DisCO in 7 Principles and 11 Values

Definition

Open Value Cooperativism, expands the practices of Open Cooperativism by explicitly adding Open Value Accounting and Feminist Economics. Open Value Cooperativism is also the theory informing the DisCO Framework.

Overview

While the blockchain space has excelled in disrupting notions of how to track and reward value, its concept of value remains anchored in mainstream ideas about absentee profit maximization — the same ones that routinely call care work and environmental stewardship “externalities”. We challenge this normativity and are working to realize a more complete demonstration of value through the means offered by DLTs.

Open Coops came about as a convergence of three movements: the Commons, Open Source, and the Cooperatives. Over the last few years, we have examined Open Coops and how they relate to their cousins in the Platform Coop movement. Although firmly embedded in the Commons, Open Cooperativism seemed to us incomplete without incorporating two more main ingredients: Feminist Economics and Open Value accounting. Whereas Open Cooperativism has four non-prescriptive principles (statutory orientation toward the common good, multi constituent nature, active creation of commons and transnational nature), we have taken the premise further, resulting in Open Value Cooperativism — the basic DNA of the DisCO (Extracted from the DisCO Manifesto)

7 Principles

The following principles have also been presented as "The 7 DisCO principles" but they form the backbone of Open Value Cooperativism:

The Seven DisCO Principles

With Open Coops as a starting point, DisCOs are:

1. Geared toward positive outcomes in key areas: In DisCOs, production is guided not by profit but by social and environmental priorities. Individual organizations embed these values in their cultural, productive and organizational processes, and technical/legal statutes.
2. Multi-constituent: DisCOs extend decision making and ownership beyond the company structure, and enfranchise all contributors whether present in all value chains or affected by the coop’s actions. Beyond workers, this may include neighbouring communities, suppliers, clients, reproductive and affective labour, financial backers, etc. as constituents.
3. Active creators of commons: Unlike the typical behavior of market enterprises, DisCOs do not just remove resources from the Commons. They reciprocate by stewarding existing commons or creating new ones. These new commons are created through market and value-tracked pro bono work. Commons may be digital (code, design, documentation, legal protocols and best practices, etc.) or physical (productive infrastructure, deliberation spaces, machinery, etc.)
4. Transnational: This has two points. First, physical production is kept local and needs-based (following the Design Global, Manufacture Local logic). Second, knowledge, resources and value flows are shared at the global level with like-minded enterprises to create political and cultural counterpower to the prevailing corporate/capitalist economy.
5. Centered on care work: We distinguish between two types of care work: for the health of the collective (where the collective is seen as a living entity that needs commitment, material inputs and fidelity to its social mission) and that for the living beings within the collective (the human beings within each DisCO who build mutual trust and intimacy support structures).
6. Reimagining the origin and flows of value: Three types of value — productive market value, pro-bono / commons-generating value, and care work value — are tracked through complementary value metrics. Value tracking is applied to all DisCO members, in turn influencing decision making, payments, work priorities, and more.
7. Primed for federation: While networks may or may not share common goals, federations are imbued with a shared direction. Scaling replicates the dynamics of colonialism — extending a worldview from a center and razing everything in its path. DisCOs are replicated/altered through a federation protocol capable of achieving critical mass. Each primary node focuses on small group trust, intimacy and mutual support.

Continuity extends from traditional cooperatives to Platform Coops to Open Coops and, more radical and experimental