Re-imagining the Local
Response-Able action to the challenges of the 21st Century
by John Verdon
Concept
Three paradigms enabling response-able action to the challenges of the 21st Century — where everything that can be automated will be.
And
There will never be a shortage of Work and Activity to Do and to Value — When we are Engaged in the enterprise of a Flourishing Life, Community and Ecology.
Paradigm One — Power of a nation with its own currency — Modern Monetary Theory.
Paradigm Two — Enabling a person to flourish as a citizen — Universal Basic Assets (UBA) and Guaranteed Job rather than unemployment insurance.
Paradigm Three — Enabling community to be response-able in a changing world — Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD).¹
Context
This presentation aims to provide a brief outline of key concepts to incite curiosity and questioning our current narratives — to expand the possibility space for re-imagining the local.
What do I mean by the local? Everyone can be anywhere — but everyone has to be somewhere — and that — in the end is the local. Wherever we are — wherever we live — for however long — is the local environment for us — and that also includes our virtual communities and the virtual dimensions to the physical local.
Let me point out some patterns developing today — that give me real confidence that these concepts are tuned to the future of how we need to live, learn and work. I’m going to briefly outline some patterns that will help us imagine — what we can enable for tomorrow.
One thing has become obvious to everyone — is the pace of change. The speed and acceleration of change has implications. Some changes impact individuals/groups differently and arguably based on where each person or group are situated impact can be much greater.
It’s not just our software, or our phones or TVs or how we listen to music or even how we shop. We will likely — and our children will definitely see — self-driving vehicles connected to a digital home, workplace and environment. We will feel like we and our devices — swim in oceans of information. We have already seen many such changes — both positive and negative.
We are also witnessing some deep changes in our concepts of business and how we work and — what work is and will be.
Everything that can be automated — will be — eventually. Human work will focus more and more on non-routine activities — emphasizing creative learning by doing — even if the tools are standard — our work will require creativity to deal with non-routine demands.
COVID is both revealing and accelerating — organizational and cultural changes that we were already struggling with. In less than a year all of us have experienced many aspects of a new economic paradigm. Governments have demonstrated some of their power to mobilize and support new ways to work and create and reward value.²
And COVID is one of many great challenges we face — our future won’t be routine work, in routine organizations, for a routine life. I could talk for an hour on this — but if we accept these basic observations. Then a key important question facing us is — “What do we value?³ How do we know those Values are worth Valuing? How do we Value those values.”
All values exist within an evolving ecology of tensions and paradoxes.
I think there is enough evidence to accept (for good and ill — out of choice or crisis) that we will have to re-imagine what humans do to create value and how we will value our values. — All the things that we come to value in a good life.⁴
Because despite automation on all levels — there will never be a shortage of work to be done or activities to undertake if we want a flourishing life in a flourishing world. And even more of this work — won’t fit in our traditional industrial employment paradigm.
BUT -
Change is hard — especially when there is conditional security and life if filled with uncertainties. Most of us struggle with change. Those of us who claim to embrace and love of change — usually have a deep orientation to the love of learning.
Marshall McLuhan noted that we must now — all “Learn a Living”. This is more evident every day.
In yesterday’s work world — the key question was — “How do we scale efficiency?”. What that means is that survival and thriving required reducing scarce resources — matter, energy, time, human effort — to the most minimal amount — and reducing work to the simplest routines.
Products and processes had to be designed to use the least amount of these resources as possible — in the simplest processes as possible.
But today we live — a ‘Beta World’ — where many of our tools — processes — products — will always be an early release of the next version. This means everyone is facing the challenge of life-long learning, of relearning and of learning to learn — again. Other questions include what ‘mastery of a domain’ will mean?
In this way the term learning means a way of living (learning a living) — and no longer what we must do occasionally so we can return to rote work and routines afterwards.
To survive and flourish — individuals, organizations and societies — will need to shift toward more emphasis on an ability to scale learning — to optimize — not just a capacity — but an honest willingness to want to learn — on all levels — from the individual to the highest levels of collective learning. This includes the difficulties of corresponding unlearning (but not forgetting) of patterns no longer appropriate. This is key to enabling us all — to adapt and develop in a world of accelerating change and innumerable evolving challenges.
