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I NNOVAT ION &

HUMAN DEVE LOPMENT

E d i T O r i a l - SAHL AN MOMO

A Run-Up Towards the ImpossibleTurning Possible v

M ICHEL BAUWENS

The Open-Commons Based KnowledgeSociety as a New Configurationbetween State, Civil Society andthe Market 1

HEL ENE F IN IDOR I

An Ecology for Transformative ActionAwaitig to be Discovered 5

ANDREA S W ITT EL

On the Future Development of theDigital Commons and the Need forGlobal Basic Income 15

J E AN M . RU SS EL LThe Social Era: The Rise of Thrivabilityin Organizational Design 25

S TE PHAN A . SCHWARTZThe Creative Pattern, NonlocalConsciousness, and Social Change 33

ADEBAYO AKOMOLA FE

The Promise of Promethean Darkness:How a New Politics of Astonishmentis Weaving a Global Alliance forthe Possible 43

UF FE E L BK

Alternativet: An InnovativePolitical Platform 51

E L ZA M . MAA LOUFFunctional Democracy: A NewParadigm on Geopolitics in theMiddle East 55

A LE S S ANDRO COLOMBO

The Relativity of Innovation 65

g | C O N T E N T

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year v, no. 1 January/june 2014

ANDREW GAV IN MARSHA LL

Voice of Access: The PeoplesFoundation 69

R I CK MCKENNY

Micro-Projects in a Macro World:How to Ensure Non-profitInternational Development ProjectsSucceed Where Others Fail 81

JURNAN GOOS

Lila. A Virtual Edugame for theDevelopment Community 89

a b s T r a C T s :: s u M M a r i E s 95

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SPANDA.ORG/PUBLICATIONS

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12 | II, 1. 2011 The Placebo Effect

13 | II, 2. 2011 Indigenous Culture & Development

14 | III, 1. 2012 Consciousness & Development 2.0

15 | IV, 1. 2013 Anarchy & Nonprofit. An Emerging Affair

16 | V, 1. 2014 Innovation & HumanDevelopment

C O V E R

The Spring Vajra Gate (detail)~ with Special thanks to Danille Hirsh ~

All works of art reproduced in this issue are fromLimbourg Brothers, Les Trs Riches Heures duDuc de Berry, ca. 1410-1413, tempera colours,gold, and ink on vellum. Muse Cond,

Chantilly, France.

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P | b a C K N u M b E r s

R | N E x T i s s u E

e month of July (detail).

turning possible, but not alwayS feaSibleunder the burden of time delaying its own becoming beware, the tribe is growing, the vibe is thriving...whilE iNNovaTioN iS challENgiNg ThE PaST wiThiN ThE liNEarnecessity for performance of our civilized activities, theincoming nominal collective enlightenment contradictsitself beyond its own individual resolve to merge for goodwith the collective intelligence, despite the present contin-gencies deprived of all reasonable doubt and foreseeablehope. ere is much more than what we ordinarily per-ceive as a bare expression of matter with its countlesslabyrinths of thought constantly reshaping the maze:eseus is still chasing the Minotaur in the Menander ofthoughts. verily, the elephant in the darkroom of con-sciousness is in dismay: nobody alone is able to graspthe whole truth save for the paired collective vision.here, the imposed implications of darkness are that, inabsentia of light, none can seize the whole, which isonly intelligible by a pooled endeavour. Mankind as awhole is exploring and re-elaborating its exodus frommateriality as a new cipher of its own becoming, aprocess demanding of us to consciously share actionsto maximize its outcome. e human species isclearly evolving to a new tier of development inwhich the individual paths are purposely joiningtogether to foster its innovative gait. in view of that, lets then enlighten the dark-room to make innovation prosper in the linearhistoric path aecting its intangible outline. isinnovation a novel eidos yet to be embodied intomatter? e expression of an evolving wholeemerging from the spiritual-material hendiadys?or a new modality of the enriched consciousnesshovering upon the clis of a divided self? whereasthe collective consciousness bears an inherentanticipatory insight on the allegedly historicfuture, and space and time dene extension ahypothetical construct of the thinking mind innovative itineraries from grass-root towardsinstitution and from global to local bottom-upand top-down at once hold in the middle-outtheir crown of action, pooling and sharing resource-ful knowledge form nowhere into to now here beware, a minimal gap in a word may transmute theunbroken lemma into two-sided meanings. onanother level, ontogenetic parallels phylogenetics in

the individual-collective advance, the hyphenbridges the two realities to conclusively rest in itsbinding might: to open and establish a pathbetween them, reinstalling its original contract-ing meaning of [hyp hn] in one. onceopened the channel between the two realitiesthrough the unifying function of the self theinitiation of old energies can start owingboth sides1. e point of observation in now inthe middle, neither in the past nor in the future,neither in the medium nor in the message, notin the spiritual nor in the material grounds, butin the open common sourced knowledge inbetween them. our own personal and aware con-tribution to this fresh unfolding of human con-sciousness is indeed a novelty.in fact, these passing remarks along the path arecircling words portraying the presence of a yetunclassied realm, a monad devoid of ssa dimoraseeking itself and the other to hyphen the spiri-tual-material experience of life. indeed innovationtakes place everywhere at once by rebounding in theindividual consciousness and, by becoming self-aware,res up its mending process: a golden kintsugi joinery,melting the broken pieces of a fractured life into anedging evolving present. Dream incubators and vision-aries gathered around the dialogical table to checkmatetheir roles: whose turn is it? who are the rst and thelast in lila everlasting dancing? creativity delivers itsvision at urgent pace down-up the hills of perceptioninto a steady rest; the hyphen binds the spiritual to thematerial into a transient present, a joyful hiatus in anunfolding while. fastened to its unconfessable truth neither in account of a past nor for a future stance theevolutionary path is unifying the polarities all along itscourse, regenerating itself further and farther in its ownbecoming. regretfully, these outmoded terms do notuphold to their own obsolescence, unaware as they areof belonging to an earlier apologetic inspiration, classi-ed by the hands of a well-mannered polite old gentle-man: Death & Destruction vs. immortality. autocracy.Democracy, the ruling of the people, has failed itsmandate in its current expression; sustainable devel-opment is on the verge of collapsing if its paradigm isnot quickly revised. while governance has alreadyacquired a vacuous grim, the scriptural elements ofan unbearable chasm between the self and the other

E D I T O R I A L

Arun-uptowardsthe impossible

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have gained the fore. could we just withdraw andhold back in the presence of all this? indeed weequally need to rapidly attune to the mesotericdimension right in between the eso- and the essotericsides of reality, because being aware of only one of itssides equals sighting the vision with one eye only,depriving it of the perspective and depth of the binoc-ular vision by which we consciously set o-time, historyand matter, and dematerializes at once facts in both ourprofane and iers-history Sacred & Profane are a verywell know epitome of duality on the mythical plane, likethe Martian-venusians antinomy, or the archetypal adam& Eve duo. far and wide, the underlying tension betweenthe monistic and the dual perceptive has undergone theentire human linear time to the point that, in its over-represented archetypal dualism, we are lost to the pro-hibited golden apple igniting a bursting development ofevents. Shifting the centre of gravity from the collectiveto the individual plane removes one layer of reality toour experience, and replaces it with the space-timedimension as a temporary point of reference. is ightfrom the collective provision makes its contents to beperceived by the individual attened consciousness asmere symbols; conversely, shifting the centre of gravityfrom the individual to the collective plane disclosesthe symbolic reality. as a matter of fact, the syntropicfunction of the enlightened consciousness in reexivemode merges the polarities, releases the symboliccontent and mends the karmic remains from boththe individual and the collective assembled history a conjunction once symbolically represented subspecies aeternitatis as the androgynous opus.it may be noted that this igneous process purifyingmatter of its historical account2, has a purposivebehaviour: an inner-outer drive, a nal causation,an entelechy, a vocation, a conatus, an lan anal-ogous to the steer of the human will but on adierent plane of reference that from a state ofpermanent creation denes its own existence bybecoming into being. it is an itinerary of a con-scious act indwelling a saddle point, hanging inthe balance between innity and utopia in themesoteric dimension, keeping its centre of gravityin the pinnacle of action, mastering the balancewhile altering the gaze to both sides at an increas-ing tempo in approaching the threshold of dualitywhere time ceases to be. here the time-spacefactor is at rest, quiet, silent. e still originatingpoint between the opposites does not interfere inthe unfolding act, it comprises them instead.from this stillness of creation depicted here asthe fulcrum of action, the saddle point, the hyphenuniting the spiritual-material experience, or thehiatus, the point of suspension between inhalingand exhaling, or the point of balance and so forth

