OTNS: Mutualism, labor unions and cooperatives (not charity)
We spoke to Sara Horowitz (@Sara_Horowitz), founder of the Freelancers Union and author of the book Mutualism: Building the Next Economy from the ground Up . Sara was also one of our co-conspirators in Zuzalu in Montenegro last year who brought her extensive experience and wisdom from building and supporting worker-focused organizations. We spoke about the practical realities of building mutualistic organizations, the history of how workers' movements did it, and how crypto can build this through solidarity primitives.
Check out a previous episode to learn more about our framework for out network state alternative, coordi-nations.
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Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is a series in collaboration with Blockchaingov where we critique The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of guests. You can find the first episode of OTNS where we give our initial criticisms and alternatives here.
Blockchaingov is a 5-year long, transdisciplinary research effort aimed at restoring trust in institutions at the community and global levels, by promoting better on chain and off chain distributed governance practices. Throughout the series, each discussion will include me and a member of Blockchaingov with either a new guest each episode or a discussion between us to tackle various topics from the book.
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Transcript
Hi everyone. You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist Podcast. I'm Josh and I am here with the co host for the Overthrowing the Network State, sub series in the podcast, Primo Verdi Filippi, and we are together with Sarah Horowitz. Sarah Horowitz was with us during our time at Zuzalu in Montenegro. She was one of the one of the core parts of the team that gave us a lot of, wisdom and a lot of, input into what ultimately became the framework for what we did for the creation of coordination. But Sarah Horowitz is the, so you know, the founder of the freelancers union and the freelancers insurance company. She was also formerly chair of the board of the New York Federal Reserve, and she is the author of the book Mutualism Building the Next Economy from the Ground Up. So hi, Sarah. How are you? Would you like to give, your own introduction to yourself as well?
Sure. Thanks. First of all, nice to see you both again. I would just say now I'm really working on building mutualism with the mutualist society but it's a work in progress and so, we could talk more about that too. I would just say, you know, I think the thing is that you hope over the course of your life you have an umbrella, which Primavera will pronounce far better than I, but the sense of the things that you're working on over time. And I would say it's really trying to understand how workers build the world they need and that really that North Star helps traverse a lot of different structures and strategies, but it's always really trying to figure that out.
That was that was core to, like, a lot of your work is how to give more power to workers while we're in the middle of kind of like these the the trend of neoliberalism kind of breaking away at that power.
Yeah. I think that what's really important is to know that workers always build what they need and that structure changes. It might be a medieval guild. It might be a craft union. It might be an industrial union. And I think that and I've really been probably working on this for, like, thirty years. But I think we really do need to think about, like, networked unions. Like, this idea of the next structure, which is beyond sort of the ways that we've set up the last structure, but it's very threatening because labor is so under attack that it doesn't feel like the right time for many people to be open. But actually, I think at least in The United States when 77% of people say they're pro union and yet we haven't really seen an increase in the rate of unionization, it's sort of screaming out that we've got to be building the next structures.
Mhmm. Yeah. So maybe, for those who are listening, maybe they would be it would help them to know maybe we could talk about the, say, the the freelancers union and mutualism and kind of explain since that's a bit that was a big project of yours. And, the concept of mutualism, I think, is, you know, in a lot of socialist literature, a lot of anarchist literature, you kind of kinda apply it in the in the modern context. So maybe if you can maybe explain some of that, that'll help ground the conversation, and we can link that to to coordinations.
Sure. Yeah. So, basically, I I was a union organizer for, health care workers and became a labor lawyer. And when I was a labor lawyer under the category of you can't make this stuff up, I was, made an independent contractor. And, you know, that was kind of a good thing because I started to think like, woah. Like, that's so bad. What would be the ways that independent contractors could form a union? And started to really think about that and started meeting with other workers and started to build what became the freelancers union. And it was really this idea that it actually fulfills the three principles of mutualism. You need a solidaristic group, which were freelancers. You needed an economic mechanism so that you're not asking for foundations or wealthy people to pay, but you're building something that is from the activity of the group. So we provided health insurance and other insurance. And then we had a long term perspective, and our legal structure was the union owned everything. So all revenues were recycled back into our own community. And I would say that's where I intuitively learned mutualism, but it took me a while to kind of figure out, like, those are the three principles. And actually when you look at it, those three principles, the solidaristic group, an economic mechanism, and a long term time horizon undergird unions and cooperatives and the business of the faith communities like schools and hospitals, and DAOs and a lot of other things and social entrepreneur endeavors. And I would say the thing about mutualism is to say, I really believe that there's a three lane highway, there's the for profit sector, the government, and this mutualist social sector. Many people have many different ways of talking about it, like the solidarity economy and others and all good, but we have to have one conversation, I think, just to operationalize this, in a heterodox way. And so what I think is really important is that we see in those models not we don't start at what we love about them. Like, I think of that as the cherry on the icing on the cake, but actually, what's the cake? Like, where are the eggs and the flour and, like, what are the ingredients that make this happen? And that I think is the stage that we're at right now, the practical stage of building that those.
