From “degrowth" to "abundance",
from "decentralization" to “plurality”,
from "decoupling" to "complexity".
In the abundant pluriverse, we have finally found digital democracy.
This article is one of the parts of the GreenPill.Network global movement, with the Chinese version published on the matters platform. The Green Pill Network writing project, initiated by Gitcoin founder Kevin Owocki, encourages global local communities to write about the unique public culture of web3 spontaneously. This is the last piece in the series, discussing the concept of digital democracy.
Previous articles:
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Green Pill Network 1: What should local non-profit organizations pay attention to when issuing NFTs?
GreenPilled3 Seeking a Third Way Beyond Entrepreneurial Sovereignty and Abundance Technocracy Struggles
GreenPill.Network encourages practitioners of web3 to become Regen (short for Regenerative, also the antonym of Degen, which refers to speculators). In the first article, I discussed how NFTs, apart from serving as digital certificates, become symbolic tokens for local communities - advanced human technology becoming almost religious artifacts. Sacred objects gain powerful spiritual significance through a religious context, and social advocacy NFTs, through processes of collaboration and cooperation, are imbued with the consensus of the community. These consensuses become stories, slowly disseminating into other communities, creating low-efficiency yet strong connections. In the second article, I discussed how digital public spheres can be established and the preciousness of these low-efficiency unity movements against the prevalent algorithms, drawing from real-world web3 community practices.
In this third article, I attempt to discuss the ultimate imagination of Regen—Digital Democracy, a bold attempt. Overseas, Taiwan is often seen as the island of digital democracy. However, those of us in Taiwan are still troubled by polarization every day. Past successes seem like fleeting moments, and the trauma caused by digital social movements has driven many open, free, and democratic practitioners out of the third space. They return to their families and jobs, occasionally reminiscing about the past on social platforms. The next generation, who have not experienced the waves of digital transformation and movements, live as if these histories of digital democracy never happened. They remain entangled in the algorithmically addictive world, and in the end, they all suffer from algorithmic abuse.
The following article can be considered as reading notes, distilling the essence of the past six months of web3 for all and da0 learning reading group discussions. In the atmosphere of intensive reading and discussion, we gradually practice while reading, slowly grasping necessary narratives, becoming theoretical nourishment. Meanwhile, working in Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs(moda), section of plurality, I also strive to explore the meaning of Plurality.
Audrey Tang, the minister of moda, is the official inventor of the term Plurality. Audrey and Glen Weyl are currently writing a book, "Plurality" (which can be considered as another style of "GreenPilled", or a sequel to "Radical Market"). The Plurality Institute has held two physical symposiums in the US to discuss many related studies between emerging technologies and democratic society. The Plurality Tokyo Forum is also carving out its own localized path.
The following discussion only represents my personal standpoint and does not represent any DAO or centralized organization.
In the narrative concept of Plurality, Glen Weyl proposed three possible future pathways, correspondingly mapped to the latest civilization regimes in Civilization VI: Entrepreneurial Sovereignty (ES), Abundance Technocracy (AT), and Digital Democracy. Let's expand the theory with these core principles.
Entrepreneurial Sovereignty is advocated by Silicon Valley's accelerationists and singularity believers. It is a technology world that maximizes capitalism, where the spirit of man conquers nature may lead to greater social inequality, and all information content is privatized into intangible assets that can be calculated as GDP. Abundance Technocracy is a highly efficient, convenient, and uniform single-pole world developed when a totalitarian government fully controls digital tools. The development of AI can align collective will with a single ideology.
Digital Democracy, as a third way, creates digital lifestyles that meet the needs of the public. Glen Weyl believes that Plurality serves as the technical implementation of Digital Democracy, bridging the gap between a democratic society and emerging technologies, such as quadratic voting, Harberger taxes, language models that align diverse opinions, online deliberation tools, etc.
The above three can be reduced to three economic types:
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Entrepreneurial Sovereignty: Market Economics
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Abundance Technocracy: Planned Economics
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Digital Democracy: Cooperative Economics
Essentially, market economies and planned economies are on a spectrum, which is relatively close. The cooperative economy is another dimension, which transcends this spectrum. The cooperative economy, fully named the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE), serves as an umbrella term for alternative economies, underground economies, cooperativism, and more, widely seen in Central and South American and European cultures. I became familiar with this term through Dr. Chi-jen Wu(吳啟禎) of the Taiwan Economic Democracy Union (recommend book: "The Human Conditions of Taiwan’s Sovereignty") and Dr. Ching-Shu Hung(洪敬舒), director of the research department of the Taiwan Labour Front (recommend book: "When Labor Hires Capital: Overturning Capitalism with Economic Democracy"). Both teachers have talked about Nordic democracy to economic democracy and social investment, reflecting on the status of cooperatives in Taiwan.
