[p2p-research] The Betterness Manifesto

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: The Betterness Manifesto via
Umair Haque by Umair Haque on 5/20/10

So you want to build a better 21st century. But how? That's what many
of you have been asking me on Twitter and elsewhere.

We can feel it, I suspect, most of us, deep in our gut. Bailouts,
global debt crisis, fourth estate destroyed, nature ravaged, future
stolen. Welcome to the roaring teens.
Unless we do something about it, there won't be much of a tomorrow.

Here's the score. The global economy faces a series of tectonic
structural shifts. The great gears of this vast machine must be reset
over the next decade. Consumption must fall. Savings must rise.
Investment must be more productive. Incomes and wealth must be shared
more broadly. Borrowing from tomorrow must slow. The rate at which we
value the future must grow. Growth itself must be revitalized.

Think of it as a great reboot of prosperity itself. How will it happen?
Who will reset these great gears? Institutions are the "dials" that
tune the gears, that set the rates. Exurbs, corporations, arms-length
exchanges, industries, resources, "profit", and "GDP". All that's the
stuff of the industrial era. Yet those are the institutions that still
surround us today. A better kind of prosperity demands a new set of
institutions. New kinds of cities, companies, communities, markets,
capital, contracts, growth (to name just a few).

It's up to each of us to build them. Want betterness? Betterness
doesn't begin with Ben Bernanke, Lloyd Blankfein, or Anderson Cooper.
It begins with you. Creating a better 21st century means choosing to
stop living in the 20th century.

So what can you do? Here are eight ways to kick start betterness:

Invest. More specifically, stop investing in corporations that don't do
good. Put your money where your mouth is and support companies that
are, yes, profitable, but that profit by doing meaningful stuff that
matters the most. Stop investing in bad, start investing in good. The
key word here isn't good, it's investing: take an interest, engage, put
your money to work for the long haul. Stop speculating by the Jim
Cramer style nano-second.

Allocate. It's a mystery why so many keep their money parked in big
banks that bleed them dry through bailouts. Move your money to a better
bank, a local bank, a community bank, a bank that hasn't needed a
bailout, or a totally new kind of bank, like BankSimple. Switching
costs are low and the benefits are clear.

Cut. "Consume" less. Do you really need another pair of designer jeans,
three soy mocha Frappuccinos a day, or a bigger TV? Really? Betterness
happens not through naked, aggressive consumption of disposable,
mass-produced stuff, but by learning to spend your hard-earned cash on
smaller amounts of awesome stuff that's made with love, ethics, and
passion.

Work. You're worth something. Stop giving your talent away to
organizations that misallocate it, underutilize it, and possibly even
abuse it. If you're doing something meaningless, quit. Betterness can't
happen if you're spending your life churning out toxic junk. It can
only happen when more meaningful work is done. Find a company that's
better. Better yet, start one. No, it's not easy. But here's the thing:
over the next decade, the businesses that can't do better, the ones
you're giving your talent away to, are to go extinct anyway. Cut the
cord now, before the axe falls and cuts it for you.

Live. If you're living somewhere meaningless, move. Exurban sprawl,
mega-highways, big-box stores: that was the American Dream in the 20th
century. In the 21st, it's closer to the awesome Richard Florida's
dream of thriving, tightly-connected communities, that make up vibrant
cities. Living somewhere where you're forced to, like it's groundhog
day, hit the same old big, lame, toxic businesses, over and over again?
Those places and spaces were built to support an industrial economy.
Today, they're a barrier to letting it crumble and fall. Move somewhere
where there's a local community made up of passionate, talented people,
a community you can nurture and that nurtures you. It just might be
good for your soul.

Civilize. The Dark Mountain folks think the big problem in the world
today is civilization and that we need to get radically uncivilized. I
think the the opposite: we need to get re-civilized. We've forgotten
what civics means. Join civil society. Become a volunteer. Mentor
someone. Get involved with a local non-profit. Do something that has,
in the parlance of economists, positive externalities: an activity that
benefits others more than it benefits you. The basis of civilization is
not naked self-interest, it's shared interest.

Support. Support what you think matters. Want a thriving democracy? Buy
a newspaper. Want haute couture? Stop buying fast fashion. Want green
energy? Invest in going off-grid. Every choice you make with your
money, time, and effort reflects your true support for betterness.

Reflect. The 20th century was built never to allow room for reflection,
only work. Take time out, no matter what. Pick a favourite place, a
café, restaurant, park, or avenue. Hang out and reflect. What would
betterness mean in your life? How are you helping betterness happen?
How could you help betterness happen? Without time to reflect on those
questions, and explore and refine your own answers, none of the above
can happen.

None of this is easy. And no, it won't magically create a paradise
overnight, or possibly ever. These aren't the only paths to betterness,
or even the best ones. This is just a blog post. Here's the point. It
is only by accepting the hard truth of personal responsibility for
yesterday that each of us can begin to create a better tomorrow.

Institutions are emergent: born from the bottom up, they suddenly catch
fire, and then transform the fabric of economies. It's through small
changes massively distributed, like those above, that 21st century
institutions are most likely to spark and ignite a great reboot. Call
it a new American Dream. Its details aren't visible yet, but it's
outline looms large. It's about a more meaningful prosperity, that
matters in human terms, and it is institutions to support and nurture
meaningful work, play, and living, that the 21st century demands.

Real change doesn't begin with governments, presidents, or prime
ministers. It begins with each of us. In the 20th century, never-ending
mass-marketing, monopoly, and mega-politics came together to convince
us, each and every one, that we're not really free: just free enough to
choose between different flavors of the same old toxic junk. It was a
trick, a ploy, a television hallucination. We're the freest people in
history. It's time to use it like we meant it.

Every revolution begins from the bottom up. Fed up with the status quo?
Tired of the 20th century? Then don't just talk about it. Reject it and
refuse it. Build a better 21st century instead.

One of history's greatest builders once said: "be the change you want
to see in the world". Let me update Gandhi's wisdom for the next
decade. Want a revolution? Be the revolution you want to see in the
world.

Note: This is my opinion. You're more than welcome to disagree. If
you'd like to, be polite and add to the discussion by letting us know
why.

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