No. I I think that's really interesting, because when we're often in these kind of alternative, especially in the crypto world spaces, there is a lot of talk about trying to create a new world. But oftentimes that new worlds I find to be a bit, focused on kind of leaning into the things that have been over time, I feel, eroding away mutualism or solidarity that was perhaps stronger in the past between people, through the I mean, like with the network states and everything else, it's sort of like, let's use, like, the the disciplinary, mechanism of the market to kind of whip people into shape to build a new society. It's kind of like how how I perceive of it. Whereas you're taking the approach, and we're we're taking from this as well as, like, the school of, like, thinking about how do we actually increase interdependence and mutualism between people, organizations, and communities, and use that to create and, I would say, make more resilience this this third sector by using perhaps this new technologies that we find available to us now, which can perhaps be like the I think Pimavera likes to use the word scaffolding for our new institutions. I think it's interesting as well that it we're we're trying to take a, we mentioned this before, but, like, we're trying to create something new. They're trying to go beyond, the critique phase. We've had a very long critique phase, especially on the left about things, and it seems high in time to start to move towards perhaps step two, phase two, which is to start experimenting and building these new institutions. But this also means, I think, taking from the institutions, like, what are the lessons learned while also trying to create new ones because we have kind of, like, at the same time, the context is much different than the industrial capitalism when perhaps, you know, a lot of unions were formed. And now it's been several decades of chipping away at them and, like, all sorts of issues. Miss Grace, how do you see, like, maybe the role of of how do we think about creating these perhaps new institutions, and how do we take the lessons from from what came before, which, I mean, you know, you were part of many of those institutions or took part in them.
Yeah. Well, first of all, I really love that very complex question. So I'm gonna jump in, but if there's any part that you are missing, just say so. I I think the first is actually a culture of building. And I really believe that because I think we've gotten really mean. Not personally, but it's like the way we speak to each other and we feel and I think the technology really reinforces it. You know, it takes five seconds to write a 140 characters about what's wrong with something, but so many hours to actually try to build something. And a generosity of heart would actually be quite helpful here. And I also think, I think a lot about my family's experience and I would suggest that everybody think about their family's experience because everybody has a family member who's experienced mutualism. It's mundane, it's boring, it's the way we've led our lives. So my grandmother was a garment worker and she lived in Union Housing in Manhattan. She died at 96. It wasn't like cute or quaint, it was like a building. But the thing that was interesting was she would take her beach chair in Manhattan and she would bring it downstairs and she and her friends would like sit in front of the building and they would talk to each other. So now you could imagine that we'd have like a very interesting public health conversation about loneliness. You know, maybe her building was a blue zone because it turned out that she did all these things that are the exact ingredients of what makes people live longer. And I just think we get to that last phase first. You know, we wanna talk about my grandmother in her chair and how great that is, but actually if you go all the way back, it's because the garment workers started to organize and then there were dues and those dues were this regular source of revenue that were the workers. And the union knew that the workers needed affordable housing so they started to build cooperatives. Those cooperatives still are standing and I think that is why the culture of building is so important because you have to go back to that moment where you're talking about like revenue and money for the good of the workers. And I think that's part of where the blockchain y stuff gets disjointed because it is the only people really who've been able to innovate on blockchain in any big way have been the for profit sector. So they kind of set the norms and the rules and then when you enter it you sort of have to use that scaffolding. But I actually feel like I don't wanna use that scaffolding and I don't wanna I don't want rich people giving money or foundations. I actually think we have to go back to peer to peer and start to say like, what do we need? What are we building? And start from our own position, not where we're like charitably helping other people but really start from a place of we are human beings and it's perfectly okay to focus on your own needs. We are workers, some of us might be professional workers, some people might be freelance workers, some people might be low wage workers but always start from the person. Don't think altruism and charity, it's condescending actually. So let's start, and I think that's the place that we have to start with.
But, so so just one question. So, I'm trying to, like, play the the blockchain side, the blockchain advocate. Because to me, it feels like and and I notice this a lot. Right? It's like, there is clearly, like, a a large number of, project on the blockchain that have very profit driven slash speculative reasons. At the same time, I found it, I found it a pity that the people that are actually interested in more, like, common based, mutualized, cooperative forms, somehow do not actually see the blockchain also as an opportunity for them. And I'm I'm curious, like, especially after your experience in Zuzalo, is it like do you feel that it is just something that the technology cannot provide, or do you think that it's just that the technology is somehow stigmatized by those more popular or more visible speculative applications so that Yeah. People that actually, try to operate in a different, fashion are kind of, like, demotivated to even try to use the blockchain even. So as a technology, in my view at least, and I'm curious what you think, the technology definitely can also provide for for these alternative, cases.
Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks. That that is really helpful because I actually really think that the distributed ledger is the the revolutionary piece for mutualism and the social sector. And I would say kind of like, you know, we're we're at this moment. You know, I I was saying in the beginning about unionism. You know, the the union model in almost every in The US and Europe, and probably, you know, Asia to some degree and Africa, but probably also Latin America is is an industrial model. Right? So you have to say there's so much in there that's wonderful that needs to be kept. But what needs to be updated, which requires a kind of clarity and precision about so for instance, just to give an example, you can't have trade unionism just be in a workplace. Now that's obvious in 2024, but you would not believe this. That's still how labor is regulated because people have to be, often that's the frame of what's called a collective bargaining unit, though you can have more virtual, etcetera, but just for the sake of the discussion. I think the same for blockchain. I think that there the blockchain is enabling us to organize in networks and to have this way for people to be participating and also to be measuring people's contribution in a way that was you probably could do it before but it was cumbersome and hard. And I actually a 100 think that that's really relevant. But I also think that the ways we set up things like DAOs, I've noticed the weakness is in the decision making processes and the real lack of understanding. And and the the lack of understanding revolves around trust and and it takes the values of the for profit sector where technology is a proxy for trust rather than technology is the manifestation of trust. So I I agree that to me that's why I went all the way to Montenegro and why Web three is so relevant to me because I think it lets people be free to start building the next structures. But I don't believe that you can just take the technology as is, and I think we're all sort of building this mutualist tech infrastructure ourselves first. And that is I don't know. Do you get what I'm saying?
No. No. Absolutely. And and I think this is kind of like, I mean, at Zuzalu, we started with, like, elaborating, a conceptual framework of how, mutualized community that is trying to achieve some kind of collective action, could look like. And and, indeed, I think, like, a lot of the discussion was about how do we reevaluate trust as, as something that will give power to the network as opposed to something that we want to eliminate. But so in in this sense, if we if we agree that we have, like, a preliminary model either from, like, the more legacy world of, like, cooperatives and and mutual, mutual organization or within our, newly newly developed, more Webtree like framework for coordinations. So what do you think if if we are thinking in terms of tactics and and operationalization, what do you think is missing? What do you think will be, like, the the first step into trying to actually implement those models into, Web three blockchain infrastructure.
Yeah. You know, I think that and I I feel like so I've been building the mutualist society, and people can take a very quick look at mutualistsociety.net. And there's really no functionality on the website other than to sign up if you're interested. So if you're interested, do that. But I would say I've been really thinking a lot about that. And understandably, I think when you come at this trying to think about solidarity and mutualism and unions and co ops and faith, we intellectualize it. But I actually think the first step is actually, like, what do you need? And that's always, like, how you start any organizing anywhere ever. You know? And so I almost feel like we need to trust ourselves to start anything, like a book group, a garden. And it's almost weird to say that, but, like, I've even noticed that in my own life that it's like I'm starting the mutualist society and trying to build this way for people who really care about mutualism to come together. But I would really love to set up like a dinner club in my neighborhood in Brooklyn because I want to lead a more convivial life. Do you get what I'm saying? Like, we we we get very intellectual because that's how we can see it. But the action items have to be, you know, food, housing, clothing, shelter, like, about what you actually need. And and that's another way that I think our culture is really hurting us is like I don't feel like I'm part of this left because I don't think it really is left. I'm part of the next left because we have stopped people from identifying about their own needs because the first thing when somebody says this is my need, you say, oh, well, you're really privileged and somebody else needs something more. So we have this, like, escalation into, like, who's the most screwed and you can't organize like that. You just simply can't organize like that. And you have to start organizing for where you are and then you start to see around you and then you build and you build alliances and you build coalitions and you then have a sense of the whole. But I don't believe anybody that ever organizes for somebody else because that's something different than organizing.
Yeah. I think that's, that's a super interesting point. And, like, I think I think we can see we can see, like, a lot of those especially especially nowadays in the blockchain, there's a lot of those thing of, like, public funding public goods and, retroactive funding in which you have, like, entities that are collecting funds in order to redistribute, but it's not to redistribute as a mutualistic mechanism. It's to redistribute to others, which full kudos. That's great. But it's a very different structure than the more mutualist thing in which you identify people that wants to put resources in common in order to fulfill their own needs in a more efficient manner. Right? Yes.
