Impact Story — Narratives Towards Global Change — Utilissance Union.
Where do our life experiences lead us? Two people going through similar events will come out differently from it. All based on their assessment and response to it. Life’s curly paths and the environment around us might elevate or subvert us. We might not be happy with how things are, but at the same time do we ever know if this challenging path will actually lead us towards something greater?… not just for ourselves but for the world.
A story of a boy.
You… A curious dreamer. A careful boy. With a head filled with thoughts, concerns & ruminations. “Why so serious?” they said. You had lots of ruminations but didn’t really express any of your feelings and inner ongoings. Cause feelings don’t matter you’ve been taught. We don’t bring it up. Eat it up and move on. Showing weaknesses was unacceptable. In regards to stuttering, it meant that it should be hidden and not talked about. This perpetuated inner ruminations, fear of judgement and a feeling of being a disappointing human being.
You couldn’t really find the support and help that you were needing and expecting. A suitable psychological setting wasn’t there in your environments. Or physical setting for that matter, on the streets and in school… you should be ready to fight anywhere. Such a culture you grew up in. Such an environment… unsafe, uncertain.
You carried frustration, but dealing with it all by yourself and dreaming about how it all disappears one day. But later you learn that no one will help and nothing will change until you take things into your own hands.
Later you realize that you couldn’t really expect anything more. Given an environment with disenfranchised people with economic hardships and bad social structures… people for the most part are concerned about how to get by in life and less about personal development. No-wonder why people tend towards harmful behaviour and extremism which hurts us all in the end.
Throughout your upbringing, you were regularly hearing about terrorist bombings. You were fearing that something like that would happen to your family. You were panicking every time any one of them would come home with an unexpected delay.
Your family moving to Sweden gave you new hope. Your parents, older sister and younger brother develop new lives here. For you.. a love for studies, science and technology developed here. Stuttering had its part in it… you found refuge in studies… stuttering also motivated you to perform and prove yourself… prove your intelligence.
But uncertainty was still in the air internally and externally. Your family received a rejection for the asylum application. They want to send you back. But you cannot go. You get to cancel your studies. You go “underground”. To get by… your dad works at a construction job. You get to work there too… every now and then. This situation gave you time to reflect, to plan for life, to pick up some skills. You dream of developing startups that will innovate the crap out of every single field.
Your life experiences and discoveries fueled your life with more and more compassion, empathy, morality and ethics… it was more and more prevalent in your life.
I guess one of the first demonstrations of it was when you went vegan. A sense of importance and duty towards something greater came from veganism. You wanted to do something about it and started working on some projects to spread veganism in the world.
The emigration struggle resolved itself but what didn’t resolve itself is underlying patterns and inner conflicts perpetuating stuttering. For a long time, you were running away from confronting the issue. But the discovery of your meaning in life and a will to express it was stronger than fear. You started exploring all possible ways to get better. Learning about psychology… exploring all kinds of tools that could help. Trying things out, getting out of the comfort zone. Battling various inner struggles still. Through breakdowns to breakthroughs. You know, I’m thankful for everything that you’ve done for me. I’m so thankful for your realizations, your existence, your experiences. You coloured me into the person I am today. You gave me meaning. You helped me to become a better human being. You are a past version of me. This is our story. This is my story. I’m thankful and grateful for all the challenges. If all the struggle is about to result in a greater benefit for the world… then I feel fulfilled. What once was seen as a problem was actually a gift.
The life circumstances that you’ve been through… really gave me a chance to reconsider our existence. By experiencing personal struggles, by going through emigration struggles, by experiencing bad schools, bad workplaces, economic hardships and observing the hell on earth with wars, poverty, inequality, animal suffering, climate and ecological crises… all of it accumulated to a great will to figure things out… to find a way out. From it developed a mission in life… which is to figure out, express and execute the paths towards the biggest positive impact and prosperity for all and the whole that we exist in.
…To initiate a process. To create an environment in which the solutions will occur independently of yourself. An environment in which people can thrive, solve problems and advance forward continuously and dynamically.
You are just a part of this bigger story… this whole organism… eternal consciousness… this universe that existed long before you and that will exist long after… it wants to evolve, explore and advance. You and I are part of this underlying meaning… just one of many beings with consciousness and intelligence. All problem-solving, all discoveries, inventions, breakthroughs and advancements… they all emerge from human potential… and human potential needs a good environment to flourish.
We all long for the same things… love, warmth, food on the table, a roof over our heads, an environment and community that supports us in the realization of our potential and where we contribute to realizing the greater potential of our world. So… where do we start?
1956.
The Spanish civil war ended some decades ago but its impact still lingered throughout the society. In these hardships, the Basque region met its “messiah”. His name was Arizmendiarrieta. A priest who had a practical vision for social change. His mission was to contribute to the development of a “god’s” kingdom on earth. He envisioned a community where coordinated work enabled a good standard of living. A community working cooperatively towards greater collective wealth… towards greater common good.
But in a situation where neither state nor capitalists would help them, they needed to help themselves. So Arizmendiarrieta started the development of community enterprises that would fulfill the needs of the people. Those enterprises would be democratically owned by workers and serve the community. Arizmendiarrieta and his friends named this cooperative organization Mondragon.
Democratic ownership… Prosperous lives with dignity and autonomy… Greater wealth for everyone involved in the enterprises and not just a few. “We are not here to make men rich, but rather to make societies rich” As said by Arizmendiarrieta. This was his vision. Today, Mondragon provides people and the world with what Arizmendiarrieta once imagined.
