Towards an Integral Economy: Interconnected-Equity (Intequity) Innovation

What is an economy? A trivial yet fundamental question that one should ask. To find the answer, all we need to do is investigate the etymology of the word itself. From the Greek roots of oikos, meaning “house” and nemein, meaning “manage” the world oikonomia is formulated to describe: “household management.” Furthermore, the word “ecology” has similar roots, as it is also derived from the Greek word oikos. While many of us would easily agree to the notion that “ecology” ignities a sense of “home” in us; the word “economy” most likely does not induce the same kind of intuition. This may be due to the fact that the economy is closely linked to capitalistic structures across the globe, and therefore many people face inequalities and injustices, which in turn creates a sense of alienation and isolation from the economy. On the other hand, it is only the force of Mother Nature that pushes people out of their ecological homes. So then, the question arises: how can we make our economy into a home again? 

Capitalism is an economic system that was born out of the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm, which is a type of worldview that embraces material reductionism. Capitalism is defined as: “An economic system whereby the means of production (factories and so forth) and distribution are owned primarily by private individuals or corporations. The prices of labor and goods are determined on the free market, and not by central government. Profits are claimed by individual company owners or, in the case of most corporations, distributed to shareholders (Marron, 2017).”  Undeniably, if this kind of worldview dominates one’s approach towards economics, the emotional and spiritual relationship to the idea of “home” is strained. The way in which ecology is home to all of humanity - without any form of privatization - is what allows for the strong emotional and spiritual bond between man and nature. Therefore, it is crucial for humanity to move into a new paradigm. A shift towards a more integral paradigm may be one that is most essential in our current state of world affairs. Integral essentially means “whole,” and provides us with a less fragmented approach towards understanding our world - it is inclusive, diverse, and fundamental. Thus, returning to “home” is an indication that a sense of wholeness needs to be felt and embodied. 

While it may seem as though demolishing capitalism is the most crucial step forward, I would argue that creating a shift whilst working within the capitalist dimension may be a more pragmatic approach. Karl Marx himself may have also approved of this notion, as David Harvey, a Marxist economist, recently said in an interview: 

“Marx is not simply a critic of capitalism, he’s also a fan of some of the things that capitalism builds. That’s the biggest contradiction of all for Marx. Capital has built the capacity, technologically and organizationally, to create a far better world. But it does so through social relations of domination rather than emancipation. That is the central contradiction. And Marx keeps saying, “Why don’t we use all of this technological and organizational capacity to create a world which is liberatory, rather than one which is about domination?” (Denvir & Harvey, 2018).”

To continue with Marx’s ideas, an integral economy would rely on the technological and organizational capacity that capitalism provides, while simultaneously building a world that liberates people and sustains the ecological environment of our Earth. 

An integral economy can manifest in various ways; and there are numerous individuals and organizations that are building towards a system that embraces wholeness. Many of these individuals and organizations are utilizing a method called systems thinking, in order to deeply understand problems, and build sustainable solutions on a more holistic level. Systems thinker, Donella Meadows, defines system as: “an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something.” She goes onto say, “If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.” Meadows explains that anything which contains those three factors is considered to be a system (e.g. a digestive system, a football team, a school, a city, a tree, an animal, a galaxy) (Meadows, 2008). Systems are extremely dynamic, as Meadows explains:

“There is an integrity or wholeness about a system and an active set of mechanisms to maintain that integrity. Systems can change, adapt, respond to events, seek goals, mend injuries, and attend to their own survival in lifelike ways, although they may contain or consist of nonliving things. Systems can be self-organizing, and often are self-repairing over at least some range of disruptions. They are resilient, and many of them are evolutionary. Out of one system other completely new, never-before-imagined systems can arise (Meadows, 2008).”

It is evident that the economy is a large system, with many systems embedded within it. Today, the world faces countless systemic problems such as: climate change, food security, financial security, and more. These issues cannot be dealt with in isolation, as they are all interconnected and interdependent. As system thinkers Fritjof Capra and Pier Luisi suggest: “These problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most people in our modern society, and especially our large social institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world (Capra & Luisi, 2014).” 