Can I just say, Prueva, I it's such an import you know what it is? It's, again, moving away from critique, which you're not critiquing. But I just wanna say, like, yay. Go team for people who are doing good in the world. Like, that's great. But there's a precision here of something else that we wanna really make clear. And there's something about like, I tell the story all the time. So if somebody was in a meeting with me, forgive me. But, like, if you are the letter carriers union and you become a letter carrier and there's a meeting to find out about who, you know, the local candidates and you are the letter carrier. You go to that meeting. Wow. Now I'm starting to learn about who the local candidates are. Well, I really love this politics stuff, so now I'm becoming part of the political team of my union. Now I'm starting to really get such a broad horizon that now I wanna run for elective office. Oh, and the union has a a base upon which to help me get elected. When we do these strategies that like are these group things for other people, the letter carriers among us never become the leaders. And so everything is like the foundations hire their McKinsey consultants who I might add are paid too much. They fly all around the world in planes that take up way too much energy. They tell us little people what's good for us and then they implement. And I think that's what we all agree on. It's like, no. Actually, local communities are the experts about their own needs, and we should be enabling them to build. And the best way for us to enable them to build is for us to build and then share what we're doing so that others just start to do that. And I think that 2024 is the time for us to gather because there's so much out there that's about other things that we in these projects come together and we learn, in an unobstructed way so that we can understand what we're doing. And that, I think, is what coordination is doing, and I think that's what started in, you know, Zazulu and what we're doing at the mutualist society.
And and do you see, like, do you see, like, a future in which the mutualist society is actually, trying to I don't know if the word is evolve, but, trying to, mutate whatever. I don't know what the height were, but to implement some form of coordination type, structure.
I'm not sure how to answer that. So let me start, and then, like, we could go from there. This is what I think I've really I've learned, like, two things in the last year. The first thing is I thought the task at hand was to help the organizations that are already existing reach, like, the next generation. But now I think it's our job to help the next generation figure out what it needs to do by bridging. And so I think that a lot of people over, like, 70 know a ton of stuff, and we should be having conversations with people, like, under 35 and over 70 talking to each other. And the second, this is more responsive to your point, is I really believe in emergence. Like, I don't know. And I think that what I'm really discovering is that if you have this idea of, like, building the mutualist society to be its own mutualist entity and bringing together mutualists, you just keep asking, you know, the what, you know, the what and the how, and then you build from there. And I think that that it probably has to do with eras because at a different era, you might very much wanna say what are the top three things? How are we gonna execute? If we wanna be there in three years, how do we reverse engineer and and start right now doing those things to get us where we wanna be in three years? I think the moment where we are now is to say it's probably getting the right people in the room who care, who are builders, who are filled with love, who want to build something, and then just start and then make a lot of mistakes but have people who are comfortable with that and not so judgmental. And that's why I say the culture of building really matters because it just takes, like, a handful of assholes to take the energy out of the room and that that's actually political now, you know? So it's better to be small. It's better to really have an idea of what you're trying to build and have a the first maybe North Star just to be successes that we build something. And maybe it's a c when we build it, but it'll get to be a b minus, and that'll get to be a b plus, and it'll be an a minus, and that'll be a.
Yeah. I found that really interesting. I mean, I I've been kind of thinking as you're talking how maybe in the past, without the Internet, it was probably more imperative that people got together in person, in order to get their their social fix. It was, like, pretty normal to go out and seek people out. I mean, I def I I I grew up in a time whenever I would just knock on my friend's door and ask them if they want to hang out. But I found that, like, you know, my niece and my nephew don't do that so much, which I find quite strange. That the kind of because sociality or a form of sociality is so easily accessible through through a screen with a phone, we can kind of just, like, tap into it and get our social fix. And that's what I think a lot of social media does. It gives us, like, a almost like the the sugary version of social interaction rather than, like, a nutritious meal form of, of social interaction. And this has kinda permeated, quite quickly, in the world where you can get your sociality, but also what's in in person, at least I find most of the time, it's a lot harder to be a dick. It's a lot harder to be rude to someone to their face. And so you have to you're forced to kind of, like you know, even if someone says someone kinda cringe something kinda cringe or kind of, like, oh, I disagree, you don't want to have, like, a confrontational, you know, interaction with that person. So you find ways to kind of, you know, smoothen it out or, you know, how about consider this? Whereas social media, whenever you have very hard and strict kind of limitations to how we socialize, which encourage a type of, emotional states to be to be, you know, pulled out of us in order to, like, have us keep going to to the platform, is not very conducive to solidarity or to mutualism, whereas there is almost, like, a forced solidarity, in the past where, everyone just spent more time, you know, human to human, face to face. But this is not to say that, like, all technology or digital technologies is bad or platforms are bad or whatever else. But I think it's just that the way that they have been designed and kind of created, they they curate, kind of poor emotional states than what we could be doing if we had, you know, more akin to, maybe the the solidaristic types of relations or organizations that that we had in the past that we still have today, but, like, using technology to facilitate those better, to expand those things. Yeah.