The core — the very heart of a capacity for a business, a country or a culture to scale learning ⁵ — is to awaken and nourish a human curiosity — a curiosity that takes for granted — an interdependent and even an entangled world.
When people are pursuing their own curiosities — learning is not only their reward — felt even with every minor discovery — but it also becomes their engine of development — driving them on to more learning — an experience so deeply engaging — it can feel like play. As Seymour Papert has noted — ‘thinking about thinking while playing with objects’ of attention.
To scale learning — both individual and collective learning — we have to create conditions where everyone takes for granted — that a ‘curiosity driven love of learning’ is the basic requirement of any-and-all work. Like the current paradigm of training for jobs — that most people ‘learn’ to adjust to — individuals who may feel less suited to a world of scaling learning — everyone can find suitable ways for personal adjustment for contributing to collective learning.
Work that is increasingly non-routine is about individual and collective and creative solutions. But even more important ‘creative learning with others’ will be a fundamental experience providing a foundation of self-advocacy and collective participation as a citizen — in a rapidly changing world.
I believe that we need to re-imagine the local as a model of the new work environment. An environment that stewards and enables a co-creating — co-learning and an awakening of individual curiosity. Environments that also nourish learning how to let that curiosity, move them to a life-long development — of knowledge and know-how — as a source of self-value and value creation for others.
I believe that every single person — can ‘create’ value when a community is enabling. When a community recognizes that value is only revealed in a social context of inter-action. Our communities are the commons of our flourishing.
Everyone can experience a life knowing that they create value — that is valued by themselves and others. As Esko Kilpi has observed — interactive value creation in a new commons of work.
Paradigm One
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
The traditional question that arises — with my motherhood statements — well yes who can argue with that? But how are we going to pay for it?
Modern Monetary Theory begins with the facts of how currency is created in a nation that can issue its own currency.⁶ Nations such as Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, and many others. In the 21st century it is not ‘printed’ but rather is issued digitally from one account into another account — a matter of accounting.
This type of nation can never run out of money. It is like a scorekeeper who can never run out of points. What this also means is that the nation does NOT fund its spending by taxation — taxes serve other purposes — keeping the ‘playing field level enough’ or nudging our behaviors (for example, taxing tobacco or alcohol, etc.).
Why is this difficult to accept?
With the advent of the 1980s, and the rise of neoliberal economics — President Reagan told us that the nation is like a family. We all know that a family cannot spend more than it earns. In the UK Thatcher told us that the nation has no money of its own — which if it were true then who has a monopoly on the issuing of currency should have caused severe cognitive dissonance. These metaphors and others slowly began to structure our reasoning about the power of a federal government.
Unlike a family which is a currency user — a nation is a currency issuer. This has been willfully confused by an economic narrative that continually claims that the government should concede its power to the market — that governments are ‘too big’ and should get out of the way so the market can regulate social life. In this way, the language of ‘deficits’ and ‘debt’ has been used to evoke a moral framework rather than an accurate description of the workings of the economy. For example, if the nation issues (spends) a $100 into the economy and taxes $60 back — double entry accounting considers this a $40 deficit for the government. But on the other side of the accounting ledger that translates into a $40 surplus in the economy — that’s right — a government deficit equals the savings in the private economy.
If the government never had a deficit — there would be no currency — savings, surplus — in the economy. As an economy grows in size and complexity it requires regular infusions of currency to enable people to make and buy what others need and make. No government deficit — no increasing surplus in the economy’s savings.
The same logic applies to a declaration of federal government debt. Government debt is an accounting entity that can translate with more precision to the quantity of private sector savings. To be clear this does not apply to cities or provinces, because they don’t have the power to issue currency. Cities and provinces can sell bonds to raise funds. Understanding the power of the Federal government to issue currency does suggest we need to re-imagine the relationship between the regional and local to the power of federal governments to financially fund what is possible with the resources available locally, regionally or nationally.
