We are building options for the next economies
At Dark Matter Labs, we view the interconnected crises of our time as symptoms of a deeper, structural miscoding of our economic systems. We understand these codes to be physical (e.g. biodiversity, energy, labour and materials), structural (e.g. money creation, embedded inequality and private property rights) and psychological (e.g. failure of the imagination).
Recognising the complex, entangled reality of living systems, we are exploring alternative pathways for organising society and stewarding the shared planetary commons. Our working hypothesis is that these pathways must be rooted in a radical reframing of our relationship to everything; from technology and money to land and the other-than-human world. We are framing this transformation as a shift towards Life-Ennobling Economies.
Economic options are bold directional aspirations
What would it mean to align societal ambition to the magnitude of the transformation that is required? We cannot be sure how the future will play out or the specific infrastructures that will be required. However, we can build towards a range of economic options that are likely to be needed. We are imaging new investment opportunities for city-scale tree canopies, community endowments and resilient bioregional food systems. We envisage that the electrification of transport networks, the mental health of communities and the collective intelligence of cities will become recognisable assets, understood as commitments to a regenerative future. We are also considering what might be unleashed if houses were self-owning and affordable in perpetuity. Or if rivers could express their need for care. We believe all these things are both possible and necessary. These are bold aspirations and will only be achieved by a collective movement of diverse communities and unusual allies. This is a story of practical reimagining that we are excited to put our energy behind.
How do we structure our response? ↓
Matrix
Our collaborative approach is firmly grounded in the complex, messy reality of our existing socio-economic systems. Step-by-step, with the support of a growing ecosystem, we aim to build tangible pathways towards the options that we would like to manifest in the world. We have visualised our organisation’s response strategy across a three-dimensional matrix. The Matrix represents the dynamic interplay of our systemic goals, collaborations and context specific initiatives.
Intersections
Each project in our portfolio contributes to a number of systemic capabilities. In doing so they intersect with the Labs, Arcs and Studios in various configurations. This allows us to prioritise flexible, compound learning across our internal and external ecosystems. Some projects are not part of an Arc, but each is attached to a Lab (or multiple Labs) where they contribute to building systemic capabilities.
Capabilities
The capabilities form the core of Dm’s Mission and sit at the centre of the Matrix. These are the systemic goals that we have set for ourselves as we strive to build pathways towards Life-Ennobling Economies. Some examples include decolonising currency stewardship, embedding data-augmented decision making and building the foundations for planetary stewardship institutions.
Contexts
The overarching LEE Mission allows us to contextually adjust the horizons of our interactions and interventions, whilst building towards a coherent field of influence and change. A single theory of change feels wildly inadequate; instead we are holding open questions in a continuous process of landscape scanning and action:
Political landscapes
How can we work intelligently with the constraints and opportunities of political ideologies?
A right wing context may provide more fertile ground for rapidly mobilising complex technologies than a liberal context. Or perhaps in a context like Ukraine where crisis and instability has become an everyday reality, the motivation for citizens to drive alternative governance models is heightened. This could start from a desire to support the military via voluntary crowdfunding and extend to new sectors and patterns of behaviour.
Geographical landscapes
What can we leverage by deliberating targeting lead or established markets to test a tool or concept?
In some cases we may need to look to edge communities for an idea to gain traction (e.g. a distributed currency), whereas in others a supportive social infrastructure is needed to establish agency (e.g. a material registry). Each country has something to teach us; from land laws in Scotland to open data systems in Taiwan, we are open to how our work can weave and adapt to local contexts.
Time horizons
How can we leverage the broad spectrum of realities represented across the global context?
Recognising that a speculative policy in one context might already be triage response in another can increase our collective learning and ability to test edge ideas. This could mean working with Indigenous communities on Turtle Island (North America) to urgently finance the regeneration of indigenous lands. It could also entail supporting marginalised communities in England to seed alternative housing models in response to the systemic crisis crisis.
Alliances
What could be unleashed if we can identify and engage unusual (and often powerful actors) with converging aspirations?
On the surface a central bank and an ecological activist may have little in common. Yet, central banks have a mandate to preserve stability, which in the future could involve recoupling money issuance to ecological rights. This logic might also extend to cultural intersectional points, such as indigenous perspectives and state mandates in locations such as Australia and India.
Paradigms
The Enlightenment, Industrial and Scientific revolutions created many advances for society. But what about their impact on deep ways of being and knowing? From the concept of thingification to the devaluation of mother earth, the psychological baseline of many societies was fundamentally altered. From our perspective, the worldview that condoned the treatment of land and living beings as disposable, exploitable resources, was also at play in the coding of our dominant socioeconomic systems. Dark Matter Labs sets out to reject the concept of separation and to reimagine our foundational economic relationships. For example:
Property
Words like property and ownership are often associated with ideas of dominion and control, allowing us to treat elements of the living world (such as land and rare earth minerals) as objects. Deep down though, do we really believe that timber holds more value than a forest? Or that a whale’s life is interchangeable with a barrel of oil? What would it mean to explore systems of organising that move beyond the paradigm of control?
Technology
Emergent technologies can be framed as a threat, but they could also facilitate a new freedom to care. The field of quantum physics has enabled a granular visualisation of the shapeshifting and relational nature of living systems. Perhaps what we have previously framed as a boring revolution is also an invitation to sense and see the world through a quantum lens. Perhaps in the future our governing institutions will exist to advance and scaffold the continuous learning of a self-aware system.
Money
Recognising that financial capital is intertwined and enabled by living and social systems is foundational to our work. Imagine how our relationship to finance might change if we understood the act of investing to be a commitment to our collective futures? What would a system look like where the ways of creating and stewarding money are decentralised and respectful of non-comparable value flows?
Based on this new paradigm we are proposing three worldview philosophies that we think could underpin a desirable future economy. From there, we have identified six structural shifts that we are hypothesising would need to occur for that to become a reality. The philosophies and shifts are not fixed, instead they are narratives that thread through the different dimensions of our Ecosystem Matrix, as we seek to test them in different contexts.
Worldview philosophies
Rooted in the recognition of the full web of life
From violence, scarcity and separation to a thriving planetary community of interbecoming.
NEL RCA PCA CDS
Grounded in a non-bounded understanding of value
From extractive profit-driven goals to entangled, intergenerational and distributed value systems.
NEL CSL BEA M0A CDS
Enabled by technological ecosystems of care
From the utilitarian ‘othering’ of technology to animistic interfaces of wisdom and care. NEL NZA CTS
Proposed structural shifts
Beyond Property
From exerting control over ‘objects’ to seeking reciprocal relationships with the full web of life.
PBL RCA
Beyond Labour
From humans employed as resources to vocations of creativity, purpose and care. NEL 7GA NFA ODS
Beyond Extraction
From extractive resource claims to the infinite guardianship of the global commons.
SML M0A PCA RNA
Beyond Private Contracts
From linear agreements that optimise for the few to multi-party, dynamic, digital treaties of respect.
BTRL RCA NFA
Beyond Governance
From centralised enforcement to nurturing institutions of stewardship.
SDL BTRL NZA
Beyond Monetary Capital
From the accumulation of financial wealth to a social contract that regeneratively stewards the diverse capitals of life.
CSL NEL 7GA