I think that that you know how, like, what you just said, I could imagine somebody who isn't thinking about this would just say, like, I don't get why that's really important. But I actually in fact, that's the root problem here. And that our technology is like, I like to make this joke that, like, the reason why Facebook groups don't work is because Facebook doesn't have these notifications. Like, now's the dues. Maybe you should get off this platform so you own the data. Right? You'd never get those notifications. And if that's like the metaphor, what what we really are not doing is enabling ourselves so that if you say something in a really jerky way, you still have to see somebody, like, directly and look them in the eye. You could do that with technology. Right? It's not like you couldn't. You could set up relationships so that instead of like, I think about how we set things up. Like, we know the formula if you're setting up a meeting of, like, going on Meetup and Eventbrite and posting it here and posting it there. There's like a lot of people and you'll be like, wow. That was so great. Do you know how many people came? Like, that's the metric of success. How many people came? But what if you sort of said the metric of success is that people, like, came together and they agreed to do something. And then we created, a form so we could keep in touch with them off the platforms, and we just started to meet and talk. And, you know, there's so many really interesting things that, like, happen all over the place, and and they're already happening in every faith community on whatever their their holy day is. People come together and they do something and we could either just start going there and that's a first step or another step is to start, you know, your own block association or just start something. But literally, that is the revolutionary core here. It is not gonna happen using technology as their structure, I think.
Can I can I try and, like, build upon that? Because to me, like, I I I agree with everything that you just said. And I think there is also a lot of value in so I think it's very important to have, like, local communities of solidarity that really create this type of kinship, and trust with one another. And at the same time, it is it is also very powerful when many of those communities which recognize that they have also some something in common, that they want to that they share a societal vision or that they actually want to have a future in common, Even though maybe they as, like, a network of community, they cannot always come together. But, but, nonetheless, it's recognizing that there exists other community like mine, which I respect and which I wanna foster as well. And I think that's where there is this kind of, like, higher level system of, like, mutualization not just at the level of the local community, which I think is the more standard mutualization, organizations, but rather also identifying existing communities. And that those communities as well have needs, and those communities as well have maybe resources that they have more than what they need and, and identifying, how do we create a overarching system of mutualism amongst those community. And I think this can be done in in a more traditional way through bilateral forms of, you know, a reciprocity. Like, I give you this. You give me that. But it's really hard to find this perfect match of community that exactly needs what the author has an extra for. And I think what what is interesting and I think that's where technology actually enable interaction that will be difficult to do, otherwise, which is creating network of communities, which instead of engaging in simple reciprocal, bilateral, mechanism of sharing resources, they also mutualize, and they also put things in common. But I think that's where that's where I think, like, blockchain, a system that actually enable the mutualization of resources without having to create an overarching entity that will be in charge of managing those resources. Because then, otherwise, you're just delegating to a higher power. And, you know, it can work, but it's a very different structure than recognizing the interdependencies of multiple community and creating an infrastructure of mutualization without losing the flattened hierarchy amongst those different communities.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I think it's an issue of sequencing in many ways. Right? Because it's like you can't you don't wanna just have, like, all this local activity that's separate and just, like, almost, volcanized. You do want this, but it also has to be where they're seeing the connection and that that makes sense. But but also probably people seeing that and having new ideas about different kinds of ways to network. So I would say though, and, I mean, just from what I I can see for for my own strategy work is I don't I I'm I see the crisis now as more, like, we don't have a base. Like, we we so profoundly don't have a base. You know? It's kind of like these this whole sector sort of hit a freeze frame slow time, no time in, like, the nineties. And we then create instead of a social sector, we were like, we're gonna have a nonprofit sector, and then we're gonna have foundations, and they're gonna be experts, and they're gonna figure out what we all need, and then they're gonna get worse. They're they're gonna coordinate. So now they put their money in one big pile, and it's monochrome. So now they have one strategy. You know? And then so I guess I feel like if we don't get this base started, then our foundation isn't gonna sit on anything. You know? So I don't I don't disagree. Like, I think there should be an explosion of strategies and ideas and groups, and they should be tried, and we should see what patterns work. But I can't imagine that we'll be able to do that if we don't start having a little bit of a playbook about how to do this. And I think we're create we're all trying to create that playbook and and learn. You know? Like, I don't I don't think anybody there's gonna be no pride of authorship of the playbook because it's like saying there's one way to form a union or one way to form a cooperative or one way for a faith you know, it isn't. Like, nobody that is not proprietary because it it it can't be. It just is stupid. Anybody could just see the idea and do it.
Yeah. And and and exactly and I feel like what we're, what we're really eager to do, now and I like I like the word that you use, like playbook. It's like, what are the, I guess, recipes? But, so we already created one recipe, but it's like, how do we implement this recipe? Right? And this is like, what is the playbook by which we can try to identify the building blocks that are necessary? What is the various, technical tools that are needed, what are the, legal, frameworks that are also needed in order to actually operate and interface with existing structure, What are the governance structure that should be implemented? Like, those are all very challenging question, which even though we have this generic recipe, as we transpose it into specific communities, all those details, which are the devils, needs to be figured out. And and I feel like the only way to figure out those those details is actually having community experiment because otherwise, we we cannot we can only create a a platonic ideal of an idea, but the operationalization of it with the imperfection of the world is where the the interesting thing is.