Paradigm Two
How does the current economic paradigm control for inflation? It enables a policy of a ‘natural rate of unemployment’. Imagine a policy that required a natural rate of industries to be inactive in order to slow down an economy?
An unemployed person is less like a fully equipped factory just sitting idle — rather it is like an equipped science lab sitting unused. This brings us to the next economic paradigm — Enabling a person to flourish as a citizen — Universal Basic Assets (UBA) and Guaranteed Job rather than unemployment insurance.
Universal Basic Assets
Universal basic assets — is similar to the more familiar Universal Basic Income. Income lets me do some things — but is income enough? Developed nations have already implemented some aspects of universal basic assets — universal public education for K-12, universal health care, public infrastructures including libraries and more. Is it that difficult to imagine extending UBA to ensure:
- lifelong education
- full health care (including vision and pharma care)
- shelter (cure homelessness by ensure everyone has their own shelter or access to affordable housing)
- Internet access and banking services (including transforming the post office into a public bank enabling all citizens to have a bank account and a digital communication network so everyone can have an email address and platforms for expression)
- Food
- Income
Such basic assets can be considered as minimums necessary for a nation or a community, to grow a citizen capable of contributing value back. The question facing a nation with the financial power of its own currency.
Is it more effective to budget to ensure the best use of current resources and the development of future resources and social capital or to waste human potential or address social problems after they arise?
A paradigm of UBA can set a universal ‘floor’ for a fairer, more response-able economy. The UBA enables individuals to find their own path to creating value — including the ‘invisible work’ of maintain home and family. There are many ways an individual can create value that can’t fit into an employment framework — an easy example — imagine a person dedicating their life to Wikipedia. This provides value to everyone — but who will pay them to do that? There are endless ways to create value and everyone can innovate and create value by exploring the increasing possibilities of an economy that continues to become more complex.
Too many people are led to believe that they are the ones ‘failing-in-the-system’ rather than understanding that it could be that it is the ‘system-that-is-failing them’.
A UBA also lowers the administrative and economic burden that many small employers and businesses bear in order to employ people. For example, they would not need to provide a host of minimal benefits but remain able to compete for high skills and talent by offering more than the minimum.
But UBA alone is still not enough for creating conditions that enable the endless work of a flourishing community and nation the bridge between MMT and the local can be found in the Job Guarantee and Asset-Based Community Development. First a summary of the job guarantee.
The one key policy implication in modern monetary theory is the guaranteed job.
Once the facts of how currency is issued is understood — then unemployment is only one ‘policy’ option. A more viable option is a guaranteed job. Stephanie Kelton in her recent book “The Deficit Myth” summarizes modern monetary theory very well — in her last chapter she also provides a great summary of the guaranteed job.⁷
Roosevelt’s New Deal had several programs with job guarantee attributes such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Full employment as an economic policy was embraced by many industrialized economies after WWII. Hyman Minsky also proposed that government could be an employer of last resort during the 1960s. Other renowned economists have proposed serious concepts of guaranteed jobs. The founders of MMT believe the guaranteed job is the sole fundamental policy necessary with the MMT framework.
The job guarantee conceived by MMT would be a federal program providing a job with a basic floor of wage and benefits to anyone willing to work that creates a ‘buffer stock of labor’ while enabling the economy to be stable despite peaks and troughs. Once implemented it would become a permanent economic program like healthcare.
During recessions, or other forms of economic transition workers who are laid off become unable to spend money that keeps others in different parts of the economy employed. This enables the economy to continue to flow and transform. When better jobs are available in the private sector new workers can shift to other employment with minimal disruptions to personal lives and the economy.
Ultimately, a job guarantee, functions to stabilize prices better by ensuring a more consistent economic flow.
In “The Deficit Myth” Kelton notes that MMT recognizes that a federal government is not able to identify the community’s current assets (human and otherwise), its pressing needs nor its opportunities. However, people living and work in the local community with appropriate means can assess their needs and opportunities. By coordinating with community partners, a federal job guarantee program can determine unmet needs and viable opportunities to create repositories of jobs and projects that can be customized to fit people with different skills and interests to create value that is valued.
