Protocols for Postcapitalist Economic Expression

Protocols for Postcapitalist Economic Expression. Agency, Finance and Sociality in the New Economic Space Dick Bryan, Jorge Lopez and Akseli Virtanen What would an Internet native economic system look like? Could economic power be systematically shared amongst individuals and their self-defined groups, with no central economic authority? And could that system secure collectively defined social and environmental benefits and create liquidity for their production? In Protocols for Postcapitalist Economic Expression Bryan, Lopez and Virtanen build the conditions for such a system. Where economic processes are not dictated by profit, what counts as value-creation, and is rewarded by dividends, can be collectively determined by the network. Care, the arts, the environment will not be after-thoughts, to be subsidized by states or the rich: they can be at the core of the economy’s value proposition. This book develops protocols that can generate all these processes. A blend of theoretical engagement with big economic ideas (Marx, Keynes, Hayek and others), media and information analytics and careful protocol design of token-related processes of distributed exchange, matching, netting and clearing, Protocols systematically builds an alternative to neoliberal capitalism, centrally-planned socialism and reformist social democracy. In an expressive, creative, risk-sharing, data-rich network of investing, producing, exchanging and lending, standard economic propositions get stood on their heads… and new political possibilities emerge.

The book is a product of research undertaken by the Economic Space Agency (ECSA). Dick Bryan is the Chief Economist at ECSA and an Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. Jorge Lopez is a distributed systems architect and the Lead Architect at ECSA. Akseli Virtanen, D.Sc.(Econ.), is the Co-founder of ECSA, and an Associate Professor at Aalto University.