the creative energy bends into the time-spacedimension to ignite innovation: the equilibrium islost, one of the polarities is emerging the conceptsof free-will is certainly here at stake. in other wordsand within a dierent framework of reference,once the system reaches its apex, enathiodromycomes into play: the structure bends towards oneof its sides and a new phase kicks o. e pointof equilibrium between the maxima and mini-ma of a function is its optimization; the extremevalues, spatially and timely speaking, located atthe boundaries of the system, are its criticalentry points; the centre is the establishment.all innovations are the result of an eruption,of enlightenment, of an invasion from the criti-cal entry points on the boundaries: from thefringe of the system, not from its centre. forthis, fringe movement, especially in the arts andin science, set o at the boundaries of social sys-tems (grass-root, bottom up) and, step by step,conquer-transmute gradually towards the centre,whose heterogeneous energetic eld decreases toits critical minima limes at its boundaries. allinnovations are starting up from the fringe, as thecentre itself is connoted by a very stable and xed,even though inherently dynamic, stance: indeedthe establishment bears the status quo as its cipher.Ensuing, the conquering fringe will soon turn intomainstream and sit at the centre of action, to be, inturn, challenged by the new fringing waves againand again, scaling up in the order of things. in thisdialogical relation between the centre and its periph-ery, in alternatively and constantly keeping and loos-ing the balance while retaining the centre of gravityanchored on the saddle point of the action in themesoteric dimension, innovation turns the impossibleinto possible. e mesoteric dimension is certainly not an augment-ed, enhanced, or altered plane of reality, but for realthe natural state of consciousness of all human beingsinstead, visioning the spiritual-material gaze on bothworlds, gaining in depth and perspective, digging theirbecoming in the historical self. Moreover, this dimen-sion is nothing new, has always been individually acces-sible, the innovative side of the equation is in that nolonger only distinct individuals but humankind as awhole are now shifting into their new permanent sta-tion: the collective bodhi is knocking on heavens door:the longer we gaze into consciousness, the quickest itstares into us, actually we all are gradually imbuingthe mesoteric dimension to get it through with com-fortable ease. clearly, humans did not fall from a for-mer blessed state of consciousness, from arcadia, thegolden age, Eden, and so forth, to the individualdualistic attened dimension. ose are conceptual

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representations, pre-gurations, attracting visionsof a handy condition in the making, at no timereminiscences of a past lost stipulation, rather theindividuals ubiquitous representation on the mentalplane of the lan presumed destination, a symbol forthe driving purposive force resting place beyond time,or of an enriched typological rapture within a frame-work intelligible to the thinking mind. Denitely weare not fallen angels: we are spiritual-material beingsconsciously and individually contributing to the mak-ing of our own and the collective state of consciousness:hence, not heading to a lost paradise to be regainedbecause of a fall, rather building the communal founda-tion of a fresh unfolding realm. we all are collectively,genuinely and gradually morphing the mesoteric dimen-sion taking shape by our cooperative endeavour indeedin this rests the very individual and common responsi-bility of humankind to shape its own becoming. Twodiverging conceptual models are here at play: the static,unchangeable well ordered self-containing universe;and the unfolding ever-changing self-generating cosmos.all in all, the only xed constant is the law, the Dharmagoverning them both, not the outcomes of its enforce-ment in the dynamic interplay of the polarities.in this context, guratively speaking on the plan ofmental representation, even the hypothesis of acausal necessity Moirai, destiny, .rta could beperceived as the ow of conscious knowledge attain-ing self-consciousness, upheld by the Dharma link-ing, integrating, organizing the individual pathsinto the whole system. e relations connectingthe individual dots could be seen here as thesynapses connecting the dots-cells by virtue of amindful relation, thereby enabling the ow ofinformation from one dot to the other on adierent plan of representation, even the inter-net biomimicries this process.e emerging of the social consciousness, of thecollaborative-sharing-caring economies, of thealternative currencies, the commons, of peer-and co-production, co-governance, co-creationand destructive creation, communitarian cul-ture, inclusive capitalism, knowledge and com-mon based societies and economies, mesotericsociety and meso-economy, together with theobsolescence of the concept of property infavour of that of common possession, are allsymptoms that a capital in pursue of mere protis no longer viable, it creates inequality, is unsus-tainable, obsolete; but all these emergences arealso indicators of the merging on both the collec-tive and individual planes of a variety of disciplinesand cultures joining to unveil, conceive, forge,draft and implement global innovative insights,thoughts, and viable, sustainable, thrivable processes

and devices. we are no longer questioning thesedays with no answer, pleading for an unbornanswer, but oering innovative solutions to replacea bygone system in its place.in this perspective, the faulty modern economicsystem could be seen as the outcome of a divid-ed self; conversely, the new emergences risingfrom a process of reunication, are the tangibleupshots of i and you merging in the collectiveself, from ego-driven to community driven,form selsh to altruism in which acceptance ofthe other mirrors the image of the self reectedin the countless points of light on the waves ofthe ocean of consciousness.Everything goes by with a high or low pace, allpasses and changes, todays craze will tomor-row be obsolete. acceptance of the status quois regressive, as in a very short while it will turninto ante. consenting to be and become, is topersistently accepting the life-driven imperativebeyond the saddle point, at risk of losing it nomatter how. an innovator is an explorer testingnew paths farther beyond the secure zone, open-ing up new directions at each step, and leavingsecurity at risk. e risk is a mental temptationinviting from afar, an attractor, not a pusher, andriding the tiger on a razor blade is indeed risky:leaning too much on one of the polarities andbye-bye balance! the integral critical saddle point islost, the present took a walk on the wild sidefear is actually a de-organizing principle acting uponthe collective consciousness; qualities instead, areorganizing principle and organized structural patternsinside the collective consciousness. within the limitsof a dierent terminological framework, or on a paral-lel plan of reference and meaning, qualities might beperceived as devas, angels, malakim. e old metaphorsof the guardian angel holding in front of the carpetweaver the archetypal design to be woven into the cos-mic fabric by means of the vertical warp and the wefthorizontal axes joined at their intersection by the gor-dian knot cut into the present, still very much holdsvery true. e global mind is at work, willingly orunwillingly, consciously or asleep we are all partaking inlila cosmic game, of which much remains to be said.who is messing around here? said we, the divided i e i, the Me or the individual Self? Quite a dif-ference t wouldnt have so said Elision? thehyphen is one, but we are many, many and many,more than a few, turning both past and future intothis present, both ways at both ends, as in the now allboth are but one.e above de-contextualized inclusion in the bodyof the narration is functional in joining two layersof language: the authorial i and the other, the

