Having decentralized technology isn’t enough. We have to create access to this technology, so that it’s used to reduce economic inequalities, and regenerate the resources that are fundamental to human and planetary thriving.
by Alison Sher
Regenerative economies model financial systems after the circular systems found in nature that were here long before any advanced technological economic instruments were derived.
How can human economics begin to regenerate the resources found in our man-made habitats?
It’s going to require an utter and complete paradigm shift, but DeFi and crypto give us the tools to create a radical new way of indexing value. The principles behind regenerative economics provide us with the values and the conclusions based on repeatable patterns found in living systems to help us breathe life back into the dying financial one.
Fullerton’s 8 Principles of Systemic Health (& How They Are Reflected in ReSource)
- Right Relationship
From the Quakers to the Native Americans, all earth-based spiritual traditions have contemplated what it means to be in right relationship with all of creation. Basically it comes down to altering our individual and social behaviors, to respect the needs and intrinsic rights of all living things on this planet.
ReSource does this by creating an alternative marketplace where triple-bottom line businesses can sell their goods and services that are created using circular, cradle-to-cradle design and people-first cultures and local, organic cultivation practices.
- Views Wealth Holistically
There are many forms of capital beyond the numbers in your bank account or even your net worth. Regenerative economics realizes that energy (emotional, physical, and more) are also part of the building blocks that make an abundant and fruitful life. There is natural capital, social capital, creative capital and more that in the current system are underutilized, exploited, or difficult to monetize.
ReSource achieves this by empowering community members with social capital through our Ambassador program. Ambassadors refer other like-minded businesses to the marketplace and earn the network currency, RSD, once new invitees are onboarded and make 1 transaction. USD is sometimes also available to incentivize referral ambassadors, who are excited to take on the role of helping our team launch new markets.
Our company wellness program also provides an affordable way for companies to regenerate the health of their workers by providing preventive and holistic health services like acupuncture and chiropractic care. And contrary to traditional debt, which rewards creditors who maximize the time borrowers stay in debt and pay interest, underwriters on ReSource gain more when their underwritees make a profit and thrive.
- Innovative, Adaptive, Responsive
To innovate requires adapting established systems based on feedback provided by the inputs and outputs within an environment. Anything that stays stagnant, that refuses to evolve based on this stimuli is doomed to eventually die. It’s Darwinism. Survival is gifted to that which_most adaptable to change.
The great thing about ReSource is that it is a system that can easily respond to whatever economic factors are appearing inside our ecosystem. For example, if we need to change what the valuation of a Resource Dollar is tied to, we can do that. We have theories on what economic variables will be most effective, but all that is ultimately decided on what works in the field. How many CBD infused cookies do I have to sell to get a tantric foot massage? RSD tells you just that. Except that RSD isn’t tied to anything concrete. This is what allows to the market to freely evolve and change.
- Empowered Participation
In a healthy living system, all people understand that they have a vital role to play in the bigger picture of the society as a whole. They know that if they participate, they will be rewarded fairly and have equal opportunity to succeed. This sense of purpose and self-sufficiency is what creates empowerment.
At ReSource, we like to say that community is the hero. Because the technology that we’re building isn’t worth squat without the people behind it using it to trade goods and services. If we win this fight, it will be because people understand that our economic system is designed to reward you — to help you make a living, not for us to make a killing. Our success is dependent on the principle of empowered participation.
- Honors Community & Place
Culture, history and geography matters. No two cities are the same, and neither are the kinds of people who live in them. We are shaped by our sense of place. Regenerative economics understands that one system won’t work for every location on the planet — and forcing a system that was birthed from a different people, in a different space is part of the negative disruption of colonization.
The ReSource Network is merely the first network built on the ReSource protocol. On it, many different networks can be established, with different risk management strategies, different currency designs and reserve policies. The different networks at ReSource are birthed from the unique idiosyncrasies of each geo-location—the industries that thrive there, the culture and the needs of the people, the values of each network creator.
- Edge Effect Abundance
Culture thrives where systemic strongholds are weakest. That’s why the counter-culture is always a space that flourishes with alternative thought, social experimentation, and creativity. The radicals dance on life’s edges, but that is where what is juiciest about life is able to survive. Where corporatism is less developed, new economic systems can be integrated.
We understand that when ushering in a new system, those who feel left behind by the current one are most likely to become the early adopters. That’s why our marketplace caters to small businesses, paradigm-shifting entrepreneurs, and the crypto-curious. That’s why we chose Asheville — in the historically impoverished Appalachian mountains — to create our proof-of-concept location.
- Robust Circulatory Flow
Spending money is good. We all have to save our acorns for the winter, but when there is a current flowing in our currency, we are all able to have the things we need and desire, and also be rewarded for the work that we are able to do. This is how our human potential can be closer and closer achieved, when we do the things the things that bring us purpose and those activities solve real problems for the people around us and provide us with the means to trade with each other.
When we can trade with a non-scarce currency like ReSource dollars, that is generated through activity on the network, we can feel more assured that what we’re spending is going to come back to us — because the ReSource dollars in circulation are staying inside the network instead of funneling up into the accounts of the wealthiest people in our society and their extractive corporate conglomerates.
- Seeks Balance
Everything in nature is working to achieve homeostasis because balance is where the health resides. In a true regenerative economic system, one person (or company or even a few of them) is not able to accumulate the vast majority of resources and power - because the system is not designed for exploitation. While people may be rewarded based on natural law (of effort = outcome or even the smartest/most adept person or concept being able to achieve the most success), people would start off with a balanced playing field - and all industries that are vital for human life would be able to make a living profit margin and those who give would be given back to.
ReSource is designed to be the antithesis of extractive capitalism. That’s why we don’t charge interest in the credit lines that we offer the businesses in our network. You can’t buy ReSource Dollars with US dollars. You can only earn them by providing value and selling items on the marketplace, which means that factors such as inheritance and compounding investment capital don’t contribute to unbalanced purchasing power dynamics.
If you want to learn more about ReSource and about how you can help to build a regenerative economy, join us on Discord and Telegram and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Your friends at ReSource.