Digital democracy, when directly translated in Chinese, can mean using digital methods to support democracy, such as open government data, open supervision, online deliberation, electronic voting, identity verification, and so on; it can also imply a coexistence of various (plural) forms of democracy. However, this state of coexistence must be based on a cooperative economic model. If it is a market economy growth path for the future, democracy is likely to become a secondary consideration or even a manipulated tool. So, it is boldly hypothesized here that digital democracy and the cooperative economy are two sides of the same concept; they contain too many similar ideas. According to the article "Why I Am a Pluralist?" by Glen Weyl, the term "cooperative liberal democratic pluralism" is condensed into “plurality”, which emphasizes the importance of cooperation.
Let's continue to build upon this. In the spectrum between market economy and planned economy, three concepts appear at different costs: artificially scarce goods, closed technologies, and atomism.
Information is fluid and was originally shared until someone monopolized it, artificially packaging and selling it, turning it into artificially scarce goods. These could be valued-added via designing, packaging, and curating process, but they also become inaccessible resources. Opposite to artificially scarce goods are public goods, especially Digital Public Goods (DPGs) in an information society.
Closed technologies, like nuclear energy or AI models that have not yet been open-sourced, are more likely to fall into the hands of technology elites or bureaucrats as they advance, making technology increasingly distant from citizens. In contrast, open technologies can be used mutually through standards and open licensing formats.
People's work habits in modern society are hierarchical and atomized, accustomed to obtaining their tasks through layers of information transmission. In this framework, people are divided into individual units without characteristics and manipulated within a larger structure. Opposite this concept is the spirit of flat organizations and united cooperation.
Therefore, the corresponding concepts are displayed as follows:
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Artificially scarce goods - Digital Public Goods
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Closed technologies - Open technologies
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Hierarchy and atomization - Flatness and unity
These three concepts are mentioned extensively in various theories.
As Kohei Saito, known for his research on Marx's later works, advocates the concept of Degrowth. He believes that only by abandoning capitalism and the dream of greenwashing and advanced carbon reduction technologies can the natural environment be resolved because only when humans give up unlimited growth can they enter a state of true abundance. In his book "Capital in the Anthropocene,”(人新世の「資本論」) he spends a lot of time explaining the concepts of public and private goods, emphasizing the importance of open technologies. We can ask here: in the digital world, how can we contribute and meet our needs to achieve abundance?
The spirit of the plurality, briefly mentioned above, serves as a bridge between emerging technology and a democratic society. The integral part of it is decentralization, which involves deconstructing the center, breaking down concepts, technologies, and operation modes, and only then is multi-centrism possible. We can easily see the benefits of multi-centric operations in the world of web3. For example, avoiding single-point of failures(SPOF), decentralizing identities(DIDs), partial common ownership(PCO), and quadratic voting(QV) for automated and permissionless possibilities. Of course, the Plurality also emphasizes universally accessible digital public goods services, promotes interoperability of open technologies, and emphasizes cooperate across difference(CAD).
Finally, there is decoupling, a term taken from Joichi Ito's "The Practice of Change." He describes the history of Internet development with decoupling. He believes that the development of the Internet is like a pendulum, swinging from centralization to decentralization. And on different levels, it can be decoupled, allowing invented standards or things to no longer monopolize. When a tool can be easily used, it has the space to evolve. Different levels of technology, people, and events can operate repeatedly on a simple scale, giving birth to complex systems. Although complex systems may not be as efficient for a single task, they are almost universally applicable to various changes, thus creating resilience and coping with various situations. The solidarity economy can be seen in worlds where various regimes collapse and are maintained by small community autonomies, which can quickly respond to changes. Of course, this group is inherently decentralized and in a state of abundance.
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From "Degrowth" to "Abundance"
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From "Decentralization" to “Plurality”
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From "Decoupling" to "Complexity"
Summary: The mindset that a Regen should have
In the world of digital democracy, being a Regen possibly means engaging in matters you identify with and making limited decisions in a complex environment. When an individual collaborates with those they identify with, forming one or more Pods (or DAOs), and still works across differences with groups they less identify with (or so-called associate between cooperatives), it is ultimately possible to "give according to ability, take according to needs" in an abundant environment. This is an ideal description for public goods and the third space(digital public sphere), though reality is more austere. Taiwan as an island facing significant threats, we can't afford to miss any opportunities for external aid collaboration, inevitably getting entwined in the complex network of international political relations. Yet the internet has been open for connections since the very beginning. Perhaps we can revisit the spirit of "openness," "sharing," and “solidarity” through the history of internet development and continue creating abundance.
To conclude, reaching the realm of digital democracy may require discussions about the cooperative economy.
The cooperative economy could possibly appear in three states simultaneously: "abundance" after degrowth, a “plurality” after decentralization, and "complexity" after decoupling.
These three characteristics are based on three features: "public goods," "open technologies," and "flat and solidarity.”
These three features could potentially allow us to break away from the dichotomous narrative of market economy versus planned economy. The direction of web3 Regen development could be its latest standard-bearer, which is conceptually elaborated in the third article of the Green Pill Writing Program.
Although this is the conclusion of the three-article independent writing plan for the Green Pill and only explains a schematic diagram, it is also the beginning of discussing Digital Solidarity. Many concepts might seem inconclusive, but the back-and-forths often overlap considerably, gradually building up an international consensus that becomes the theoretical foundation for practitioners.