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very individual marker left into matter by bothplanes of language. So that:An unrestrainable cycle defeated Kronos at HyphenBridge and wrote history. Underneath, egotism andselshness cognates until never is present in the uncon-strained entangled now, whereas the present is never andever at once. You mean that you want to know me ?Yes! and hear your soundless voice, the say of the moonis charming Hum Whats for? said she. e Moonis appealing, a great archetype, the Moon and the Sun,the opposites, the complementary, the higher and thelower, the lingam and the yoni. Show your beauty said theSun, and the Moon fully shined all night displaying herintangible beauty, enlightening the dark night of thesoul You see? Some good lines just 4 u said he turningthe Luna-park lights o while riding the tiger in themoonless night Night and Day, the co[s]mic couplesare severing the conscious presence in duality: the blend-ing of Black and White does not engender gray night-mares, but the lively rainbows blooming all around fromnowhere: a shower of lights fulls the soul melted inmatter, and the spiritual-material dimension takes hold.Who could ever have dreamed of your last night elegantlack of reticence at sleeps expense? I hope everythingis ne now, even better than better said she.Here again the narration changes of level, moves toanother plane. e intersections of the narrativeplanes beyond all quadrants allow for the authorial Ito subside to the We and melt in collectivity. isnarrative, as perceived from the perspective of thehyphen generating the visible-invisible universe, thesacred-profane alphabet collating heaven to earththrough the account of a vertical stroke expressedin verbal language, bear witness to its becoming.Careful! Contraction and expansion, the polaritiesare in hold qui rationem artis intelligunt.In point of facts, the constant interplay of giv-ing and receiving, of the individual and the col-lective, of expansion and contraction is givingbirth to Lila dance in the mesoteric dimension.ere are no independent beings, nor indepen-dent freedom, intelligences or shining devashere, but the common endeavour to preserveand sustain individuality in plurality, samenessin diversity3. Complimentary implications arethus manifested; ethics and politics are alreadyon stage. Lila is performing her ecstatic danceright in the middle of the two worlds, andaecting them both.ere remains for discussion the fact that to per-form rituals, postures and gestures from the outerto induce a certain state of consciousness has beenthe work of many practices and disciplines sinceold. In reality, is at rst a state of consciousness todetermine, inform and shape a gesture or a posture

that, once codied or ritualized in the performanceas a distinct position or as a set of actions, is thenemployed to regain and reactivate the higher stateof consciousness that originally shaped it. Unfor-tunately, most codied rituals have nowadaysrelinquished their powerful innovative drive, theoriginal vibration has dimmed and, devoid of cre-ativity, their inner ow has nearly come to anend. In these days, the ritual sequel of postures ishardly conducive to any higher, collective orsacred dimension, its actions are empty, deprivedof any innovative and tangible impel. As a mat-ter of fact, innovation is a self-regenerativeaction, a self-innovating act. Mimicking the process of accessing the higherdimensions or the collective intelligence inorder to implement sustainable and tangiblesolutions to current impelling concerns, Spandahas devised the innovative Lila virtual educa-tional game platform, here oered as a dulcis infundo serving at the end of this issue. e Lilaplatform allows accessing the collective virtualintelligence from the individual ordinary reality;therein, by means of a ludic capacity-building andpolicy-making methodological itinerary, collec-tively pool and share global and local knowledge toidentify whatever problem or explicit issue and,collectively, draft the best specic solution toaddress them. Subsequently, withdraw from the vir-tual reality to implement the game winning solutioninto the world, in terra firma. A solution that carriesin itself the vibrational quality of both worlds, aneective grasp on both reality in which actions andendeavours bear tangible outcomes on the individualand the collective plane. is stipulative denition restson the concept of essence, of course.In concluding, after so many meaningless wor[l]ds wecome to the end of an era while another is blooming,where the once cyclic, sacred and the linear historictimes are no longer individual but glocal. Sacred &Profane, the two layers of being, the I and the Other,and all other complementary are gradually approachingoneness. As in human relationships an acquainted mayturn into a friend, or into a lover, and diverse degreesof proximity, of closeness, of intimacy are then broughtinto being until all distinctions between the subjectsare removed and unity is co-created.But we all should well bear in mind that the femininepolarity so far historically and spiritually compressed isnow emerging after ages of contraction; and keep clearlyin consciousness that this too will be a temporary stageon the plan of the manifestation, to perform its maxi-mum expansion towards the saddle point, and thentransmute into its opposite. is alternating in the his-torical time of the two polarities is only apparent, a

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perceptual object trouve on the way to a muchlonged transpersonal and impersonal self andbeyond, clean, safe, devoid of any residual eects,more soaring than boring. Beware, the tribe is growing,the vibe is thriving

8

1 is bridging function could be equated, on the physiologicalplane, to the corpus callous uniting the right and left brain hemi-spheres specic functions.

2 cf. the purifying power of re in Mithraic, zoroastrian andhindu rites, the holy ghost baptism by re, the Phoenix myth, etc.

3 Sustainability and thrivability belong to dierent planes: theformer is the capacity to endure in time; the latter, the how the ethicalresilience persists in the former.

a b

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E D I T O R I A L | S A H L A N M O M O | A R U N - U P T O W A R D S T H E I M P O S S I B L E | X

e month of September.

Michel bauwens is the founderof the foundation for Peer-to-Peer alternatives and worksin collaboration with a globalgroup of researchers in theexploration of peer produc-tion, governance, and property.

He has co-produced the 3-hourtV documentary Technocalyps

with frank eys, and co-edited thetwo-volume book on anthropology of dig-

ital society with Salvino Salvaggio. Michel is currently Primaveraresearch fellow at the university of amsterdam and externalexpert at the Pontical academy of Social Sciences (2008, 2012). Michel bauwens is a member of the board of the union ofinternational associations (brussels), advisor to Shareable mag-azine (San francisco), to Zumbara time bank (istanbul) andSharelex; and scientic advisor to the association les ren-contres du Mont-blanc, forum international des dirigeantsde leconomie Sociale et Solidaire (2013-). He functioned asthe Chair of the technology/iCt working group, Hangwaforum (beijing, Sichuan), to develop economic policies forlong-term resilience, including through distributed manu-facturing. He writes editorials for al Jazeera english, and islisted at #82, on the Post-Carbon institute (en)rich list.Michel currently lives in Chiang Mai, ailand, and isresearch director of the transition project towards thesocial knowledge economy, an ocial project in ecuador(oksociety.org). He is a founding member of the Commons StrategiesGroup and has taught at Payap university and dhu-rakij Pandit universitys international College. in hisrst business career, Michel worked for uSia, britishPetroleum, riverland Publications, belgacom, and cre-ated two internet start-ups.

haT ExacTly iS aN oPEN-coMMoNS BaSEDeconomy and society? and how is itrelated to the issue of innovation? Tounderstand it we must rst look at the

older social and economic model that it replaces.e neoliberal and present economic formscombine three basic elements, fundamentalchoices that guide their operation. e rst is thebelief that the earths resources are innite, whichallows an idea of permanent and compound eco-nomic growth, fuelled in part by a monetary sys-tem based on compound interest that requiressuch growth for its continued survival. Neoliberal

capitalism is therefore based on an illusion of afake or pseudo-abundance; and its growthmechanism is dedicated to the senseless accu-mulation of material riches. e second is the belief that the ow of knowl-edge, science and culture should be privatized,and therefore serves the exclusive benet ofproperty owners. Knowledge is made to servecapital accumulation and the prots of the few.e privatizations of knowledge through exces-sive copyrights and patent regimes have a dra-matically slowing eect, and allow for an exclu-sionary nancialization. we believe that thissecond element dramatically slows down poten-tial innovation, which is today no longer lockedin the world of the private market and corporater&D departments but has become a general char-acteristic of networked civil society, with millionsof people engaged in innovation for sustainability.a good recent example is the explosion of civicinnovation in the eld of 3D printing, which had towait the lapse of the patents.finally, the two rst elements, pseudo-abundanceand articial scarcity, are congured in such a waythat they do not serve social justice, equality, andbenets for all, but rather the benets and prots forthe few. under cognitive capitalism, the fruits ofsocial cooperation are enclosed and nancialized, andthe majority of the population has to pay for knowl-edge that is largely socially produced. only those withmoney can benet from technical and scientic inno-vations. ink of the business models of facebook andgoogle, whose platforms would be valueless withoutthe input of the userbase, yet, where none of the protsare shared with the value-creating public.us we must also look at the positive counter-reac-tions that have emerged and which have been particu-larly strengthened after the crisis of neoliberalism,which was felt by southern countries in the previousdecades but became global in 2008. a rst reaction has been the recapture of the state bycitizen movements, such as particularly in the andeancountries and Ecuador. according to the last Eclacreport on latin american poverty, Ecuador andvenezuela have obtained the largest scores in povertyreduction in 20121.