Yes. I I a 100%. I mean, I you know, I don't know why this just, like, came into my mind, but I I really do think that it's this experimentation, but it's also clarity. You know what I mean? And having, like, the clarity of what you're doing. And so, like, I kinda feel like something happened with these ideas of, you know, maybe this isn't in the blockchain community, but, like, these impact investors. Like, I thought in the nineties, like, oh, fantastic. Finally, we're gonna have, like, capital that's gonna make this sector explode and, you know, I'm sure, like, a lot of naivete on my part, but I had built an insurance company every $17,000,000. So it was, like, kind of good timing. I don't know if I could have raised that now. But there's something about this idea of outsiders and experts coming in, and that's not to say that there aren't expertise actually. Right? It's this isn't an argument for being ignorant. It's saying that the it's the precision of deeply understanding what we're trying to build and seeing what that difference is. So that's why, you know, like, maybe I come back next year and we talk and I say, oh, no. That didn't work at all. But I actually think it's trying these simple things to try to get the recipe, the playbook, and to kinda see what works. And then once you get that first set of a pattern of things that work, then you make that in the recipe and you try that out. And then, you know, and that's what that's what we're doing. But that's only to me this year or two years. Do you know what I mean? Like, then you wanna start to to to do things. But I'm skeptical because I think there's one group we really have to worry about on on this. I mean, there's probably a number but it's these do gooders. You know, these do gooders are just gonna kill this with kindness and you you kinda have to be tough about this in your own thinking. So it's kinda like who's in who's the boss of me? You know, who's the boss of my group? Why are they the boss? Like what are they bringing? And if it's just money, that no. So, you know, maybe there's a whole other discussion about the next role of philanthropy, but if this stays a philanthropic endeavor or starts to be a philanthropic endeavor, it's over. We're done. It like, they can't do it. They need to they need to maybe create a blind trust of money. I don't know. You know? But I I worry about that. It's kind of like what's happening in the employee ownership. Like, the foundation world is discovering ownership, but weirdly, they're not funding cooperatives. You know, they're not funding unions. They're funding, you know, private equity companies to give three crumbs to workers and that's on a good day. So, anyway, I I under now I'm violating my don't critique and build, but I would say that is the one thing I would be worried about.
Yeah. It it seems to me that's, like, one of the first things we have to do is build community, which is, like, much harder work than it seems sometimes, but it's something that is like a my feeling is that it's more like a it's like a snowball, where at the beginning, of course, can be quite tough. And then once you have people kind of hooked in and you have the have it going, then it's can can roll a little bit where, you know, it's not just one or two people that are advocating for the community or who are taking part or have responsibility. And once that grows and grows, which was a perhaps a thing that was easier to do in the past because it already kind of existed in the kind of I don't know. The the mess the, yeah, web or mycelial network of of the world. Where now we kind of have to, like, rebuild a lot of those things, and only my feeling is that trying to start with the technology first will be a lot more difficult than having the community first and then seeing how the technology can help augment that. And so if we're thinking about practically building, and if even if you are someone who is a technologist and wants to build more democratic, more, you know, egalitarian technology, building the tech building the the community is kind of an unavoidable thing you gotta do.
And it's kinda like what you were just saying a little back. Like, so that if it's not gonna be face to face, it's gonna be face to face like, you know, like something that and I think, yeah, I think that's kind of an interesting thing. Like, how do we come together, as a as a group? And, you know, I I feel like I use a lot of Google Docs and Google Sheets and, trying not to build using any existing thing because I'm not convinced the technology is actually architected properly yet for these kinds of things. You know? But I always feel like it's interesting to me how like Facebook almost gets it and then figures out the great way to, you know, extract it. And like, I think people know how to do this. Like, I don't think it's actually that hard. It's just who's your quarterback. And I'm somebody who knows nothing about football, but I think that's kind of the problem here. Like, the community, the people are the quarterbacks. It's it's not extracting their experience of data and building from there.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. The when you have kind of very, structural forces whose imperative kind of very much go against the not not even I mean, you can create a community on Facebook only to a certain extent. You can't reach the kind of, like, levels, or it's more difficult to reach the levels of, like, solidarity and mutualism that ultimately we, I feel like I mean, want to create, but also need to create if we want to make something different than what we have now. It's like, I almost feel like a there's a hesitancy sometimes with with people and relationships that you only wanna get so close. Or if you don't get you can't you don't wanna get any closer because then then it starts to get into, like, some taboo areas. You know?
Right. Or just actual need. Like, what a drag. That person needs something. But I, you know, I think that's where blockchain is really interesting. And I do really notice that the people that are interested in Web three on the social side are the most open and interesting and have all sorts of ideas. And I would say where I really do feel like the learning has to happen is, like, I really sometimes have this impression when people talk about DaaS that they envision people, like, in a stadium all being there. Like, everything's transparent. And I think that that's another example where this issue of trust like, how do we get to a place where people can trust another set of people for a good reason so that you can operationalize things at a level of complexity? And also because you'd want that. And, you know, I hate the word transparent because I feel like it's a way to skirt the issue of power, you know, because sometimes things really work well when people can have a private conversation, you know, when things can be done quietly or there's some deliberation. And I think that that's another example where we're we're our own worst enemy here. Like, the better question is how do we build in this trust operationally? And that's where I think tokens are actually really interesting because you can be keeping track of someone's actual contribution, and then they either demonstrating and manifesting their skin in the game. Then you've been in activities with them, so you have that intuitive feeling. You start seeing the same people over and over. And I think those are the things that I'm trying to experiment with. Like, how do you use tokens? And how do you set it up as experiments so that you can just keep iterating and nobody nobody's clinging on to what they earned before?