With the technology boom in the past decade, we are seeing a rise in entrepreneurship, along with a major shift in the way people work. In the past few years, digital nomads have changed the landscape of business. With the start-up world conducting all their affairs online, working remotely from a foreign country, coffee shop, library, or co-working space has become the norm for many entrepreneurs, employees, and freelancers. While this dynamic - from Marx’s perspective - may seem emancipatory, I perceive a fundamental lack in the function/purpose and collective/interconnected dimensions of the system. Therefore, I propose - within this entrepreneurial paradigm - a model that deeply utilizes systems thinking; while also providing a methodology and a possible policy proposal, that I describe as: Intequity Innovation. The first few letters “Inte” refers to the idea of “interconnectedness”, and the “quity” belongs to the word “equity.” The word “innovation” was chosen because it is derived from the Latin word innovationem, which means: “to change” or “renew”. Fundamentally, change is inevitable; and along with change, a renewed sense of living is always accompanied. To embody the impermanent nature of the economic dimension, the word “innovation” seemed most appropriate. 

The reason as to why I choose to remain and implement this model within the entrepreneurial world, is because social entrepreneurship has tremendous power to bridge the gap between capitalism and an integral economy. A commonly accepted definition of social entrepreneurship is: creating social value through innovations. Furthermore, the EMES European Research Network put forth five indicators that encapsulate a social enterprise: 1) an explicit aim to benefit the community; 2) an initiative launched by a group of citizens; 3) decision-making power not based on capital ownership; 4) a participatory nature, which involves various parties affected by the activity; and 5) limited profit distribution (Hart, Laville, & Cattani, 2010). Thus, social entrepreneurship differs radically from commercial entrepreneurship. Although, both forms bring value to society, commercial entrepreneurship is more profit-driven, while social entrepreneurship is more mission-driven. The mission-driven component is a key aspect, since it applies to the function/purpose element in systems thinking. As commercial entrepreneurship may lack in this arena, it can unintentionally cause problems that are deeply fragmented, which then lead to persistent systemic problems.

Another fundamental difference between social and commercial entrepreneurship is that the former focuses on stakeholders: a community/member that has an interest in a company and can either affect or be affected by the organization/business (Chen, 2019). The latter focuses more on shareholders: a person, company, or institution that owns at least one share of a company’s stock, which is known as equity (Hayes, 2019). However, the word “equity” can be defined in two ways: 1) the quality of being fair and impartial; and 2) the value of the shares issued by a company. So it may seem viable to apply this word to not only shareholders but stakeholders as well. The “equity” in Intequity Innovation is thus focused on physicalizing this idea. Ultimately, the model is based on the philosophy of social entrepreneurship, but fundamentally provides its stakeholders with equity - in both aspects of the definition. 

In his book Parecon: Life After Capitalism, Michael Albert proposes that there are four main values that should be addressed when evaluating an economic system: 

1) Equity: How much should people get and why?

• “In thinking about equitable economic conditions, we have to think in terms of not just equitable remuneration but also equitable circumstances. The only real justification for differential allocation of circumstances is if this benefits output, and in turn everyone. But surely, even if this were the case one would then offset the situation for the party who was suffering worse conditions with a higher income, while the party benefiting from better circumstances would receive a lower income (Albert, 2003).”

2) Self-management: What kind of say over their conditions should people have?

• “The norm we favor is thus that to the extent that we can arrange it, each actor in the economy should influence economic outcomes in proportion to how those outcomes affect him or her. Our say in decisions should reflect how much they affect us. That’s the only norm that treats all actors with equal respect and that accords all actors the same claims on power without reducing decision-making to a mechanical process divorced from the logic of its implications (Albert, 2003).”

3) Diversity: Should paths to fulfillment be diversified or narrowed?

• “Without diversity there is a huge probability we will make egregious mistakes, traveling down a single path that turns out to be inferior to others that we failed to explore. Thus, assuming equal attention to other values, surely one economy will excel above another if in fulfilling its functions it also promotes and supports greater rather than lesser diversity. Homogenization of tastes, jobs, life conditions, material outcomes, and thought patterns is not a virtue (Albert, 2003).” 

