By Rashid Owoyele
The wave of web3 which has grown in the wake of the blasphemous successes of those early adopters who benefitted greatly from the blockchain fad and subsequent NFT phenomenon touts claims to distributed power and good governance. However there is an observable homogeneity amongst the actors who boast that their distributed ledger projects and products are going to solve a wide range of wicked problems. The lack of breadth in representation ought to be a red flag for all of those involved, but strangely too many people seem to ignore the lack of diversity at the table. One can assume that is likely a function of a persistent bubble of expectation that, “of course almost exclusively cis-straight-white dudes are creating the game.”
David Hume called this kind of dilemma the “is/ought problem.” In which confirmation bias encourages the subject to reinforce often harmful norms because of the lack of exposure to scenarios which present alternatives. These groups pool in Discord channels and Telegram groups where an echo-chamber of like-minded thinking unfolds and radically exclusionary ideas about inclusion garner pats on the back and “atta-boys.” Not unlike what has been observed with artificial intelligence projects, the source data has a tendency to bias white supremacy and patriarchy only to be discovered as problematic far too late in the deployment of the products and services. Whereas had there been a more diverse group of designers and engineers governing early on in the process perhaps many pitfalls could have been avoided.
Many feminist scholars and makers have pointed to issues like missing features on platforms such as the ability to block and report harassment as key indicators that such diversity deficits must be overcome. This has encouraged companies to add diversity, equity, and inclusion to their long list of change management projects (often called DEI or D&I). In organizations all across markets in the global north where technology companies are largely situated, there are Human Resources personell who are tasked with the difficult challenge of bringing about the cultural, technical, and institutional transformations championed by DEI practitioners. Many of whom have good intentions, but are disproportionately ill prepared for critically driving such transitions. Yet it is still not these persons who govern and control at scales within the systemic level of locality.
Those who have the benefit of such experience and knowledge aren’t exponentially better off than their less-exposed peers. In fact they may face even more challenges as they take on the work which should be shouldered by every individual on a personal level (just to not be a jerk of a person in our globalized world). Cooperatives, unions, and other democratic workplace environments provide structural spaces for shared power. In our current paradigm of business, organizational, and institutional norms those folks are further more tasked with the challenge of leading-up. Often being in the uncomfortable position of correcting their C-suite leaders and fighting the good fight almost entirely alone (have you thanked your HR staff lately for all they do for diversity, equity, and inclusion?). The character development that needs to take place is a bit beyond the scope of any given role normalized in the existing given systems of business design.
Those who are taking up digital milk-crates and ranting about the future of distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs) are often the individuals who would have a chock-filled HR file of complaints against them. What has not made its way into those discussions is just exactly how much value humans bring to their roles of interpersonal coordination — yes, wealth is built from exploitation of labor. During COVID-19 much of the globe went under lockdown forcing those who could to work from home. People like me, who are neuro-spicy, probably experienced a bit of relief from the social anxiety and daily pressures to perform normative social exchanges but that novelty wore off rather quickly for most. Technology is really great for some things, when it works as expected. Governance, I will argue, is not one of them yet. We need humans and their capacity for dialogical action to steer political machines and coordinate work in the production of our world.
Futures of Governance?
As an American living in Germany I have come to appreciate the human element of procedural compliance. The stereotypical adherence to protocol is what one could expect more of in an automized organizational future. That future would be one undoubtedly burdened by rigid “es ist einfach so” processes which have no alternatives, work arounds, flexibility, dynamism, outliers, nor special circumstance. I think it is time to have a hard but fair conversation with ourselves about the archaic tendency towards simplifying the complex. For governance to remain an art, called statecraft, we need to understand the games we engage in throughout our working lives. Are we actually longing for rigid and predetermined protocols of which could feasibly coded and computed by the technologies we produce?