THE OPEN-COMMONS BASED KNOWLEDGES O C I E T Y A S A N E W C O N F I G U R A T I O N B E T W E E N S T A T E ,

C I V I L S O C I E T Y A N D M A R K E T

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e second is a re-emergence and owering of neweconomic forms based on equity, such as the coop-erative economy, the social economy, and the soli-darity economy. ird, we have seen the emergence of a sharing econ-omy, which is mutualising physical infrastructures(most often in the form of private platforms) in orderre-use and make available the enormous amount ofsurplus material and resources that have been createdin the last thirty years. apart from the explosion of car-sharing and bikesharing, they often take the form ofpeer to peer marketplaces, allowing citizens to createmore ne-grained exchanges of their surplus. fourth, and perhaps most importantly, we have seen,thanks largely to the potentiality of the global net-works, the emergence of commons-based peer produc-tion. globally and locally, productive communities ofcitizens have been created vast common pools of knowl-edge, code (software), and design, which are availableto all citizens; enterprises and public authorities to fur-ther build on. often, these productive knowledge com-mons are managed by democratic foundations andnonprots, which protect and enable the commonproductive infrastructure of cooperation, and protectthe common pool of knowledge from exclusionaryprivate enclosure, most often using open licenses;they are sometimes called for-benet associations.very often, these productive communities co-existwith a dynamic entrepreneurial coalition of rmsco-creating and co-producing these commonpools, thereby creating a dynamic economic sec-tor. it is very common for these open eco-systemsto displace their proprietary-iP based competitors.a uS report on the fair use Economy, i.e. eco-nomic activities based on open and shared knowl-edge, estimated its economic weight in that countryto be one-sixth of gDP.yet there is also a paradox: it is most likely thatit is the classic corporate forms that rst see thepotential of the new commons-based economicforms, and ally with them; on the other hand,cooperative economic forms still rarely practiceand co-produce open knowledge pools. how-ever, there is an emerging trend to transformthe existing cooperative tradition based on sin-gle-stakeholder governance, into multi-stake-holder governance, and which introduce thecare of the common good in their statutes. what this means is that the emerging globalknowledge economy, can today take two compet-ing forms. in the rst form of the knowledge-econ-omy, under the regime of cognitive capitalism, wehave on the one hand the continuation of propri-etary iP, and the realisation of economic rent by

nancial capital; combined with a new form ofnetarchical capital, which enables but also exploitssocial production.in my opinion, the other, more desirable form ofthe knowledge-based economy is based on opencommons of knowledge, but which are preferen-tially linked to an ethical and equitable economy. in the old vision, value is created in the privatesector by workers mobilized by capital; the statebecomes in the best of cases a regulating mecha-nism for the common good, but in the currentreality rather a market state protecting the privi-leged interests of property owners; and civilsociety is a derivative rest category, as is evi-denced in the use of our language (non-prots,non-governmental). in the new vision of cognitive capitalism, thenetworked social cooperation consists of mostlyunpaid activities that can be captured and nan-cialized by proprietary network platforms. Socialmedia platforms almost exclusively capture thevalue of the social exchange of their members, anddistributed labour such as crowdsourcing moreoften than not reduce the average income of theproducers. in other words, the netarchical versionof networked production creates a permanent pre-cariat and reinforces the neoliberal trends. in the contrary vision of a open-commons basedknowledge economy and society, value is created bycitizens, paid or voluntary, which create open andcommon pools of knowledge, co-produced andenabled by a Partner State, which creates the right con-ditions for such open knowledge to emerge; and pref-erentially ethical entrepreneurial coalitions which createmarket value and services on top of the commons,which they are co-producing as well. e ideal vision ofan open-commons based knowledge economy is one inwhich the peer producers or commoners (the labourform of the networked knowledge society), not only co-create the common pools from which all society can ben-et, but also create their own livelihoods through ethicalenterprise and thereby insure not only their own socialreproduction but also that the surplus value stays withinthe commons-cooperative sphere. in this vision, thesocial solidarity economy is not a parallel stream of eco-nomic production, but the hyper-productive and hyper-cooperative core of the new economic model.us in the new vision, civil society can be seen asconsisting as a series of productive civic common-sense, common pools of knowledge, code and design;the market consists of preferentially actors of thecooperative, social and solidarity economy whichintegrate the common good in their organisationalstructures, and whose labour-contributing members

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co-produce the commons with the civic contribu-tors. finally, in this vision, the Partner State enablesand empowers such social cooperation, and createsthe necessary civic and physical infrastructures forthis owering of innovation and civic and economicactivity to occur. e Partner State is not a weak neoliberal state, whichstrips public authority of its social functions, andretains the market state and repressive functions, as inthe neoliberal model; it is also not the welfare State,which organizes everything for its citizens; but it is astate that builds on the welfare state model, but at thesame time creates the necessary physical and civic infra-structures for social autonomy, and for a civic produc-tion model that combines civic immaterial commonsand cooperative social solidarity enterprise. e ethical economy and market, is not a weak and par-allel economy that specializes in the less competitivesectors of the economy; on the contrary, the ethicalmarket is the core productive sector of the economy,building strong enterprises around competitive knowl-edge bases. it is however, at the service of civil societyand co-constructs the open knowledge commons onwhich society and commerce depends.what needs to be achieved is a new compact betweenthe commons and the private companies that insuresthe fair distribution of value, i.e. a ow of valuemust occur from the private companies to the com-mons and the commoners from whom the value isextracted. Models must be developed that allowprivately owned companies to become fair partnersof the commons. in the end, no privately-ownedcompany, using its own research sta and propri-etary iP, will be able to compete against open eco-systems that can draw on global knowledge pro-duction and sharing; this process of fair adapta-tion must be encouraged and accompanied byboth measures from the commons and theirassociated ethical enterprises, and by the PartnerState, in a context in which all players can bene-t from the commons. Private capital must rec-ognize that the value there are capturing comesoverwhelmingly from the benets of socialcooperation in knowledge creation: just as theyhad to recognize the necessity for better and fairpay for labour, they must recognize fair pay forcommons production.

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1 Six of the 11 countries with information available in 2012 recordedfalling poverty levels. e largest drop was in the Bolivarian republicof venezuela, where poverty fell by 5.6 percentage points (from29.5% to 23.9%) and extreme poverty by 2.0 percentage points (from11.7% to 9.7%). in Ecuador, poverty was down by 3.1 percentage

points (from 35.3% to 32.2%) and indigence by 0.9 percentage points(from 13.8% to 12.9%). is 5.6 percentage point decrease invenezuela translates into a 19 percent decline in poverty overall lastyear, which cEPr co-Director Mark weisbrot noted last monthis almost certainly the largest decline in poverty in the americasfor 2012, and one of the largest if not the largest in the world.< http://bit.ly/QypxJw >.

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e month of october (detail).

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e Coronation of the Virgin.

Helene finidori focuses on sys-temic perspectives and tools fortransformative action, mainlyinterested in connecting dotsand building bridges betweenpeople, cultures, disciplines,organizations, transitionary

stages. Co-founder and coordi-nator of the Commons abun-

dance network, she teaches Man-agement and leadership of Change in

the international Program of Staffordshire university.born in Canada and raised in france, Helene lived in manycountries including Sweden, the uS, indonesia, australia, andshe currently lives in Spain.after studying entrepreneurship at HeC in Paris she specializedin small and medium enterprise and created a niche specialityat the intersection of strategy, branding and organizationaldevelopment. She worked in the waste management and con-sumer product industry, for business-to-business marketingconsultancies, as an independent consultant specializing ininnovation, it and prospective, as well as in education andsocial development. from brand positioning, culture andstrategy she moved to organizational change and cross-cul-tural collaboration and now focuses on social change, net-works and movements.

vEry Day NEw voicES SPEaK uP agaiNST ThE

toxicity of an economy based on credit-fuelled growth that benefits mostly banksand speculators, depleting finite resources

and destroying much of the social fabric and theplanet in the process. Some call it suicide. The paradox is that the logic we find ourselves intells us that the system can only survive and thrivewith more of the same: a perpetual machine basedon an extract, exploit, deplete model, mindless ofits impossibility and accelerated spiralling sideeffects that make problems worse.

