The money economy is broken, as is the Big Tech economy. Among other things, we need a different framing of 'an economy'. Here we outline an economy of contributions, and how it radically differs from an economy of commodity trade, profit and financial transaction.
In this project - as distinct from financial flows or digital trade (eg scraping data from social media, or internet traffic, and profiling the traffic and the users' relationships, to make digital commodities) - we're oriented to the socially beneficial **use** of work and infrastructures. We frame this as a **contribution economy**, in contrast with a commodity economy or a fianacialised economy.
# Contribution in the commons Contribution economy is particularly needed as a way of placing means of subsistence and wellbeing **in the commons**. Rather than being based on ownership, commons are relationships of contribution and responsibility in the kinds of activity that, together, constitute a commons: - Generating, maintaining and **curating** the means that are held in the commons - **Enjoying**, mobilising and recognising the commons, in everyday life and work, as valued provisions in-and-for the collective of members - **Stewarding** the commons: policing its usage and sanctioning abusers, steering its evolution, ensuring its continuance across generations of members, definding the commons againt enclosure or degeneration.
In a commons the members - commoners - have access on the basis of privileges and obligations (it's not like a market, where 'just anybody' can participate) and the commoned means are held in the collective for the present and future members of the commons: there is no ownership, there is stweardship.
There are many kinds of contribution in a commons, within and across the constitutive relationships of curating, enjoying and stewarding the commons. At a practical level, our experience in coops and in commons, in the world of digital infrastructure, leads us to think in terms of three kinds of contribution: - Contribution in work (hours) - Contribution in kind (platform services, infrstructures, documents, access to pre-existing working arrangements, etc) - Contribution in money (subscription fees, grants, gifts, etc)
Some kind of **contribution accounting** is called for, formally or informally.
# Recognition Contributions need appropriate recognition. We see the same three forms of recognition, plus a fourth: - Recognition in money (wages, rents, purchases) - Recognition in kind (gifts of access to a provider's services or platforms) - Recognition in work (facilitating relationships between contributors in the commons, and the production of cultural means for relationship - reports, surveys, news, contacts, etc)) - Recognition in cultural terms (shout-outs or public thanks, privileged status such as convenorship in groups or editorial status, honorific status such as Board membership, etc)
# More than one economy In this project we recognise two kinds of economy, each with its own span of contributions. As commons, each has its own system of privileges and obligations, relating to its particular commoned means.
The Democratic Tech Fund is one: a commons of gifts of money. The fund - Contributions in a money commons
The Democratic Tech Federation is the other: a commons of movement capability in and around digital infrastructure. The federation - Contributions in a commons of movement capability
Each has its own stewardship arrangements. One is intrinsically converned with (the distribution of) money while the other is not.
While the work of the Fund is . . funding (!), the work of the Federation is organising (the facilitation of organising, across its plural membership) and formacion (capability building)
> The work of the Federation is facilitating organising, across its plural kinds of membership, and formacion (capability building in the movements).
Tthe Federation holds the frame - the practical frame of collective capability in resistance to the digital coup - within which the Fund exists, and under which the stewardship of the fund is performed. The outcomes of the Fund are ultimately the responsibility of the Federation, in the commons of civil-society movement capability.