Community

Doug Kirkpatrick, self-management extraordinaire, introduced me to Jose and the three of us, Adrian, Jose, and I, ended up meeting every week for about a year. An alternative system based on contributions, rather than money, started to take shape.

We also started writing Radical Companies (Amazon) out of frustration that even luminaries did not have valuable answers, either.

Fiat & Radical

The alternative we were working on Jose called Radical. No violence, no punishing or killing the bad guys, no revolution. Radical was simply an alternative to the invisible Fiat system we lived in.

No Boss

There was the question of replacing or eliminating the boss.

Recognized Contributions

Co-author Adrian Perez and I experimented with how to recognize contributions. We knew we had to be careful because that was the one question that came up often at Nearsoft. The distributions were all equal.

Money

If we had distributed carrots or potatoes it may not be a problem. Just eat them or give them away to friends and family. Money, on the other hand, is a universal mean of exchange. For example, you can buy headphones with it.

For Radical we came up with RADs, without the baggage of money. You do something, other people recognize it as a contribution, recognize them, and the results was RADs.

Later we realized that recognized contribution” was the key. If you have 10% of the RADs, you get 10% of the dividends; if you 200 RADs and I have 100, you get twice what I do.

If you do not get what you think you deserve, you will have to talk to other co-owners to learn why.

The co-owners can decide whether to make accessible to the public, too. In the spirit of Transparency, our strong recommendation is to always do so.

RADs!

We made an app to do the math (free in Apple and Android stores). And we also made the RADs public.

Ownership & Co-Ownership

Fiat ownership is exclusive,

This is mine. I will keep you out of it even if I have to kill you, everyone in your family, and burn everybody in your village.

That is OK for a toothbrush, but not for a business whose growth comes from the work that many people put in it.

Fiat Ownership

• We are blind to it.
• We do not question it.
• We even defend it.
• We give it sole credit for whatever progress we make.
• The ultimate goal of most people in the Fiat system is to get as much money and power as possible.

We Are Blind to It

• Economists sometimes get really close to it, but they go around it.
• Marx and his followers blame everything on ruthless capitalists, robber barons, and others bad people.
• Others blame our problems on our veering away from the path of indigenous people, you know, the simple people who were no stranger to slavery.

It is incomprehensible that we don‘t see that Fiat ownership causes the majority of the harm we face, starting with poverty and ending excessive wealth.

Co-Management

Co-management has gone by the name “self-management”. However, a business has no self.

We changed the name to co-management because people can make decisions, change their mindset, and work without a boss.

Please note that co-management is not a flat organization, a patriarchy, or a co-op. It moves us from "I" to "us."

Co-Ownership

Co-ownership is the kind of active property (e.g., a company) that belongs to all who contributes to it. If I recognize what you are doing as a contribution, then you are a co-owner.

Co-ownership comes from a Radical mindset,

• There are no bosses.
• Capital does not constitute a contribution.
• If the RADs given do not makes sense to you, you have the responsibility to have the people involved explain it to you. And if it is something novel foryour community, then they have the responsability to explain to the community.

Many questions came up with co-ownership and we worked out many of them, but we have blind spots, too. Others will bring up shortcomings up later and will have to be worked out over time.

Capital & Contribution

Many people can make a contribution.

Capital may come as a radical Investment from a bank, individuals, or even from a Venture Capital firm as a Radical Investment with a not attached to it,

• We will return the principal.
• Plus a fixed percentage, or a percentage of revenue, or any other scheme.
• A Radical Investment is never exchanged for power. You are free to do it, but it will very likely turn into a Fiat investment, with a board, etc.
• If the investment does not work out and we can not do any of the things above, then we can not and that is that as far as the Radical Investment goes, just like any other investment.

‘We’ in this case refers to all co-owners. Maybe it can be done with a contract and multiple signatures, but we need to find a mechanism for all of co-owners to commit.

The RADs! Mobile App

The RADs! mobile app continues to evolve. We have added a lot of things, taken off other things, and resolved a whole lot of issues.

For example, we tried to let co-owners give RADs directly, but that did work so well. So we switched to recognizing contributions. The result is converted to RADs and made tangible.

No Dogma

There is nothing dogmatic here. we visualize Radical as an alternative to Fiat.

You are welcome to add things and change things. Just be careful not toend up back into Fiat mode. If you do, there is no shame in course-correcting and do it better the next time.

Foundation

These are the blocks of the Foundation,

You are not going to get a demerit or a medal if you do not follow it, but if you are not careful you may end up back in the Fiat system.

In general, if it works for all co-owners, go with it. Else, find another solution.

Banners

Banners came up as we realized that we need a way to represent non-people in RADs. Actually, the first name that occurred to use was Totem, but then Adrian pointed out that ‘totem’ was a religious symbol and we should not. After some thinking, we switched to Banners.

Among other things, Banners could represent things like compromises amd commitments and for how long.

Public Dashboards

All RADs transactions are made public via Public Dashboards to all co-owners,

• They display how many RADs moved between people and the people involved and for what reasons.
• In the case of people-to-Banners, they include how many RADs or money have been committed and for how long.

And There You Have It

A brief overview of the emerging paradigm of decentralized work and co-ownership models, contrasting the Fiat systems with the Radical alternative,

1. ‍Banners—collaborative action.
   • Banners represent non-personal transactions in the Radical system standing as emblems for decentralization.‍
2. Co-Management—working without a boss.
   • How co-management empowers teams and ensures collaboration without a Fiat hierarchy. Emphasizing that this is not a flat or co-op structure but a balance of autonomy and responsibility, a changed mindset.‍
3. Co-Ownership—via Recognized Contributions.
   • Reflects the current Fiat system, where money and hierarchical control determine decisions. Fiat is the system where money and power over others comes first.
   • It highlights why this system no longer serves anybody.‍
4. Fiat—the dominant system we want to escape.
   • Reflects on the current Fiat system, where money and hierarchical control determine decisions. It highlighting why this system serves itself and its self-preservation and not people.‍
5. Public dashboards—Radical Transparency.
   • Public Dashboards make all transactions visible and it builds trust.
   • Radical is an alternative system to Fiat where people comes first.‍
6. RADs—get converted to whatever is being distributed.
   • Explaining the core of RADs and the idea that people comes first.
   • RADs can transform the Fiat models.‍
7. RADs! app—simplifying the complex.
   • A mobile app that calculates you percentage of ownership and records the whole transaction in public dashboards.
   • It makes easier for co-owners to participate and track their contributions and stake.‍
8. Recognized contribution—tangible acknowledgments.
   • Contributions are recognized and converted into RADs, offering a tangible way to quantify work nd is recognized by other co-owners.

A Call to Action

This is a call to action for embracing a shift to Radical. It challenges the status quo along with other alternatives to the Fiat system.