Results of the opening questions and introduction to the next six
Thank you to everyone who read the home page and answered the six opening questions.
While the list of people I invited directly to participate was quite likely skewed somewhat in terms of political persuasion and outlook on life there were still variations in responses even if clearly weighted in a particular direction.
Of course the sample size is not statiscally valid, but at this point I am not trying to prove anything, but rather seek an indication of support, or otherwise, for a belief in the need to pursue systemic change with our economic system rather than trying to pursue a set of positive values within a system which by design is fighting against many of these values every step of the way.
Firstly the results from the first six questions [updated 28 Mar 2017]:
- 47 personally addressed emails or message via Facebook were sent inviting participation.
- 29 responses have been received, either by email or by completion of the questions.
- 7 other people have responded following the original email/message being shared with them.
- 29 people have completed the survey, one of whom does not want to be involved further.
- 28 people agree that the current economic system is fundamentally flawed. One person disagrees.
- 17 people don't think the current economic system can be made to function effectively with a few tweaks. Four people think it can, and eight people are in between.
- 21 people are not confident that we can get an enlightened government elected which will implement the changes we need in time to avert significant social and environmental upheaval. Nobody is confident that we will get such a government, but eight people are in between.
- 19 people are not confident that positive initiatives brought in by one government will be retained after a change in government. Nobody is confident they will be retained and 10 are in between.
- 23 people think the current economic system needs to be replaced by another system, while four people don't think a new system is required and two people did not feel able to respond.
- Most people responding to the survey included comments raising issues and ideas for further consideration, such as to look more at co-operatives, complex adaptive systems, leader-countries to watch for advanced solutions, needing a certain level of personal sacrifice, new systems for measuring value, getting money out of politics, universal basic income, the change we want may be beyond our lieftime, the hierarchy of needs may be a reflection of our culture's materialist bias, a prerequisite is to tackle people's attitudes and values and the prevalence of greed, significance of disruption to change to a new system, so many tangents - self interest and survival; power and control; ego and exploitation; how to evolve ... away from materialism and the cult of the individual.... Hopefully, many of these comments and issues will be covered over the course of this conversation.
Conclusions I draw from these results are:
- While not unanimous, there is strong support for the position that the current system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be replaced by a new system, and
- There is low confidence in government being able to introduce the changes necessary, and even if it does, success is tenuous as the changes could be reversed by the government coming next.
While some of you may be questioning the direction of this conversation I hope you will still remain involved as your perspectives are essential to making sure a new system will work effectively for everyone.
A notable quote at this point:
So what next?
If the development and growth of a new system becomes our goal, at least for a good number of us, what is involved in its design and implementation?
The useful links I have gathered so far, and keep adding to, give an idea of the number of people around the world grappling with this desire to create a new and better system.
'The Next System' has just released their latest publication discussing new models. They go into a lot of depth but are not yet, in my mind, well targeted.
There is also the new/first website of the 'New Economy Network Australia' which has just been launched and has a nice neat summary of the principles for a new economy.
And, the initiatives/models/systems I have on my shorter 'watch list' are:
- Community Exchange System(s) - CES is the network of community exchanges (LETS, timebanks, etc.) quoting 904 exchanges across 85 countries with 39,775 users. The underlying system still depends on exchange and local action without much active coordination and promotion across the system. They are currently working on an upgrade to their system including a mobile app.
- Fair Coop - intending to operate as a global structure with local nodes. Quotes that "Fair.coop understands that the transformation to a fairer monetary system is a key element. Therefore, Faircoin was proposed as the cryptocurrency upon which to base its resource-redistribution actions and building of a new global economic system."
- Global Hub for the Common Good - they are behind the New Economy and Social Innovation Forum (NESI) to be held in April 2017 in Spain. They have plans for quite a structure and the forum may give it some good impetus.
- Mutual Aid Networks - looking to establish a global network - comparable to CES and appears well resourced.
- Simbi - an exchange system active since January last year and reported to have thousands of users already with a large number of likes on Facebook. Seems to be a closed shop at the moment controlled by the lead team. They raised US$1.2m in seed funding but I am not sure how they intend to fund their activities ongoing.
- Swarm City - touted as the first truly decentralized peer to peer economy, enabled by the SWT token, running on the Ethereum blockchain. Seen by the initiators as the ultimate game-changer. However it is still in development with participation on the platform, once launched, being tied to ownership of a limited pool of SWT tokens and thus still governed by processes of exchange rather than sharing.
And now if you could - please click this link for my next set of six questions which I hope you will provide responses to.
Thanks again for your interest and participation!
2 comments
Comment from: paul_forest Member
Comment from: brettconstable Member
Thanks Paul, I have added “The Rules” to my list of links.
Well done Brett.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this conversation leads and what ideas are formed. There’s another interesting organisation to have a look at that are raising awareness to the need for a new system. They have some very clever media content and have identified some of the important core issues that we need to address. I’ve had some good discussions with their team.
They are called The Rules. You can check their website at http://therules.org.
If you scroll to the bottom of their home page, you’ll find the videos they’ve put together. Well worth watching :-)