M O S T T R A V E L L E D R O U T E S

our institutions are systemically dysfunctionalbecause of a propensity to travel and consolidatethe most travelled and visible routes in terms oforganization (hierarchies), business processes (bestpractices and winning models), communications(network effect), which are at the same time accu-mulative of power and robustness, and fragile because

they nurture monoculture and mass behaviour bydesign, accumulating risk as well. hierarchical structures are conceived for branch-ing out and consolidating exchanges along path-ways that solidify with time and size, as scale andactivity of each node empowers the higher eche-lons, accumulating resources and power. capitaland power have been steadily concentrating infewer hands since the beginning of the Seventies.This systematization and concentration bolsteroverexploitation, dominant positions and bureau-cratic paralysis in a self-reinforcing process.The fact that banks and global corporations,with the suppression of most limits on activitiesand concentration, have become too big to failand to jail is an illustration. Dominant positionsenable them to secure and reinforce their rightsand power over potential new entrants and sover-eign rules globally. global corporations have thepower for example to sue nation states to enforcetheir right to exploit natural resources under multi-lateral trade agreements (such as canadian gold mineagainst El Salvador under cafTa agreement), andbanks have the power to oppose restrictions (with theuK treasury suing the Eu on Bankers bonus caps).intellectual property rights are expanded by attemptsto monetize increasing parts of the commons and pub-lic domain, such as water, the genome or seeds, soft-ware, which are forced and over-enforced on emergingbusinesses or countries. intellectual property is also usedto block the development of technologies susceptible todisrupt business models. cases of patent non-use for lit-igation purpose or technology suppression such StanleyMeyers water fuel cell abound. innovation is stifled inthe process, and the status quo based on extraction, cap-ture and toxic outcomes is maintained.communication follows a comparable pattern. its poten-tial massiveness and the speed at which it can scale, gainmomentum and trigger reactions, applied to cultures ofpeer reviewed expertise and reputation networks, wherethe largest network or the most famous and showcasedattract ever more members or audience, encourages theconvergence of behaviours towards the same most rec-ognized and travelled routes. as a result these routesremain the most travelled ones, pulling behavioursinto more normalization and sameness, and intodeceit when accumulated capital serves the protec-tion of special interests.

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Similarly, management recipes are over applied.focus is on the rate of application of models ratherthan outcomes, loosing track of why they were usedin the first place and ignoring possible unintendedconsequence and the associated socialization of risksand costs. winning management models or invest-ment strategies that are taught as best practices in busi-ness schools around the world become the most trav-elled route also, systematized. This is how occasionalfinancial leverage (the use of debt to multiply gains)became permanent over-leverage that culminated in the2008 crisis, and how return on capital ratios invented toprioritize investments in post wwii periods of scarcecapital became the ultimate criterion for investment,encouraging short term wins through non productiveinvestments and speculative behaviours, and capitalizedfinancial returns. harvard Business School innovation management pro-fessor clayton christensen notes that companies over-focus on convergent innovation such as efficiency aimedat optimizing productivity in what already exists, whichin the short run frees capital, increases margins andboosts financial market performance. in the long runhowever, efficiency alone when not accompanied bydisruptive innovation tends to draw markets intoprice based competition, leading to diminished prof-its, thus undermining the very activity it is meant tomake more efficient. christensen deplores that somuch effort is dedicated to seeking above averagereturns on the financial markets to the detriment oflong-term investment in disruptive innovation, ina context where capital is particularly abundant. when corporations and investors massively operateon the basis of similar information and use similarmanagement models and investment decision cri-teria, it becomes increasingly difficult to make adifference other than by beating costs, throughrestructurings that are sometimes imposed byactivist investors, or by beating the clock, inother words, by getting there faster. a race epit-omized on the financial markets by high fre-quency trading, which is finally under criminalinvestigation. in this context divergent or disruptive innova-tion struggles to develop into viable forms not tomention scale, and the multitude of sustainablealternatives that emerge at the margin has diffi-culties to make itself visible. Paradoxically peer-to-peer and many-to-many interactions that weremeant to liberate us from centralized power anddistribute innovation and opportunities are alsoaffected as the network effect tends to grow exist-ing networks rather than foster bridge-buildingbetween multiple networks, and multiple ad hocreassembling. The network effect works against the

long tail that internet was meant to provide accessto: the statistically insignificant possibilities underthe Pareto principle that are the less visible oraccessible because they dont constitute a criticalrecognized mass.... facebook and google contribute to normaliza-tion and to preventing the long tail from beingfully visible as they tailor the display of user con-tent automatically to the users anticipatedexpectations based on their prior searches orbehaviours, reinforcing identities and what isalready known generating what is called confir-mation bias. and they keep the long tail forthemselves to monetize. They are the new win-ners of the game, using this systematization totheir advantage. Benefitting from the networkeffect that exponentially accelerates rates of sub-scription, they own the network, accumulatingmembers and user-generated information thatthey sell as market intelligence, and as a result theygenerate huge profits with little capital intensity.By owning the network they own the intelligenceof the crowd, which enables them better than any-one to anticipate trends and watch what emergesin the long tail. Their capital accumulation enablesthem to purchase new technology at unimaginableprices, as evidenced by the uSD 19 billion purchaseby facebook of whatsapp the smartphone chatapplication with 55 employees, zero revenue and 500million seers and its purchase of occulus a virtual realityheadset development not yet commercialized for twobillion dollars, in the face of its crowdfunders whohad proven the concept. Meanwhile, google is activelyacquiring robotic companies and seeking breakthroughsin artificial intelligence. will this intelligence turnagainst the majority of humans and serve the dominantfew, or will distributed collective intelligence prevail,and serve human development and thrivability? This isthe challenge at hand.

O V E R D O S E A N D O V E R S H O O T

our technologies, models and innovations are currentlymostly dedicated to reinforce feedback loops that are self-multiplying and self-reinforcing. These feedback loops aresources of growth, expansion, and abundance. But themore they are at work, the more they drive the system intoone direction at faster paces the momentum and course ofwhich is extremely difficult to change, turning abundanceinto overexploitation, making the system easier to gameand unresponsive to signals of overshoot, unable toengage in self-correction or meaningful disruptiveinnovation, powerless in the face of systemic risk andinstantaneously breakable by glitches or black swans.Just as a medicine becomes a poison when overdosed,

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best practices and winning mechanisms can becometoxic if abused.we are in the typical configuration described bySchumpeter three quarter of a century ago, predictingthe demise of capitalism from its own success, withmonopolies and giant corporations taking life out of thecapitalist process, oust-ing the small firms andexpropriating its own-ers, and thus destroyingor tilting creativedestruction by under-mining its sociologicalfoundation based on theentrepreneur. for french economistThomas Piketty capital-ism is destroying itselfbecause capital accumu-lation became an end initself, reducing opportu-nities for entrepreneur-ship. for Piketty, the 20thcentury managed to dis-rupt accumulation ofwealth and power gapsbecause of wars and cri-sis. if we want to avoiddisruptions as catastroph-ic as we experienced inthe 20th century, the sys-temic reinforcing dynam-ics that accumulate riskat exponentially grow-ing paces, must be dis-rupted by real mean-ingful ongoing innova-tion in many domainsthat clearly contributesto humans and natures renewed thrivability. aprospect that the overwhelming majority ofhumanity is looking forward to, but doesntquite know how to bring about, trapped in thecrazy mechanics of the system.

T H E W O R L D I S A

C O M P L E X L I V I N G S Y S T E M

Beyond these dysfunctionalities, in its fundamen-tals, the world is a complex adaptable systemmade of natural and human ecosystems that oper-ate optimally with principles that help it take careof itself, in a stable and non volatile state at theedge of chaos, that is where complexity lies,between order and total randomness or chaos.

