246
11 The Self-Organizing Society
communism and socialism. First, rather than involving a command economy, this
approach implies as little top-down planning and control as possible. Second, rather
than redistributing wealth, it creates socio-economic opportunities for everyone.
It enables individuals to help themselves and to cooperate more effectively. Selforganization is built on individual self-determination (“self-control”) within a framework that promotes collective intelligence and helps everyone to make better decisions. This framework is also designed to encourage responsible, other-regarding
behavior.
Suitably designed reputation and merit-based systems can be a powerful catalyst
for cooperation and socio-economic progress in a globalized world. If properly implemented, the economic system of the future will be more efficient and effective. Today,
we still have an unbalanced and dysfunctional struggle between top-down regulation and bottom-up self-organization. This causes frictional losses, conflict and high
costs. The expense of maintaining this over-regulated system has become unsustainable. Most industrialized countries have reached historical heights of public debt
levels in the order of 100–200% of gross domestic product (GDP) or more. Nobody
knows how we will ever pay for this, never mind the cost of even more regulation.
In the coming decades, however, I expect a superior digital society to emerge in
most of the world. In the previous chapter, I have given examples showing that a
participatory market society is already on its way (for example, the “sharing economy” and the quickly growing “makers community” reflect this well). The participatory market society will build on the new opportunities created by modern information and communication systems. To get a better idea of how this society might
approximately look like, it is useful to discuss the Swiss system, which comes closest
to my imagination of how the Participatory Market Society might work.
The Swiss system works pretty well and is based on a number of important
features. It is a federally organized system, which harnesses great science and good
education. It exhibits a form of direct democracy, where people can vote on many
issues of public concern (remarkably, Swiss voters also decided in recent referenda
not to increase holidays and not to reduce taxes!). Swiss society is multilingual and
multicultural and based on a consensus-oriented tradition of decision-making. A
political culture of multi-party power-sharing at all levels of government including
the executive ensures that no one person or party accumulates too much power.
Consistent investments have resulted in a well-maintained public infrastructure and
an excellent public transportation system. Switzerland has low levels of debt in
comparison to other industrialized countries. Nevertheless, I expect this kind of
system to further evolve consistently with its socio-economic and cultural traditions,
by taking advantage of the new opportunities created by modern Information and
Communication Technology and by exploring better mechanisms to create collective
intelligence.
Furthermore, note that self-organization is a conservative approach in that it builds
on principles that have already been proven to work in our societies—and on core
cultural and ethical values (see also Appendix 14.1). By accounting for externalities,
it helps us to create more sustainable systems, to preserve our environment, and to
make our society more resilient. This is achieved by enabling our society to better
11 The Self-Organizing Society
communism and socialism. First, rather than involving a command economy, this
approach implies as little top-down planning and control as possible. Second, rather
than redistributing wealth, it creates socio-economic opportunities for everyone.
It enables individuals to help themselves and to cooperate more effectively. Selforganization is built on individual self-determination (“self-control”) within a framework that promotes collective intelligence and helps everyone to make better decisions. This framework is also designed to encourage responsible, other-regarding
behavior.
Suitably designed reputation and merit-based systems can be a powerful catalyst
for cooperation and socio-economic progress in a globalized world. If properly implemented, the economic system of the future will be more efficient and effective. Today,
we still have an unbalanced and dysfunctional struggle between top-down regulation and bottom-up self-organization. This causes frictional losses, conflict and high
costs. The expense of maintaining this over-regulated system has become unsustainable. Most industrialized countries have reached historical heights of public debt
levels in the order of 100–200% of gross domestic product (GDP) or more. Nobody
knows how we will ever pay for this, never mind the cost of even more regulation.
In the coming decades, however, I expect a superior digital society to emerge in
most of the world. In the previous chapter, I have given examples showing that a
participatory market society is already on its way (for example, the “sharing economy” and the quickly growing “makers community” reflect this well). The participatory market society will build on the new opportunities created by modern information and communication systems. To get a better idea of how this society might
approximately look like, it is useful to discuss the Swiss system, which comes closest
to my imagination of how the Participatory Market Society might work.
The Swiss system works pretty well and is based on a number of important
features. It is a federally organized system, which harnesses great science and good
education. It exhibits a form of direct democracy, where people can vote on many
issues of public concern (remarkably, Swiss voters also decided in recent referenda
not to increase holidays and not to reduce taxes!). Swiss society is multilingual and
multicultural and based on a consensus-oriented tradition of decision-making. A
political culture of multi-party power-sharing at all levels of government including
the executive ensures that no one person or party accumulates too much power.
Consistent investments have resulted in a well-maintained public infrastructure and
an excellent public transportation system. Switzerland has low levels of debt in
comparison to other industrialized countries. Nevertheless, I expect this kind of
system to further evolve consistently with its socio-economic and cultural traditions,
by taking advantage of the new opportunities created by modern Information and
Communication Technology and by exploring better mechanisms to create collective
intelligence.
Furthermore, note that self-organization is a conservative approach in that it builds
on principles that have already been proven to work in our societies—and on core
cultural and ethical values (see also Appendix 14.1). By accounting for externalities,
it helps us to create more sustainable systems, to preserve our environment, and to
make our society more resilient. This is achieved by enabling our society to better