Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [192]
As noted before: the possibilities for self-organizing, transparent non-privileged parallel networks are virtually unlimited.
16. Work from core principles. (Add more principles as you see fit):
1. Engagement
2. Transparency (trust and truth)
3. Accountability
4. An Adult Understanding (Triage and Trade-offs)
5. Redundancy/Distributed Risk/Hedging
6. Radical Self-Reliance
7. Reciprocity
8. Diffusion of power and the means of wealth/income creation
9. Base Decisions on an Integrated Understanding
10. Leverage Existing Capital, Assets and Skills
11. ESSA: Eliminate, Simplify, Standardize and Automate
12. Generate Value and Surplus (working capital)
13. Secure/Produce/Innovate the FEW Resources (food, energy, water)
14. Think, Plan and Act with integrity
15. Pare complexity to simplicity
The Nature of Work and Skillsets
In discussing the responses that have a high probability of making the Transformation positive, we have also addressed Point Five: The nature of future work and the skillsets best suited to prospering during the Great Transformation.
In other words, in discussing full-spectrum prosperity, lowering risk, creating value/capital, leveraging assets and skills, and all the other topics we've covered, we've already addressed work and skillsets. Just to review previous sections:
Capitalism is fundamentally the process of risking capital for a return, and responding to feedback from the market. No one can recommend or predict what enterprises or means of income/wealth creation are available to any particular household; the household itself must become engaged in assessing its assets (skills, interests, capital, tools, etc.) and deciding where best to deploy/invest those assets.
Diffusing wealth/income creation means establishing multiple sources of income and enterprise which are not dependent on only one person in the household or one skillset or one market or even one measure of value.
Since our goal is full-spectrum prosperity, then "enterprise" includes not just income as measured in money but improvements in "soft capital" like health, knowledge, skills and working productively with others (voluntary networks).
Working for "free" (that is, generating no cash money) may well generate significant returns when measured in purpose/goals, the joy of productive work, the building of potentially valuable networks and cooperatives, the process of learning, better health due to physical activity and a hundred other increases in value.
And this:
The two fundamental individual skills are the ability to learn and the ability to work with others. If someone wants to start acquiring capital even when they have no money, then these two assets are the place to start.
It is impossible to predict which skillsets will become more valuable than others in any time frame; certainly being able to cook, grow food, care for others and maintain infrastructure will always have intrinsic value. More important than any one skill is the ability to learn additional skills, and the ability to work within groups for reciprocal benefit.
Working with other people is an acquired skill; it is not inherent, it must be learned just like any other skill or body of knowledge. Since the foundation of radical self-reliance is working with others for reciprocal benefit, then the "internal capital" of knowing how to work with others is, along with the ability to learn, the most important capital.
If a person possesses these two "internal" assets (capital), then they can leverage them into developing social capital and individual capital (additional skills). Once a person is creating value within a network, then he/she can begin generating surplus capital which can be exchanged for built and/or natural capital.
The key