Yeah. I I I feel the need to to shill a little bit at the moment because, I think kind of one of the I just it aligns a lot with kind of a lot of the thinking that I've been doing as far as how it applies to the to the crypto space. But, you know, I was when I when I first created, my project, Bread Chain Cooperative, which is kind of like this federation of different projects all with a similar kind of political vision when it comes to the crypto world, the kind of technical term that I came up with or, like, the term that I came up with for calling kind of technical implementations of solidarity is kind of like how I think about it. It's called solidarity primitives. And, fairly recently, this word was, it was used by, The Other Internets, which is a kind of research group where they they dove into this idea of solidarity primitive. They they expanded a bit on kind of, like, my original writing and and and thinking, which is very cool to see. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it it seems to me that there is a there is a hunger for it. There's just maybe a lack of like, I kind of I I saw this meme. It's almost like, you know, I have nostalgia for a place I've never been to that, like, people kind of they have an idea of what they want. There's like I feel like there's some sort of ancestral human DNA of wanting, you know, solidarity and community in their lives. And there's a a longing for that somewhere deep within within a lot of us, a lot of people, And kind of the the the promises of the Internet's bringing us closer together, turning kind of like the globe into a village has not really panned out into, like we got, like, the worst parts of a village where, you know, everyone's shit, but and then we're all mad at each other, but not, like, the community part of the village.
I know. The solidarity. It's also kind of funny because, you know, people we all are so yearning for it. You know? Like, so why why is it so hard? And I almost feel like, you know, I, as somebody who's built, like, the freelancers union and and others are trying to do this with the mutualist society, but I also feel as a human being that same thing of, like, why don't we just walk out our door and you know literally put flyers under other people's doors and say like let's all meet for a beer on Sunday at 04:30, you know, bring some food. We'll meet over here. You know, like it it actually is not hard. Like, how have we come to this place that we don't we don't feel that. And yet, I think, like, one use case would be, like, the little the kindling because I do feel like people are actually ready. And I think, like, just to say that people are doing this all the time, like socket sonai from resilience force has taught me a lot about what happens after a climate disaster. And immediately, people start to build their own networks, and they start helping each other get food and their medicine and taking care of pets. And then they set up these really sophisticated networks locally over and over again. And then in The US, FEMA, our federal emergency medical governmental agency comes in and says, thanks. That was great. Great job. Now we're gonna outsource that all to the for profit sector. So we just wiped out all that social capital. And so it is happening. The impulse is actually there over and over and over and over again. And so I think the question is sort of how does this isolated action you know, how do we start to see that action is happening a a huge amount? So I think maybe the way we should put this is it's actually happening a ton. It's just it's isolated. We don't see it sort of to Primavera's point. You know, maybe it's actually finding some way that we're capturing that, showing it. And I think that's one important coordination. But I think another is for me, I think getting down on the ground level and just start enabling people to start building. And that is another coordination. And then maybe there's bigger, broader coordinations around, like, the need for new capital markets. But that's also where tokens, I think, are super interesting because I think there's ways that we can start to do the work of our own organization ourselves. And we actually, through blockchain, can keep track of that. And so that's where I do feel like blockchain is completely inspiring. And it's up to the sort of mutualist sector to start writing the new rules and the new tech infrastructure. And I think there's tons of people like Michael Zardom and Kia, Kreidler and lots of other people that are already, you know, trying to think about that in a mutualistic way. And I think that that's really interesting.
Yeah. It's the yeah. It's kinda it's funny. Like, I can, off the top of my head, name a bunch of people in the crypto space who are trying to work in this kind of direction. It's just such a it's it it it it's such a shame that, like, these are also not the types of people who are getting, like, the most attention either in mainstream media or whatever on YouTube or whoever else. But I think it's just a testament to, like, how far like, the work that we have cut out for us that, we do need to start building. There I
there's a great book that I love called The Quiet Before by Gal Beckerman, and Sasha Hasselmeyer from Ashoka just wrote a book. I think it's called The Slow Lane. And I this is my new tagline. You have to have the courage to be small, and that's probably because I'm short. But, I really believe that. I think that, like, being on YouTube and out on media, you're probably actually not doing something that's super interesting because it's we're all in the quiet before right now. And it's it's the to me, you know, it's recipes and gardening. Right? It's like the seedlings are just coming up out of the earth. So it doesn't look like it's anything, but actually this is the next era. It's just what we think of is important right now, probably isn't. And I feel like when I talk to people and they say I'm so busy, I feel like my condolences because you're probably missing a lot. You probably answered every email and you took care of all your social media and you probably missed the beauty of this next moment, you know? So, like, turn off social media. Bye bye. It's not helpful. Start to, like, actually, you know, get together with people for beer or cookies or, like, garden or go to your community garden or join a faith community. Like, that's that's where the nourishment and the energy is, I think.
