DisCO DNA 4: Open Value Accounting and Radical Distributed Tech

Accounting has historically been a driver of technology, written communication and math. Simply put, the usage of technology for accounting can either reinforce the social standing and capacity to act (and oppress) of those with the most power, or it can help allocate resources in fair and sustainable ways. DisCO's interest (obviously!) lies in the latter. How can we make use of secure and distributed accounting systems that reflect invisible labour and carework, as well as nature's regenerative capacity? What data do we want to base our economic decisions on, and when are numbers simply not sufficient to account for certain things?

The fourth strand of the DisCO DNA builds on the previous three. It helps us to design and build tools and methods that ease the communication and practice of new economic paradigms for a just transition away from capitalism, colonialism and patriarchal oppression towards a kinder, more caring and, ultimately, realistically sustainable society.

Overview

Back in 2018 when we wrote the DisCO Manifesto, the DisCO DNA was composed of Commons and P2P, Open Cooperativism, Feminist Economics and Open Value Accounting. The latter was probably the most obscure of the strands with only a few projects self-identifying as such.

Simply put, Open Value Accounting (OVA) is a form of accounting where contributions to a common project are documented. The contributions can be measured in whichever way makes the most sense to the group, hours, wordcount, lines of code, results, etc. These are subsequently analyzed to identify distributions of labor and effort which, in turn, influences income. This base idea is essential for DisCO Governance with the caveat that, unlike any other OVA-based project we know of, we've added care and reproductive work to the mix.

In the years since we've expanded the definition to include the DisCO-coined term "Radical Distributed Tech" (RDT). Radical Distributed Tech is our politicized refinement of many ideas floating around decentralized technologies. It basically describes technologies designed and developed from anticapitalist, decolonial and intersectional feminist positions and where power and connectivity are sensibly distributed. We merged Open Value Accounting and RDTs into the revised DisCO DNA to highlight how technology, in the broadest sense of the term, has influenced accounting, economic purviews and distributions of power. Likewise, the development of accounting has been key in the development of many technologies (for better of worse!). Together this lets us envision accounting methods and technologies fit for distributed, cooperative economies. These take into account productive and reproductive labor while highlighting the balance between extraction and restoration in our relation with the environments that ultimately sustain all economic activity.

Open Value Accounting

Historically, P2P Accounting, leverages the transformative potential of peer to peer networks as applied to accounting and finance. Do beware: like in many other domains, the solidarity and anti-authoritarian principles of the early internet have also been subjected to accelerationist capitalist practices, so now we find no shortage of "P2P Accounting" or "Decentralised Finance" projects strengthening the accumulatory power dynamics of mainstream blockchain projects or Silicon Valley tech. 

Here's what we had to say about this in DisCO Elements Chapter 2: DisCO in a Nutshell

Like a rehash of 90s Silicon Valley, DAO technology is often designed by white, western and, as explained before, tech-savvy "grand architects" attracting communities of investors eager to reap the economic benefits of technological disruption and value distribution. A new status-quo in accounting emerges: it shifts the legitimation of value away from corruptible institutions toward technological, cryptographically secured ledgers. The problem is that this status-quo often leaves values based on self-interested accumulation wholly unchecked. In contrast, DisCOs design their accounting and governance structures as convivial tools from the bottom up. These are developed through a process of community deliberation on how to best enact a series of co-operative values and principles. Shifting the design of technologies and their social impact away from grand architects and investors, DisCOs provide more democratic and ethical templates to build disruptive technologies actually focused on real disruption and social change. These, as we will see, provide different pathways to enact more desirable futures of work which are neither dependent on un-checked technological disruption or on top-down governmental interventions.

 

In conclusion, when we speak about new technologies and practices, we only accept developing them under anticapitalist, decolonial and intersectional feminist principles.

Open Value Accounting Systems and Technologies

P2P accounting posits both decentralised and distributed systems to manage financial and, also, non monetary transactions and solidarity sharing without the need of traditional intermediaries. These Open Value Networks can be based on blockchain, the question is whether they need to be solely based on blockchains or not. In DisCO we favor a hybrid approach where blockchains are only used to confirm large scale agreements between groups that haven't had the time or inclination to build trust with each other. For DisCOnomics we favour technologies built on lighter systems complemented by human trust.

To give an example, various DisCOs can build their accounting technologies on the Fediverse, creating their own versions of the DisCO Deck (DisCO's in-development accounting platform) with their preferred tech stack, which would still interoperate with the other federated applications. To give one example, various DisCOs can have their own DisCO Deck and communicate with other DisCOs or other groups in the fediverse through ActivityPub instances that use Valueflows-based economic networking on top of existing social networking layers. This architecture may also employ blockchains for logging compendiums and transacting with other entities. If a DisCO found it useful to store files in IPFS, new modular applications can easily make that possible.

By that same token, the federation layer (ActivityPub), can be swapped out for a communication layer, such as Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) or a blockchain. SSB is a perfect fit for DisCOs in places where connectivity might be intermittent, while a blockchain would be a good fit for DisCOs that have good connectivity and want their full history of activity to be distributed across all nodes participating in the blockchain network. It may even be possible to allow for interoperability between the different modalities by creating bridges between ActivityPub and SSB or a specific blockchain. In this potential configuration, the blockchain based nodes could conveniently serve as a backup for the federated nodes.