Today, Mondragon is a large global complex with around 100 cooperatives or co-ops as they are called. Amongst them, their own cooperative bank and many other co-ops across various fields such as finance, industry, retail and knowledge sectors. Since the early days, education and lifelong learning is an integral part of Mondragon. Today, they have their own university and Mondragon is regularly involved in programs to educate others about their system.
The research says that the underlying social values and the very structures of co-ops strengthen sustainable development. The structure allows workers to affect the operation of the company, and because workers are part of the wider community that is affected by the company’s operations, the chances of socio-environmentally responsible operations are greater. This is seen in Mondragon’s active involvement in sustainable development goals through a range of innovation and cultural projects.
But the answer to the major question is up to you, the viewer. Would you like to live in a world of such economic democracy?
I’d like to leave you at that. This report was brought to you by “Co-create Utopia”. See you next time.
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You discovered Mondragon and the cooperative movement while working a job at a tech startup as a programmer. You were a techie and loved computers and the job paid well. Everything well… you’d think… but something bothered you. You thought… “What’s the meaning of it all if I don’t get to contribute with something meaningful and impactful.” You were trying to affect your working environment and the company in general with your ideas…. but they were not listening to you. You started to dislike your job.
You were dreaming about how things would be at your company… “No rigid top-down power paradigms that permeate almost all current structures from schools to our economy and our flawed democracy. Instead, your organization would have an environment with a focus on the co-creation paradigm… a bottom-up organization wherein a democratic framework would enable people to cooperatively own and create structures and circles that fulfill their needs so that every person’s potential, know-how and sense-making is counted with and comes to greater benefit for the whole collective being. Your dream company wouldn’t really be yours though, it would be co-owned by people involved in it… after all, it wouldn’t exist without everyone who contributes to it. Why then do we now have only a handful of people with the power, ownership and entitlement to rip the majority of profits? Your mind kept going… hmmm…If you think about… what should the purpose of companies really be? isn’t it to serve the people and society instead of private commercial gains, usually at a greater cost for the world?”
These reflections kickstarted your explorations and discoveries of similar ideas… that’s when you discovered that such principles are championed by the philosophies of
social and solidarity economics,
democratic economy and cooperative associations,
social anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism,
teal paradigm and sociocracy,
decentralization movement and blockchain technology… which allows us to democratize our platforms, our cyberspace, our governance frameworks and our monetary systems.
You were thrilled to discover various examples of cooperative and decentralized communities and companies across the world.
Emilia Romagna & Cooperative Consortiums in Italy. Catalan Integral Cooperative. Grassroots Economics in Kenya with their own local community currency. Rojava and their Democratic Confederalism. Kibbutz communes from Israel. Preston and Bristol in the UK, Cleveland model in the US, the story of Argentinian cooperative movement and many more across the world that transformed capitalist companies to co-ops during crises.
Seeing better alternatives made the flaws of the current world all the more obvious. The grim realities experienced by the majority. Political theatre and a corrupt state. Monetary system owned by commercial banks. Capitalism where private interests override public good. Things are owned by the few and you are given that buggy political game to play with once in a while. Nationalism and ineffective global cooperation. And then we wonder… why do we have so many problems? And everyone is all rage trying to get their voice heard and change things in this game? But ey! did you ever think that we are playing the wrong game to begin with? That game is so buggy and the progress is so slow, that you cannot help but wonder… should we just start developing a new one? A new independent power that can change the world for real.
New world
Better world
Your world.
In the cavalcade of reason
Will we find our home
A home for rebels
Community of yours
Where your greater potential is aligned with the world’s
Without decisions of the lords.
So across the world and especially in developing countries where the concepts of state, capitalism and banking systems fail people most clearly. People need to know that we can mobilize and coordinate ourselves in a new way in order to meet our needs. Democratic or Cooperative companies like Mondragon show an example. And now… easier than ever… with the help of blockchain technology we can create our own socioeconomic frameworks anywhere in the world, even in the form of virtual societies. All without the need of depending on the failing centralized powers of the state, capitalism and banks. All the services traditionally provided by them such as the legislation, governance, monetary system and social services can now be created and managed by people themselves. We can create our own system. Our own society. Our own new world. But to get there we need to combine our economic and cultural powers. So what if…
A warm welcome to the inauguration event of the Utilitarian Renaissance Union.
Utilitarianism is the philosophy of pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number of conscious beings across space and time…
Renaissance refers to the interdisciplinary spirit that is required for complex challenges and breakthroughs.
So the mission of this global union is the pursuit of the greatest impact for the prosperity of all and the whole that we exist in.
This union unites the powers of those who exemplify human coordination that fulfills this mission of common welfare. And those are the democratic companies and cooperative communities. It is also the decentralization movement and blockchain technology. These movements possess independent power and by combining our economic and cultural powers we can accelerate the transition towards a more prosperous world for all.
So, it is an honour to announce this global union supported by Cooperative and Decentralization movements, and consisting of entities in the pursuit of radical advancements across all relevant fields.
We are here to develop new paradigms for co-existence, education, work and more. Wherever you are. New paradigms await. More optimal and thriving existence awaits. Cause we are here to support and develop cooperative communities and ventures… we are here to develop decentralized platforms, new systems, technologies and processes that provide an environment where human potential thrives and solves problems. We are here to help each other and the world in meeting the needs, solving challenges and advancing forward… advancing impactful fields of Science and Cutting-edge technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Bioengineering. Our collaboration around research and development, economy, market and many other areas will advance the world to new levels.
This union gives the world new hope…
a new global power that will transform the world…
By exploring the points of lever
That will in turn unravel
All further travel
Endless innovation enabled by the system, socioeconomic, eudaimonic
A new economic and cultural power…
Is to spread across the world.
The old and the new, Into
A mode of operation
Across space and time
For you and I.
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