Mhmm. Yeah. Get your so get a get a nice healthy meal of social interaction than just infinite scrolling.
And, like, you know, in The US, I feel like we're so it's so sad that, like, we're talking about Trump and Biden. And, you know, to me, we're, like, in the beginning of a complete political realignment, and we don't even know what that will be. But we have to get our constituencies to be able to say what they need and what matters to them because that's how democracy really gets revitalized.
Yeah. Maybe maybe to start finishing off, one of the things I was wondering about is if you have any, like, straightforward wisdom or tips, based on your work, being a labor organizer and which does involve a lot of building. What are some of the things that maybe you would hope people who are in in the Web three space, in the crypto space, for example, here, what should they keep in mind when when they are building? What are some some how how can we save them, you know, decades of learning now so that No. I things.
I I mean, I think the if you let's say we were saying, like, what are the how tos? And I would never write this or say this, but, like, how to make it have a greater chance of success. Like, I think the first thing is you have to start from your own place. Like, you. What do you need? What are you thinking? And don't think about, like, building. Like, oh, there's just market opportunity. Like, I think we could have product market fit if we just did this one thing. But I think if you just actually said, like, this mundane thing you need and maybe it's not even mundane. Maybe it's big. But you start instead of following people, maybe you find some place to just get started. I like, you know, Google Sheets personally. And you call it something like my circle for this thing. And then you find, like, people that are either on social media or in your real life or that you knew from your past, and you reach out. And you sort of set a personal goal of getting, like, 10 people who kinda seem like they're interested in that that same thing. And you say, could we look for an email thread or something or a Discord channel? I hate that. So I don't think you want too much conversation individually. Really want everybody to see each other. And then I think you start to say, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need? What are you thinking? What's working for you? Can we set up a time that we meet? Is it weekly? Is it monthly? Is it, like, something else? And then what's the key activity that we can do together that we can't do a lot? And so I think once you start doing those things, like, voila, you actually have, like, the version one. And if you're actually trying to you you perceive that what you're trying to do is something bigger, then that bigger thing will emerge because you'll start to kind of see, like, where where is that going? And that's where you have to have the courage to be small. And it's actually you know, it's it's sort of like, you know, the auto workers union, you know, one of the best unions in The United States. You know, they really did start out, you know, just like one plant. You know, they really did have a few handful of people. And when you look at almost any big social movement, you know, it's it's it's when it started with a bunch of people in a room. You know, it wasn't bigger than that. And somehow, we think bigness equals success, and bigness equals bigness. That's it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's sometimes it's easy to forget that many of the maybe whatever is left over, at least of, like, the good types of institutions, they are started off with they are started by a few people with, you know, with with some energy to build something
and going through it. You know, Bill Driesser from Ashoka calls it each, everyone a change maker. And, I really believe that. I think it's we all have that ability. We've all done that in our lives. And that that really is gonna be the world is just, you know, this is to me, it's the social sector side. This isn't where people are gonna get rich if that's when people wanna do it like do something else. But if you actually wanna organize like actually the technology I think really does give us just incredible potential, but you actually kind of really have to learn the community organizing piece first and that you know that's hard. I would say, read rules for radicals by Saul Alinsky, but it's really hard to read. I don't know have you ever read that Like, I actually went back and read that book. It's like that is dense and hard to read. But, I would try and go and talk to people who are over 65 and find out, like, what they did. And that's probably a good good place to start.
Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Maybe if there are any last words you'd like to share with people or, where people can keep up with you and your work. I think it'd be great to share your wealth of knowledge that I think a lot of people listening would would love to know more about.
Yeah. So, you know, I'm really trying to build a group of people that really care and have, you know heart and brain around being constructive and find mutualism compelling. So if that's you, you can go to mutualistsociety.net and you'll see it's like a Squarespace not functional website that has one functionality which is to sign up. And we're gonna be doing, you know, a bunch of experiments through the course of this year. So there will be ways for people to jump in and see what it is and, you know, see if they wanna be a part of it or just wanna be a part of it for a day. But it really is this idea of capturing the people that care and wanna be a part of it and have an expectation of time and attention and capacity, not just like come and be a passive attendee and, you know, hopefully give it good, you know, Google feedback. You know, get like, no. So it's that. So, yeah, that's my last word. So and thank you so much. It's a really fun conversation.
Yeah. Thanks so much, and thank you for joining us in Montenegro again. And, yeah, glad we finally got to talk because it took us a while to schedule this.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's good.
Thanks so much.