4) Solidarity: Should people cooperate or compete?

• “To care about one another’s well-being as fellow humans is surely good. To view one another as objects to exploit or with other hostile intentions is surely bad. No one who is at all progressive would disagree. So clearly an economy that enhances solidarity by entwining people’s interests is better than an economy that yields precisely the same outputs and allocations, but creates hostility by pitting actors against one another (Albert, 2003).”

Albert sheds light on some crucial aspects of an alternative economic system, and how we should go about evaluating it. Values 1) and 2) relate quite directly to the “equity” portion of Intequity Innovation, as it addresses the issues of income, work conditions, and participatory influence. Values 3) and 4) are more closely related to the “interconnected” aspect of the model, as it investigates the importance of heterogeneity, collaboration, and holism. 

In regards to equity, Cooperation Jackson’s program and strategy is a model that could potentially be replicated. In Jackson Rising, Kali Akuno and Ajamu Nangwaya tells the story of a Black community in Jackson, Mississippi that is committed towards building a democratic economy through decolonization and socialism. The most crucial factor in this entire project is: the exercise of self-determination. Thus, this notion of self-determination is in relationship to the first definition of equity: the quality of being fair and impartial; as it allows one to make their own choices and take control over their lives. According to Akuno, Cooperation Jackson focuses on a fundamental form of transformation: self-organization. He writes:

“Self-organization means first and foremost workers directly organizing themselves through various participatory means (unions, assemblies, etc.) primarily at their places of work or points of production, but also where they live, play, pray, and study. The point of this self-organization is for workers to make collective, democratic decisions about how, when, and to what ends their labor serves, and about how to take action collectively to determine the course of their own lives and the animus of their own actions  (Akuno & Nangwaya, 2017).”

Thus, by providing each individual with tremendous autonomy and power, by ultimately giving people equity, Cooperation Jackson has managed to embrace the path of collaboration. 

  Author, Steven Johnson, talks about the importance of collaboration in networks, in his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Johnson provides some great metaphors for visualizing and understanding how networks operate; and one of them is that of the human brain and its neural network: 

“Your brain has roughly 100 billion neurons, an impressive enough number, but all those neurons would be useless for creating ideas if they weren’t capable of making such elaborate connections with each other [...] The second precondition is that the network be plastic, capable of adopting new configurations. A dense network incapable of forming new patterns is, by definition, incapable of change, incapable of probing at the edges of the adjacent possible (Johnson, 2010).”

Johnson points to the fact that in order to be more innovative, one must put themselves in environments that share the same network signatures as the brain; networks of ideas or people that mimic the neural networks of a mind exploring the boundaries of the adjacent possible. He also provides a metaphor that supports the notion of a liquid network; through the example of the carbon atom and its innate ability to form new complex molecules with other atoms. On this idea, Johnson concludes: 

“And so, when we look back to the original innovation engine on earth, we find two essential properties. First, a capacity to make new connections with as many other elements as possible. And, second, a “randomizing” environment that encourages collisions between all the elements in the system. On earth, at least, the story of life’s creativity begins with a liquid, high-density network: connection-hungry carbon atoms colliding with other elements in the primordial soup. The molecules they formed mark the point at which chemistry and physics gave way to biology. When the first lipids self-assembled, they unlocked a door that would ultimately lead to the cell membrane; when the first nucleotides formed, a wing of the adjacent possible opened that eventually traced a path to DNA. They were the first hints of life’s good idea (Johnson, 2010).”

Through this evolutionary metaphor, Johnson is indicating that when one is connected to a network, an idea or person is strengthened through it. Therein lies the value of diversity and collaboration. 

Ultimately, the “interconnected” portion of Intequity Innovation will rely on liquid networks by fostering the Medici Effect. Entrepreneur, Frans Johansson, coined the term, and has shown that: “when you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures, you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary new ideas (Johansson, 2017).” Inspired by the Renaissance period and the Medici family, Johansson has reintroduced a timeless concept to the world of innovation. Johansson elucidates on the relationship between innovation and the intersection, as he writes:

“The key difference between a field and an intersection of fields lies in how concepts within them are combined. If you operate within a field, you primarily are able to combine concepts within that particular field, generating ideas that evolve along a particular direction - what I call directional ideas. When you step into the Intersection, you can combine concepts between multiple fields, generating ideas that leap in new directions - what I call intersectional ideas (Johansson, 2017).”

