services.

2. A new type of socially responsible corporation, called a Principled Business. A Principled Business is a cross between a nonprofit and a for-profit corporation. Like a nonprofit, it fulfills a social mission. Like a for-profit, it is self-sustaining and does not rely on donations. Principled Businesses compete with one another for interest-free loans offered by a Society. They coexist alongside standard businesses.

3. A new type of governance system based on collaborative direct democracy, called a Collaborative Governance System. Members collaborate in the creative problem-solving process of developing new rules. In a Principled Society, members are the legislature. For efficiency, councils would execute day-to-day operations and make minor decisions. Major issues would be decided by the entire membership in a user-friendly, efficient, online process.

The Internet application that would act as the infrastructure for a Principled Society is both practical and technologically achievable. It could be developed as a no-frills initial version perhaps with three to ten years of effort, given adequate funding and community energy. Each year thereafter, further enhancements could follow.

Although this book proposes a blueprint for new financial, economic, and governance systems, that blueprint is only a rough draft. Many questions are left unanswered. It is intended as a basis for further discussion and refinement. The bulk of development will fall to the wider community. Especially it will fall to potential users, including interested lay persons, programmers, and business and community leaders. Academic experts from fields as diverse as computer science, political science, statistics, sociology, law, ecology, business, psychology, and linguistics are encouraged to play a central role.”

More details here.

1 Comment Book of the Day: Creating Sustainable Societies, towards the “Principles Societies” model of governance

  1. AvatarJosef Davies-Coates

    I have a very similar vision. And the good news is that much of the legal frameworks and code to make it possible now exists, e.g.

    Multi-Stakeholder Co-operative Society Model Rules:
    http://files.uniteddiversity.com/Money_and_Economics/Cooperatives/Multi-Stakeholder_Co-ops/Somerset_Rules_2012.pdf

    Bettermeans: Open Source Democratic Project Management

    Bettermeans Code:
    https://github.com/Bettermeans/bettermeans

    Bettermeans Videos:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D–Ob2CxLds
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlnMWlvw9g

    A few open source decision-making platforms of note:
    http://liquidfeedback.org/
    http://code.adhocracy.de/en/
    https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy

    Lot of software projects for community/ complementary currencies out there too:
    http://p2pfoundation.net/Complementary_Currency_Software

    Other open source tools of note that are nice and useful for collaboration:
    http://www.bigbluebutton.org/ – web video conferencing/ whiteboard
    http://mumble.sourceforge.net/ – voice/ text chat/ conferencing
    etc etc etc 🙂

Leave A Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.