The complex adaptive system is formed by a mul-tiplicity of parts or agents in partnership workingindividually as whole local systems, with theirown organizations and rules, and operating atvarious integrative levels and scales, formingemergent nested wholes. individual wholes self-

organize and self-real-ize within their ownboundaries while beinginfluenced by each-others behaviours andby their changing envi-ronment, which theyinfluence in return.They cannot be totallycontrolled by exter-nal forces, only shapedand limited by them. Patterns of behavioursemerge or arise ineach part out of amultiplicity of interac-tions between agentsadapting their responsesto each others behav-iours. Emergent behav-iours initially invisibleoften appear into sightall at once, what wecall tipping points.They are often theonly thing visiblefrom parts or wholesor phenomena thatmay be hidden fromsight, the unknownthat brews under thesurface. as the num-ber of interactions

and types of behaviours increase in number, behavioursand their consequences are increasingly complex andunpredictable. Stability and integrity of a system are the result of con-tinuous successions of adaptive cycles of exploitation,conservation, release, and reorganization which takeplace at multiple levels and scales following differentrhythms, which arise internally and are externally influ-enced, creating emergent dynamics.The figure above illustrates the adaptive cycles of com-plex systems, or panarchy cycles. cycles of exploitationand conservation result in accumulation, the conditionfor the systems efficiency and robustness. cycles ofrelease and reorganization result in what Schumpetercalled creative destruction, the conditions for the sys-tems resilience and renewal. at the individual level

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this succession of cycles corresponds to life or cradle-to-cradle cycles. at the whole systems level, theprocess of creative destruction is what (re)generatesvariability, or the diversity needed for periodic reshuf-fling within levels to maintain adaptive capability andopportunity, and for reorganization across levels tomaintain integrity at the edge of chaos. The process asa whole can be related to adam Smiths invisible hand atwork Both adam Smith and Schumpeter were some-what precursors of complex adaptive systems theory!in this context a sustainable system is one that has thecapacity to create, test and maintain adaptive capabilityas well as opportunity or potential for self-realization ofall its components, one that can ensure and maintainthe thrivability in time and the regenerative capacity ofthe parts and the whole. The renewed variability of the system is essential for thisprocess. reducing variability and diversity and ignoringthe interactions between all the human and naturalparts as systems themselves that compose the wider sys-tem create conditions that can cause it to switch into adegraded state controlled by unfamiliar processes

L E V E R A G E P O I N T S

where and how, then, to intervene?Donella Meadows spent much time studying lever-age points, the places in complex adaptive systemswhere small shifts in one place can have verybroad effects. Meadows established a list of twelvetypes of leverage points by level of interventionand order of effectiveness. at the highest level,the most effective points, but also the most dif-ficult to change are psychological and cultural,related to the worldview and paradigm fromwhich a system arises. The goal of a system is the next most impor-tant leverage point from which all the othersderive, enabling the system to self-organizewithin its own boundaries. This includes thesystems rules, its accountability and correctionmechanisms, and the elements that help it gothrough its adaptive cycles, such as the struc-ture of the information flows that enable self-correction, the gains obtained from drivingreinforcing feedback loops, and the strengthsof balancing feedback loops relative the impactsthey are trying to correct against, with the delaysof reaction to change, that all have an effect onand are in return shaped by the interactions with-in the system, what is accumulated, how thingsflow, and the actual stocks, buffers and parametersof the system such as infrastructures, resources,operative principles.

Meadows notes that leverage points are sometimescounterintuitive as the most obvious solutionsmay actually fail to produce the desired change.That is what we are observing here, stuck in anexploitative and conservative phase by a para-digm that focuses generally on driving gainsfrom reinforcing feedback loops epitomized bycredit based resource hungry growth and shortterm based capitalized revenue, with little focuson release and renewal, at least at the main-stream institutional level. The over-reactivity of the economy to instan-taneous news or events combined with theslow rates of change of institutional structuresand practices that are passing thresholds orlimits, are indeed a recipe for collapse. what was meant to accumulate opportunityfor the system as a whole to regenerate poten-tial for its individual parts to thrive in econom-ic, social and natural terms has morphed intoopportunity for concentration and accumula-tion of power and capital reinforcing dominantpositions of the few and accumulating of risk forthe whole. The fact that most of the adaptivecycle panarchy graphs now have capital in abscissaas the purpose of the exploitation and conserva-tion phase (goal of the system) where it used to bepotential, is noteworthy. re-focusing the goal of the system from the accu-mulation of capital and other factors of productionto the abundance of commons as factors of opportu-nities and regeneration for the thrivability and renewalof the system could serve as a medium for accelerat-ing the adoption of practices that address social, envi-ronmental and economic dimensions in a sustainable,cohesive and interconnected manner.

P O W E R P O L I T I C S

what is our margin of manoeuvre for change?This widening gap between the richer and the poorer ata global scale, the subsequent accumulation of power, thevisible effects of climate change, the volatility and specu-lative nature of the financial markets and unsustainableindustrial practices are starting to draw criticism from allcorners of the world and all strata of society. The successof Thomas Pikettys capital in the 21st century thatexposes rising inequalities can attest it. The challenge isincreasingly recognized as one of political will andpower ascendency in political decision-making, includ-ing in the mainstream. whether at the uN, the worldeconomic forum, prominent economists, now start-ing in the media, more voices are denouncing theexcesses of a power elite that tilts the system to itsadvantage to continue and multiply the status quo,

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or who just benefits from the mechanical effects ofdynamics at play.when looking at how the social coupling betweencorporate and human life forms and the economiccoupling between economy and environment can beachieved for our complex system to thrive, Jack harichargues that all the truths and solutions necessary tooperate these couplings already exist and are well knownbut that classical activism continuously fails to succeedbecause it deals poorly with the ultimate root cause ofchange resistance which is to be found in the effective-ness of political deceptiveness. accumulated wealth pro-vides the leverage and the means to invest massively onsimplified or false memes that make more complexmemes difficult to convey and grasp, and keep it thatway. Memes that favour the status quo and the self-mul-tiplication and self-reinforcement of self-multiplyingself-reinforcing loops are the ones that win in a race tothe bottom among politicians. we have seen this illus-trated with the recent further weakening of campaignfinance laws in the uS where the first amendment hasbeen invoked to justify the right to massively fund can-didates and advertise including through negative andattack ads during election campaigns: Money andpropaganda as freedom of expression! it seems we areon the way to touching the bottom of this race, as thedeception is increasingly coming into sight. Move-ments such as occupy wall Street have succeeded inmaking some inroads because the movement hasfocused on bringing to awareness these systemicaspects and leverage points rather than piecemealdemands. and the demands for separating moneyand politics and limiting paid campaign commu-nication in the uS is probably something thatcould start triggering virtuous loops by openingopportunities for more balancing policies andmainstream practices worldwide.concentrating innovation consciously on themechanisms of systemic change and leveragepoints, at all levels and scales and bringing allpotential change agents that sense the misdi-rection and fragility of the system on boardmay spur radical transformation.