This piece is not intended to be a little rain cloud pissing down on the DAOist’s parade. So, then, what is the message intended to carry forward from here? Rather than jumping to throw, yet again, advanced technology at the problem and hope for the best I feel strongly that we need to focus on first better understanding how to coordinate persons and mitigate conflicts — eventually using assistive technologies in coordination of producing worlds that represent our values. There’s heaps of work to be done in reinventing the designs and cultures available to companies, organizations, and institutions. The current state of things one could argue is the externality of a pursuit for exponentially improved efficiency. The current problems that we face (represented by the sustainable development goals) are in large part the result of our current systems of governance, business management, and economic levers. Perhaps the true desired value which we ought to be pursuing is that of effectiveness. Whereas the current capitalist norms pursue efficiency, and ultimately institutionalize externalization of costs and harms. Exploitation, oppression, and manipulation.
Since the 1970’s, evaluations of the social and environmental effects of industry have become more centrally focused, but despite our technological advances we have failed to keep pace in the areas of policy and cultural production. The space for artistry, as far as I am concerned, has been identified by 2009 Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom. In the destined to be seminal book Understanding Institutional Diversity (2005) we are introduced to the DNA of institutions of common pool resource management. Through a life-long pursuit of understanding the viability of systems of coordination in which persons amicably organize themselves around a shared good which is difficult to own we are given a touchstone for a more equitable and just future. The commons do exist even today, and the tragedy of the commons has been proven to simply be a very popular narrative which turns out to be false. Humans can overcome greed and steward natural systems in healthy relation to ourselves, others, and ecosystems.
Institutional Analysis?
The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework described in the book serves as a transdisciplinary model from which we can reverse engineer a vast range of institutional diversity and produce effective systems of complexity, redundancy, and solidarity. We have the opportunity to break away from the universal, scaleable, unicorn leading ‘heropreneur’ myth and set forth developing effective systems of innovation and responsible production. How many unwitting visionaries have been stifled by our current systems of meritocracy, achievement, and qualification? We cannot lead the way to great change if we are all programmed to be obedient followers. Ethical and just design is unlikely to emerge from within contexts of inequity and injustice. So how can we make the world a better place, when the majority of the systems in which we are embedded are tainted and discriminatingly constructed?
Under a new paradigm of world system, artfully constructed systems of organization and governance could unleash equity and justice unlike popular history has ever acknowledged. Futures of productive stewardship, compensated care work, radical inclusion, and resolved sustainable development goals could give way to regenerative systems unburdened by anthropogenic harms and degradation. We have massive amounts of useful knowledge but we have inert and stagnated systems. Institutions which fail to surface and nurture otherwise effective change makers. Transekt aims to provide such a space. A sandbox for social innovation as well as equitable and just design. A lab for knowledge production and theoretical testing across scales, geographies, disciplines, and cultures.
How much should a person consume?
In the book, How Much Should a Person Consume? (2006), Ramachandra Guhan proposes a sustainable development strategy for his time and context (India). Many versions of appropriately context-situated strategy could inform comprehensive approaches to fixing our inherited problems when we challenge organizational and institutional norms. That would require the bravery to embrace plurality and abandon our desire for universal solutionism. This book, reviewed in session with the Pluriversal Design book club convened by Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel, stands as just one of many welcome contextually appropriate approaches to establishing systems that reduce harm and aim for regenerative outcomes.
Sustainable development propositions might look like this, put forth by Ramachandra Guhan (pp. 244-245)
“A new green development strategy would have six central elements:
- A move toward a genuinely participatory democracy with a strengthening of the institutions of local governance at village, town, and district levels. This is mandated by the Constitution of India but has been aborted by successive central governments in New Delhi. The experience of exceptional states, such as West Bengal and Karnataka, which have experimented seriously with the panchayat or self-government system, suggests that local control is more conducive to the successful management of forests, water, and other natural resources.
- The creation of a process of natural resource use which is open, accessible, and accountable. This would center around a properly implemented Freedom of Information Act enabling citizens to be better informed about the designs of the state and making officials more responsive to the public.
- Greater political decentralization to stop the widespread undervaluation of natural resources. The removing of subsidies and the putting of a proper price tag to make resource use more efficient and less destructive of the environment.