Tools like the DisCO Deck are not built to facilitate transactions but to educate group members on financial solidarity and to easily visualize justice, fairness, solidarity and other factors routinely excluded from both mainstream and "decentralized" finance. Tools such as these are designed to make it easier for individuals within a DisCO to monitor their contributions and exchanges, reflecting whatever criteria the DisCO wants to apply to their reimagination of value. This can include calculating shared expenses and managing community currencies or fostering financial activities reflective of the DisCO's collective values. Using these types of Radical Distributed Tech, DisCOs can enhance participation and accountability, reinforcing the bonds between members and fostering a culture of shared ownership.

Other Influences on Open Value Accounting

In the case of DisCO, our first exposure to Open Value Accounting was through the groundbreaking work of Sensorica and Valueflows, two projects with which we maintain close links with to this day.

Sensorica

Sensorica went online on February 11, 2011, only two years after the launch of the Bitcoin network, as an effort to understand how open networks can engage in material peer production. Sensorica's mission is to create astigmergic environment forsynergistic open innovation, leveragingcollective intelligence. Sensorica is committed to the design and deployment of intelligent sensors and sensemaking systems (IoT + AI + p2p infrastructures), allowing communities to optimize interactions with our physical environment and realize their full human potential.

Valueflows

Value means useful economic resources. Flows means how people create, combine, move, and exchange them. Flow-oriented systems can coordinate whole networks as easily as one company.

Valueflows is a vocabulary (ontology) that is intended to cover any economic activity, focused on the distributed economic networks of the "next economy", but also supporting conventional businesses and supply chains. Specifically, we want to support resource flows connecting many agents (people, organizations, ecological agents), creating fractal networks of people and organizations.

On a more technical level, its purpose is to facilitate interoperability among many different software projects. Although the Valueflows core model has also been used to design economic software, Valueflows itself is not a software application.

(Extracted from Valueflows' website)

Other inspirations

Mutual credit systems are another key inspiration for Open Value Accounting. These allow community members to extend credit to one another without relying on banks. Credit frameworks based on trust and reciprocity enable participants to borrow and lend resources among themselves, which can then be tracked as Care or Lovework, depending on the circumstances and wishes of those involved.

Like many other 21st Century expressions of the Commons, Open Value Accounting incorporates dynamics from FLOSS. Beyond the DisCO Deck, P2P-accounting tooling should be accessible, modifiable and designed with the direct participation of their user communities to ensure it needs their specific needs and circumstances.The mechanics of the accounting directly interact with DisCO Governance Modeling, where the groups ensure the sustainability and fairness of their value sovereignty.

Education and Sensemaking

Implementing new accounting practices is meaningless unless all participants are involved in and understand the full import of their economic decisions. Open Value Accounting is an essential part of DisCO Dating and Mentoring. DisCOnauts need to tweak their accounting practices to be fully understandable and reflective of the needs of all group members. DisCO accounting will inevitably evolve over time, based on the needs and realities of each DisCO. Ongoing documentation of this progress can then help other DisCOs facing similar challenges and circumstances. Ultimately, this emphasis on education helps to build a culture of transparency and collaboration, empowering members to take charge of their financial affairs and contribute to the DisCO's economic health.

It goes beyond saying that all Open Value Accounting practices undertaken in DisCO will intersect with ethical considerations, like the DisCO Principles and Values. Here we need financial models that transcend the Open/Closed binary to prioritize social equity, environmental sustainability, and community welfare. This alignment of financial practices with ethical values encourages the development of economies that are more resilient and responsive to the needs of their members, ultimately contributing to broader social and ecological futures.

Accounting for What, Accounting for Whom?

At its most basic level, DisCO Accounting deals with the value sovereignty within a DisCO Cooperative, Not-for-profit or any democratic and socio-environmentally oriented working group. However, as we've explained, DiscO Principle 2 (Whole Community Governance) is all about permeating the boundaries of any DisCO to introduce anticapitalist, decolonial and intersectional feminist value practices beyond any one particular group. This means that DisCO's brand of OVA needs to interface with other "neighboring value systems" and translate between them. Beyond other DisCO's or Social Solidarity Enterprises it also means incorporating ecological, resource and carrying capacity accounting. In our case we recommended starting one step at a time and with internal DisCO accounting first, as it's primed for ecological limits (see DisCO Principle 4: Rethinking Global/Local Economics)

Challenges

As you'd imagine, the challenges of implementing DisCO accounting within capitalism include the usual suspects: replicability, user trust, and regulatory compliance are critical concerns that need to be addressed to ensure the viability of these systems, even if your tastes run more towards the prefigurative rather than the institutional. By discussing these challenges openly, communities can collaboratively explore solutions that promote the growth and acceptance of OVA practices.

In general, the P2P-accounting landscape continues to evolve and ongoing research and innovation are essential. The exploration of new technologies and methodologies is always exciting, but for these to evolve into more effective and inclusive accounting systems they need to be developed under principles that challenge capitalist normativity. We'd love to see more and more DisCOs experimenting with these approaches so they can share insights and best practices, contributing to a growing body of knowledge that enhances Open Value Accounting.

Within the right ideological framework, OVA can leverage the potential of decentralized financial systems to revolutionize traditional accounting practices. Combining technology, fostering cooperation, and aligning financial practices with ethical principles, OVA can offer radical economic solutions to urgent planetary challenges. As these systems mature, they hold the promise of redefining how individuals and communities engage financially, questioning the utility and purpose of finance itself to ultimately promote greater equity and ecological resilience in our future economic landscapes.

Radical Distributed Tech

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Image Credits

• Lead Image by Alexander Sinn