A T T I T U D E S T O C H A N G E

Typical responses on how systemic change canoccur reflect the perspectives people have ontheir possible influence on the system and theforces at play. This is an area that deceptivememes can significantly affect.on the optimistic laissez faire side, there is anindefectible trust in the genius of mankind andtechnology, helped by the invisible hand of themarket, to naturally take us out of the predicament

we are in while keeping us in control. This form ofevolutionary change is part continuous on itshuman development aspects and part disruptivewith technology breakthroughs. without embed-ded balancing feedback loops, this would probablykeep us on the travelled and accumulative routes,expanding possibilities for hubristic heroes bil-lionaires on a mission to preside over the sal-vation of the world. one can imagine that whenclimate change becomes reality, opportunitieswould arise for privately unilaterally deployedgeo-engineering solutions... on the pessimistic resigned side there is a senseof doom and helplessness in face of the magni-tude of the catastrophes that can fall upon us,disempowered by the belief that it is too late,that humans are driven by the impulses of theirgenes and therefore not responsible for theunforeseen consequences of their acts or that theyare cogs in a machine that crushes everything onits path. a mindset that actually serves the self-reinforcing patterns as it affects the capacity to actfor change and keeps reinforcing loops on theircurrent exponential trajectories towards self-fulfill-ing prophecies. This view expects total melt down.radical change, where the glimpse of salvation ifany occurs once we hit a bottom, or earlier it ishoped, with a massive wake-up call around which torally. here also, lets not assume that this would cause amore enlightened renewal. as Naomi Klein describedin the Shock doctrine, catastrophes are often goodopportunities to secure more power. chaos often is thestart for totalitarian responses.The potential for continuous widespread disruptiveinnovation and radical change rests in the field ofchange agents or activists who are actively engagedand are taking things into their hands. The legions ofrealistic optimists of all types of backgrounds who per-ceive current dangers and the need for systemic change,even when they dont really know what needs to bedone and how they can get involved. These are the oneswho need to be inspired, empowered and enabled.They observe and are aware of where the world is goingand they have the capacity to apply changes on theground everyday. active realistic optimists prefer not to assume that solu-tions will emerge on their own, neither do they considerthe perspective of a total breakdown as a negligibleremote probability. french philosopher Jean PierreDupuys enlightened doomsaying approach, suggeststhat holding the possibility of a catastrophe credibleenables us to become more proactive and to chose,among all options available, those that will in the endpush the catastrophe away or make it acceptable... The challenge is to leverage agency and the capacityfor humans to engage and act wherever they may

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find themselves, in a way which can cohesively steerthe system in a new direction to avoid the worst.

W I C K E D P R O B L E M S

The large open discussions i moderated or attended, inparticular those gathering systems thinkers from vari-ous backgrounds, revealed it was easy to agree on thesystemic nature of the challenge, the acceleration, accu-mulation, interconnection of multiple threats, thereduction of the variety and the need to intervene atmultiple levels and scales, the urgency and the need forcoordination. when it came to coordination however, itwas much more difficult to reach consensual agreementson causes, priorities, values, not to mention roles andresponsibilities or courses of action. we could acknowl-edge the existence of a variety of responses, share severalexamples, and even proposals, but unless there was someform of homogeneity of practice or worldview in thegroup, we were unable to construct a common coordi-nated response, design a common vision of what thefuture would look like or agree on a framework, evenone that would accommodate a variety of responses. and this is not surprising, because the economic,social, environmental and political mess we are in is anintricacy of interconnected wicked problems, as ack-hoff, rittell and others have described them. Thecharacteristics of wicked problems among others arethat they cannot be formulated in a definitive waybecause there are many different perspectives of asame problem and different narratives to explainthem. There are multiple points of intervention asproblems can be symptoms of other problems.There are no right or wrong, true or false solu-tions. Solutions may be contradictory and involvetrade-offs. There is no history or proven practiceand expert knowledge to refer to, data is uncer-tain and often missing, and the best informationnecessary to understand the problems is distrib-uted in the contexts affected by the problem.angles of approach and solutions are multipleamong change agents and activists. The diversityof people, backgrounds, cultures, disciplines,information acquisition modes and cognitiveprocessing preferences, psychologies, worldviewsinfluence the point of entry into an issue, thedirection of the process involved, the type ofoutcome sought out, and the level of interven-tion. what people say needs to change or thetypes of change they are engaged in amount to awhole universe of possibilities!Bellow is an illustration of how various paradigmsand main engagement and action logics that drivechange can be expressed in relation to the commonsas archetype, and the types of innovation that arisefor each of them.

These engagement and action logics clusters areinspired from Susanne cook greuters leadershipdevelopment framework and from Barrett Brownswork on communicating with many worldviews.They reflect the affective, cognitive and behaviouraldimensions of what motivates peoples engagementand action choices, and therefore are descriptive ofperspectives and preferences, and modus operandiand not prescriptive. There is no better actionlogic than another, or no need for people to evolvefrom one to another. all are real and present asparticipatory collectives that each function withtheir own logic, organization and unity.

ENG AG EMENT LOG I C S ~ FAC I NG PAG E

N I C H E S A N D C L U S T E R S

change agents driven by their own engage-ment and action logics, linked to the paradigmout of which they would like the new system toarise, gather around the social objects they areattracted to, the leverage points they seek to actupon for effective results, which determine prior-ities and the pathways envisioned. These social objects are the nodes around whichemerging social movements converge and com-mon visions and praxis are shaped, forming clus-ters of cooperating specialized agents. That is wheremeaning is created and shared through languagesthat help us understand each other, where conversa-tions and repeated interactions are initiated, andfrom where new territories are explored. The action frameworks that are built or shaped frompractice to serve movements and communities providea context for co-individuation: the processes by whichidentities of individual and collective change agents areformed, transformed, and differentiated in relation toeach other and to the forces that hold people togetherand fuel their capacity to act and react to signals incohesive and effective ways. clusters grow and bound-aries expand with the arrival of new agents driven bysimilar engagement or action logics that create newopportunities for interaction and adaptation, allowingfor agents to co-evolve and for a system to innovatelocally, this is what makes diversity so important.at the same time however, as these frameworks createnatural boundaries around clusters of cooperation orniches of action they become exclusive of alternativeframeworks. This hinders relational dynamics and ourcapacity to collaborate across groups outside of ourdomains of action. as all niches have different opin-ions about the challenges the world is facing and theways to address them, each tries to convince others

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that they hold the best solutions and method-ologies, trying to funnel all the other solutionsthrough their perspective.our territory of action as a whole is actually com-posed of islands that do not share the logic, themotivators and the narrative

U N I T Y I N D I V E R S I T Y ?

as change agents, most of us acknowledge thecritical need for systemic change and for collective

intelligence and action, but we are facing a paradox.what seems to make us effective agents focusing onour respective domains of engagement and action isspecifically what prevents us from uniting and beingeffective as a whole. There is a tension between thetranscendent structures that coordinated action seemsto require and the immanent distributed nature ofagency. This structure versus agency debate is one ofthe greatest challenges for systemic change. in practice, attempts to organize a global response toa global challenge and unite across islands are often

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E N G A G E M E N T L O G I C S

GO I NG B AC K TO TH E SOURC E AND E S S E N T I A L S , A ND MOTH E R E A RTH

This manifests the cultural, mythical, sacred, spiritual dimensions of the commons and commoning. The commonslogic is expressed as replenishment, harmony, attunement, giving, communing with each other and nature, honouringall beings and life. Examples are found in the ancestral traditions of indigenous societies and movements inspiredfrom them, such as the Buen vivir and Pachama traditions of latin america, the spiritual teachings of the Nativeamericans and the aboriginal australians, traditional medicine and meditation practices. They usually intervene inconfrontation with modernism.

S E L F - P ROT E C T I NG L I V E L I HOOD S F I GHT I NG TH E S Y S T EM A S S U RV I VO R S O R H E RO E S

This manifests the empowering, enabling dimension and distributed nature of the commons. The commons logic isexpressed as generative of opportunity, autonomy and resilience. Examples are found in commons and peer-to-peeractivism, intellectual property activism, open source and open access movements, commons based peer productionand makers hackers movements, or new forms of co-working and entrepreneurship, relocalization, alternative cur-rencies. They usually intervene outside of and in opposition to institutional contexts.

C R E AT I NG L E G I T IM AC Y & S T EWA RD SH I P THROUGH GOV E RN ANC E & I N S T I T U T I ON S

This manifests the stewardship and governance dimensions of the commons. The commons logic is expressed asprotection of the commons through institutions, law & policy, ethics & governance, limits and boundaries. Exam-ples are found in conservation, human rights, justice & equity activism, right to access movements, global commonsactivism, or in polycentric or subsidiary forms of governance, commons governance forms, Pigowlian taxes, andopen government. They usually intervene at the global uN or national levels and in Ngos, political parties andunions contexts and may be under suspicion from the others as the concept of commons is easily co-optable.