- Encouraging a shift to private enterprise for producing goods and services while making sure that there are no hidden subsidies, and that firms properly internalize externalities. There is at present an unfortunate distaste for the market among Indian radicals, whether Gandhian or Marxist. But one cannot turn one’s back on the market; the task rather is to tame it. People and the environment in India and other countries similarly placed have already paid an enormous price for allowing state monopolies inn sectors such as steel, energy, transport, and communications
- Outline sustainable policies for specific resource sectors. Chapters 4 & 5 summarize ways I which the management of forests and the wild can be made consistent with the twin — if sometimes competing — claims of ecological integrity and social equity. Likewise, scientists and social scientists with the relevant expertise need to design sustainable policies for transport, energy, housing, health, and water. These policies must take account of what is not merely desirable but also feasible.
- This development model can only succeed if India becomes a far more equitable society than it is at present. Three key ways of enhancing the social power of ecological refugees and ecosystem people (in all of which the Indian state has largely failed) are land reform, literacy — especially female literacy — and proper health care. These measures would also help bring population growth under control. In the provision of health and education the state might be aided by the voluntary sector, paid for by communities out of public funds.”
What one should walk away with here is also a critical perspective on the weighted assertions about the role of consumption in social and environmental harm. Perhaps our eyes should be on governing the design of production processes and conditions, when we are talking about the use of resources, impacts on people and communities, and pointing the finger of blame and responsibility. Industrial processes are the largest contributor of the environmental damage that humans impart upon ourselves and our ecosystems. From the production of energy to the production of food, contextually appropriate transformations which instantiate economic, social, and environmental justice seem to be a clear requirement in the transition to a better world. It is time to switch our focus from condemning consumers for making bad choices in the market and to start holding producers accountable for the harm done long before products make their way to the shelves.
Governance, decision making, and the hoarding of power by systems of capital control are our true challenge. The enemy is the systems outside of the current scope of design agency. This is a call to bring democracy and informed citizenry to shaping and managing the labor and capital markets. When we deploy statecraft to redistribute wealth, provide structures of inclusion to the 80% of the globe which sustain by way of subsistence and the grey and black markets, and rebalance power there will be no need for reliance on invisible hands to determine our conceptions of the good. The state will not need to police and enforce values because our values will already be baked-in and demonstrated through our roles as worker-owners. User-centered design will no longer be a high calling nor need – the people, working in democratized firms, will prevent harm by governing organizational behaviors before harms have been externalized. Equity and justice will be part of our daily lived experience and we will be able to proudly hand stewardship over to future generations who can thrive in a world of abundance, balance, valuable complexity, and there will be an absence of reward and incentive for harm, corruption, or deceit.
What is Statecraft and How Might it Lead the Way?
Statecraft, the art of governance, must become part of every working persons‘ daily existence. Workers must reclaim their labor and wield their power in coordinated efforts. Disseminating power and wealth through interventions at the organizational level present as a necessary paradigm shift, and the good news is that there is a long standing history of doing just that. Prior to the global conquest set forth in the 15th century and the subsequent industrialization of our planet, the pre-colonial world consisted of a highly heterogenous approach to governance across cultures and geographies. As we attempt to reconcile the world that we have inherited we must acknowledge that the pro-capitalist world-system which thrives on competition, domination, violence and fear is not the natural nor inherent state of things. As a species we are capable of social coherence, compromise, and cooperation. Our technologies have the capacity to amplify our abilities to endure and enable transformation towards more desired futures.
Despite the great tragedy, suffering, and loss as a result of the global pandemic created by the COVID-19, we were able to witness on a global scale the potential for rapid transition that is possible in our current socio-technical context. We should use the insights from that crisis to observe and acknowledge our shared capacity for global transformation. The feasibility of driving social change on a global scale has now been proven and experienced. Within a single generation, we have the potential to shift behaviors and control patterns of harm. We can avoid the worst-case scenarios of climate change. We can better distribute life-saving knowledge and goods. We need only get out of our own way — break down the narrative barriers preventing swift and decisive action. Not only is another world possible, but from here another world seems highly probable.
Featured Image: “Girl with an iPad, an Allegory of Consumerism, after Paulus Moreelse” by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0.