Instead of a chronic employment deficit, a job guarantee ensures that people who want to work can find valuable work they can do and that their community values, needs and wants to have done.
Simultaneous this maintains a pool of not only employed — but employable people that remains available to the private sector. However, the job guarantee could also reduce inequities, decrease poverty and strengthen the collective power of labor — while also building more response-able communities with richer social fabric.
Paradigm Three
Asset-Based Community Development — ABCD⁸
Key to a policy of replacing a natural rate of unemployment with a sound policy of a federal job guarantee is the recognition that the federal government is not in the best position to identify a region’s, a city’s, or a community’s most pressing needs or potential opportunities.
As I noted — in a Beta World — efficiencies still are important — but the most pressing costs — are the costs of recognizing, generating and seizing opportunities. As political-economies become more complex — more connected — more diverse — opportunities increase exponentially.
And so, not investing in a capacity to explore the abundance of opportunities — may be disastrous costs, for a society facing the challenges of the 21st century.
To provide the meso enablers between nation (MMT) and citizen (UBA-UBI — guaranteed job) is the third paradigm of the Local community — ABCD — establishing the social chemistry for individual-in-community flourishing — how the community creates the individual and individuals create community -
To quote the Nurture-Development group who are partners of the ABCD Institute:
“Asset Based Community Development builds on the assets that are found in the community and mobilizes individuals, associations, and institutions to come together to realize and develop their strengths.”
The system of commoning needs to be sustainable otherwise its idealistic potential falls foul of a romantic underestimation of what it takes. And recent political discourse has routinely, even cynically, made that mistake.
For commons-style thinking to take hold, we would need to move beyond quaint notions of the gift economy and engage in systemic re-structuring. — Tessy Britton
By identifying the assets available to/of individuals, groups and associations, and local infrastructures that form the constituents of community — a community can determine how to use a federally funded job guarantee to use and build both individual and community social capital and needed infrastructures. Even more important is the building for the future. Five categories of assets are important to recognize, identify and enable their development:
Individual capabilities, gifts, skills — everyone can create value — and everyone needs support to create value. Understanding what each person can contribute and what each person needs as a foundation also enables provides:
- Associations of people working with a common interest — clubs, interest groups, community associations
- Institutions — paid groups of people — including government agencies, schools, businesses, religious organizations and professional organizations. Institution assets are valuable resources and help establish civic response-ability.
- Local environments, resources and infrastructure — including land, buildings, heritage, public and green spaces — all place-based assets.
- Social networks and community social fabric — how people connect with each other and create a sense of community spirit, trust, knowledge and social capital.
A foundation of asset-based community development can provide citizens a way to value their values — and enables the creation of local conditions where every one can produce value worth valuing
To sum it all up — once the real facts of currency creation are understood — then we realize that unlike a family the real work of government is not about balancing a budget. Rather the real work of a federal government is to use its power to issue currency in order to budget for the dynamic balancing of the economy.
Footnotes
- ABCD is only one example of many community-based concepts that are appropriate. ABCD provides a useful acronym and meme for all similar efforts. Another example is Community Wealth Building (CWB). https://community-wealth.org/content/what-community-wealth-building-and-why-it-so-important
- An important contributor in the discussion of valuing values is of course Mariana Mazzucato’s — The Value of Everything.
- For the purposes of this brief paper — I am keeping the concept of value very broadly defined and perhaps ambiguous.
- Some interesting sources on this include the books “How Much is Enough: Money and the Good Life” by Robert Skidelsky and possibly “Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change” by Edmund Phelps.
- See Seely-Brown and Hagel — “The Power of Pull’ and other of their writings.
- There are many excellent sources for deeper understanding of MMT — one very recent work by Stephanie Kelton is “The Deficit Myth” is a very accessible explanation. Also the The MMT Podcast with Patricia Pino & Christian Reilly is well worth following.
- The Deficit Myth p. 250–252
- As noted initially — [1] ABCD is only one example of many community-based concepts that are appropriate. ABCD provides a useful acronym and meme for all similar efforts. Another example is Community Wealth Building (CWB) — https://community-wealth.org/content/what-community-wealth-building-and-why-it-so-important