S E E K I NG R AT I ON A L S O LUT I ON S & E F F I C I E N C I E S V I A N EW S T R AT EG I E S & MECHAN I SM S

This manifests sciences, technologies and tools serving the commons. The commons logic is expressed throughmanagement and conservation/preservation technologies and models, new macro and micro economic models andpolicies, new organizational forms, governance and business models, integration of externalities, new indicators andmetrics. Examples are found in the conscious capitalism, circular regenerative economy approaches, clean technologiesand renewable energies. They usually intervene in the belly of the beast and may be under suspicion from the othersas the concept of commons is easily co-optable.

F O S T E R I NG EMOT I ON A L R E L AT I ON SH I P S B E TWE EN P EO P L E & W I TH NATUR E

This manifests the commons as social practice and outcome, the loving, caring, sharing, participatory, inclusive, con-sensual dimension of the commons. The commons logic is expressed as community involvement, social responsibility,learning, collaborative practices, practices of wellbeing. Examples are found in new forms of local communities andcommunities of practice such as transition towns or eco-villages, community agriculture, new forms of consumption,the gift and sharing economy, community currencies. They usually intervene at the local community level.

UND E R S TAND I NG S Y S T EM S & COMP L E X I T Y L I N K I NG TH EORY & P R AC T I C E

This manifests the systemic, dynamic and integrative aspects of the commons. The commons logic is embodied as asystem and process generative of opportunity and thrivability, interweaving contexts and development, and the cul-tural, natural and technological aspects. Examples are found in permaculture and bioregionalism, systems and designthinking and process methodology as well as capacity and leadership development, and in advanced dialoguemethodologies. They usually function transversally and integrate interventions at multiple levels and scales.

T R AN S FO RM I NG S E L F & OTH E R S I N T EG R AT I NG TH E MAT E R I A L , S P I R I T UA L , S O C I E TA L

This manifests commons as enlivenment, at the interplay of awareness, thought, action, and effect. The commonslogic is expressed as experience of wholeness of existence through mind and spirit, deep sense making and awarenessof systems interactions and dynamic processes requiring personal transformation. Examples are found in integral andspiritual movements, developmental psychology, grounded in evolutionary psychology. They usually intervene fromthe deepest introspective level to the widest cosmologic level.

associated with ideals of shared vision and discourse,and common structures meant to bring the vision toreality, such as common language and values, organiza-tional forms or systems of governance and action planswhich may be prescriptive and normative. Because ofthe specialization of agents and the non interchange-ability of engagement and action logics, these attemptsoften results in dilution of focus and therefore ofprospects, leaving all parties weakened and in delusion.alternatively they foster the adoption of unifying ide-ologies, reductionist both in thinking and action in waysthat can ultimately put systems at risk and lead to totali-tarianism back to square one, the travelled routes intosameness. Eventually they crystallize existing contradic-tions and perpetuate conflicts between solutions or alter-natives. Something occupy and other recent self-orga-nized movements have worked to overcome, avoidingaction plans and demands, with some success but alsoshortcomings, in particular as far as being able to under-stand each other across islands, particularly when notspeaking the same language.

A N E C O L O G Y F O R

T R A N S F O R M A T I V E A C T I O N

The legions of change agents already busy interven-ing on a variety of leverage points or ready to bemobilized form an ecology for transformativeaction, with its multiple niches and clusters, adap-tive and generative processes, patterns of relation-ships, and capacities for co-evolution. They aredistributed within the wider system where theyhave the potential to drive systemic change andhuman development. The critical point is forthese distributed and locally organized efforts tocoalesce in order to change the feedbacks andinformation structures of the system and itscapacity for renewal so that the system cantake care of itself in a healthy way. in the changing image of man report publishedin 1973, a team of researchers from Stanforduniversity established that cultural transforma-tions historically occurred with the presence ofa strong image to embody change and crystal-lize imagination and action toward new visionsof the world. They suggested that such inform-ing image would need to provide a holistic senseand perspective on life, entail an ecological ethic,entail a self-realization ethic, be multileveled,multifaceted, and integrative, lead to a balancingand coordinating satisfactions along many dimen-sions, be experimental and open-ended. Thisdescribes well the characteristics of an ecologyfrom which transformative action and a transfor-mative image can emerge.

The changing image of man approach however,just as many approaches based on developmentalpsychology or vertical development, make a con-ceptual case based on evolutionary predicamentsand consciousness development and thereforeparadigm shift as a goal, assuming that tran-scending our levels of consciousness and theorder of complexity from which we developand apply solutions is necessary before engag-ing into effective change. in other words theypostulate that people need to change them-selves before they can change the system. The model i suggest here is founded on thecoexistence and complementarity of the positivecomponents within each paradigm, and at eachlevel of consciousness and perception of com-plexity. it focuses on the immediate operationalcapacity and the existing capabilities of the effi-cacious agents, and on the conditions underwhich they can leverage the potential for changein their own context, each brushing a stroke ofthe impressionistic changing image of man whilebringing a stone to the systemic change process ina co-evolutionary way. By construction, it includesthe vertical development models.human development is as much an emergentproperty of the collective/aggregated application ofagency through praxis and the outcome of changeitself, as it is a prerequisite for change. There is afeedback loop at work here also.looking at the universe of possibilities for interventionand innovation as an ecology for transformative actionenables to envision change and problem solving not asa transcendent, centralized or controllable process thatencompasses sets of critical and prioritized componentsand leverage points into one master plan or framework,but as an immanent distributed self-directed and self-renewable one composed of myriads of master plans andframeworks that complement each other.

A C H I E V I N G C O H E R E N C E : T H EU N D E R L Y I N G L O G I C

ann Pendleton-Jullian describes ecosystems of changeas scaffold to aggregate the different kinds of powersand mechanisms that are out there, and support theemergence of the new until it becomes strong enough toaffect power structures. She suggests a new type ofmetanarrative. Something strategically ambiguoustowards which to head despite our differences, and thatcan draw coherence from a variety of disparate micronarratives that shape events and build trust at thegrassroots level. for process philosopher Bonnitta roy, the unifyingprinciple or metanarrative would need to increase

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the diversity of the system. it must not try to tran-scend and resolve differences, but it must preserveand add to them. The unifying principle would beunderlying, not overarching, and act an undertow fortransformative action.Theres a universal aspect to what drives social move-ments around the globe even if we cannot clearlytranslate it in comparable terms across practices andlanguages. Much of what these movements are cur-rently engaged in is dedicated in a form or another toprotecting the environment, people and resources fromenclosure, over-exploitation and abuse, and to generat-ing opportunity for thrivability in various forms. Typically, activist interventions focus on the preventionof overshoot and collapse due to the current accumula-tive feedback loops that generate losses rather than gainsfor the system as a whole in multiple domains. There isalso significant activity and creativity on disruptive inno-vation, oriented towards the release and renewal phasesof the adaptive cycles that enable the system to reorga-nize so that resources are regenerated and remain acces-sible and opportunities remain healthily distributedand renewed, as these successions of adaptive cyclescannot take place naturally on their own in the currentstate of things. This proceeds from Buckminsterfullers maxim that you never change things by fight-ing the existing reality. To change something, build anew model that makes the existing model obsolete.as a whole, what drives movements for change con-nects to the commons as archetype a collectivelyinherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought,image, etc universally present in individualpsyches. commons in their widest definitionsare embodied in the timeless (re)generative sys-tems that humanity shares to protect, care forand renew resources and opportunities for self-realization and thrivability. They encompass theobjects of care and factors of opportunity andlivelihood, the participatory processes andpractices that enable this caring, and the out-comes and common good that result fromthese practices, which become in turn objectsof care and factors of opportunity. in theirmany shapes and manifestations, all need to beprotected, nurtured and renewed. The commons logic is one of protection andaccumulation of factors of opportunity andrenewal for the regeneration of the system (versusconservation and accumulation of factors of pro-duction), mindful of limits and boundaries,which manifests itself as system goal in multipleforms and languages, through different action log-ics, understandings and symbolic representations. The commons logic is versatile enough as underly-ing logic to guide action at various levels and scales,

and tangible enough in operational terms