We already hold all of the power needed to change our society for the better. We the people hold the power collectively in three major areas of life. We are the voters. We are the consumer/user. We are the labor.
When we stop allowing the powers-that-be to divide us and instead find what we have in common and work from there, we the people are unstoppable.
For each of these three areas I will explain briefly why they are currently broken, what we have in common at our core, what a society we run together for our Collective benefit could look like, and some technology projects that can help us gather and use our collective power for our collective good.
Voters
Our democracies are currently working in the corporations’ and the politicians' best interest, and not the people they represents' best interest. The media is owned by the rich and powerful and they are incentivized to keep the system as is.
What we have in common, no matter where on the political spectrum we are, is that we want politicians we can trust who look out for their constituents best interests. We want true representation. A political party that directly represents the people, votes how their people would vote on every issue could sweep the elections, if we believed they could. The media tells us that it is not possible so we vote status quo instead.
A world where our politicians have to be honest and act with transparency, where they are held accountable to the will of the people they represent, is possible, when we have access to information that is trustworthy and usable.
Projects: IMDb for politicians; track the money from donors, see if the platform they were elected on were upheld, past jobs experience and performance.
Track stats accurately between administrations to best be able to compare (unemployment rate, golf trips, GDP, taxes etc)
Fantasy political games engage people in politics for the benefit of the masses making it fun and easy to stay informed.
We are running a corporation with complete democracy and transparency. This in and of itself is a revolutionary act. As we showcase it is possible and yields amazing results we are not going to sit back and allow our democracies to exist in their current corrupt and secret state. We will demand better because we can see better is possible
Consumer/User
Nearly every dollar at the top comes from the bottom. We vote with our wallets every time we buy something. The information we have to work on is often only the branding and marketing from the company itself. Much of the information is already available it just is not organized to make it usable (ie. ingredients on every package).
We want inexpensive, fast and good quality goods and when we create these together less money is going to profit shareholders and more is redistributed into these values. We will still have diverse products because we have different wants and needs but by making them together we can create better products that do not cost the planet or create human misery.
Together we can access every product on the market for the values we want to uphold. By inputting the ingredients, longevity of products, cost, our use etc; we can track the companies and their products and see the truth over the spin.
Projects: Food and beauty products ingredients. Like the “Goodguide” but transparent and crowd sourced so anyone can input any new product or company and the user can easily compare products to see which ones align with their values.
We can also see holes in the market that we can create solutions for (vegan, kosher body wash). We do not cease the means of production we re-create it as it makes sense to do so ( when financial threshold are met)
Workers
We do the vast majority of the physical, emotional and mental labor that our society thrives on yet our wages have not kept up with inflation. That money has been siphoned off and given to shareholders. As automation and outsourcing cost people jobs our globe faces massive unemployment.
We all want to be able to contribute to society and we want our families to be provided for. Currently these are tied together in a J.O.B.
As we create Solutions together to make sure our members are fed, clothed and housed they are given freedom. Freedom from the need to work or starve. As people no longer have to work the supply of labor diminishes.
Internally we rely heavily on volunteer, crowd sourced labour by tapping into people's flow and offering them the tools to contribute in a way that is its own reward. I wrote an entire blog post about this called “It can be easy!”.
As we get more free labour we are also costing “for-profit companies” more money as we reduce their labour force. People will not work for $10/hr when they have their needs met. To leave the work you are choosing to do for free (cause it is your flow, genius etc) you have to get paid A LOT.
Imagine you are living your best life with people who get you, contributing to groups you are part of in a way that works for you and the group. How much are you going to need to get paid to go focus on some for profit company’s vision over your own?
Projects: Food platforms help people combine purchasing power, and labour to create more efficiency for willing participants. People trade time or money to get access to the food systems they want to participate in.
Our marketplace platform enables people to create their own jobs out of their houses for fair compensation. Example: instead of there being dozens of cleaning services per city where the customer pays $25 an hour and the worker makes $15 an hour with the added profit going to management and to maintain the company, we can have one company platform that facilitates the transaction between cleaners and the people hiring them so that the vast majority of the money goes directly to the cleaner. The platform takes care of the all the other work (marketing, scheduling, insurance etc).
All of the ad hoc piecemeal work laborers are doing to make ends meet, Uber, doordash, taskrabbit etc can be recreated with the worker and user in mind with more money going into the labor and no money going to a for-profit company and its shareholders (small transaction fee, agreed on by all, is taken to maintain the system).
When we have the tools to utilize our collective power it becomes inevitable that we create a world of peace and abundance for everyone. We already have the power as voters, users and workers, we just need to organize and that can be done easily with technology.
When we realize the base of the pyramid has the power we turn it on its head and power dynamics topple.