The power of the Medici Effect is quite outstanding. In today’s globally interconnected world,  intersectional ideas have tremendous power and capacity. One new direction that has emerged out of the intersection is: biomimicry - the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes. It is an approach that has been deemed extremely sustainable in solving the climate crisis. 

Science writer, Amina Khan, says: “If necessity really is the mother of invention, the mother of all inventors is Mother Nature. And while nature didn’t come up with a wheel, it can build a pretty decent screw. The trick, bioinspired enthusiasts say, is to take the strategies seen in nature and learn from them - maybe even improve on them, too (Khan, 2017).” In her book, Adapt: How Humans Are Tapping Into Nature’s Secrets To Design And Build A Better Future, Khan provides several examples of how researchers have been mimicking nature’s design to produce, build, and sustain human societies. For example: termite mounds are designed in such a way that it helps to regulate the termite nest’s collective body temperature. Khan explains further:

“A termite nest’s metabolic rate runs pretty high, somewhere around 55 to 200 watts - about as much as a goat or a cow. If the termites didn’t somehow manage to vent some of that heat, they’d get baked pretty quickly. But termites can’t let all of their heat (and moisture) out into the environment - they’re delicate creatures, unable to survive out in the open. And so the mound, the thinking went, was a way to regulate temperature (and humidity) (Khan, 2017).”

By observing, studying, and experimenting extensively, several scientists along with architects have managed to create buildings that are free of air-conditioning units. All thanks to our fellow termites and their mounds. This is just one example of biomimicry among hundreds, that explores the potential within various sectors, such as: energy, architecture, transportation, agriculture, medicine, and communication. 

The Intequity Innovation model will thrive on these concepts of interconnectedness: cross-pollination, transdisciplinary thinking, and multidimensionality. By embracing the interconnected nature of innovation and the marketplace, Intequity Innovation can aid in creating a smooth transition from capitalism to an integral economy. In Postcapitalist Politics, J. K. Gibson-Graham explains the importance of interdependence in a community economy:

“Many of the technologies for representing and constructing markets, for example, mask the interdependence of parties and products in exchange; and a hallmark of capitalism is the denial of its basis in an exploitative form of interdependence in which nonproducers appropriate surplus from direct producers. While each of these practices institutes a form of social connection, each also hides or attenuates aspects of economic interdependence. Making these visible again is a step toward rendering them objects of politics and ethics (Gibson-Graham, 2006).”

As indicated, the interdependence of an economic system is deeply embedded in all its elements, interconnections, and function or purpose. By recognizing its vital role, we may be able to manifest an economy that is both compassionate and efficient. 

Although I have explained Intequity Innovation from a predominantly theoretical lens, it is my hope that Intequity Innovation will become a community space where social entrepreneurs, researchers and academics, members of marginalized and underserved populations, industry professionals, and investors can come together to actualize the Medici Effect in the form of social and environmental impact. By aligning the project/venture missions with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Intequity Innovation can be a framework or methodology towards solving the world’s most pressing problems in an equitable and integrative manner. Through the mindset of an integral economist, this community space may have the potential to move humanity out of a material reductionist worldview, and into one that embraces both: the realm of spirit and matter. A paradigm that our Earth is patiently yet painfully waiting for. 

One of the most inspirational organizations, Aravind, an eye care hospital in India, came to be known for its tri-part mantra of “high volume, high quality, and affordable cost.” In fact, 70% of their eye surgeries are performed for free or below cost, while 30% are performed for above cost without compromising quality of care on either side of the price range. Despite this generous business model, Aravind manages to maintain a 50% profit margin. Approximately 90% of the annual budget is self-generated, while 10% is supported by charitable donations. In the book, Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case for Compassion, Pavitra Mehta and Suchitra Shenoy have stated that: “Aravind is an unconventional model that came into being not despite but because of the deep-seated compassion at its core. This is a model that demonstrates the power of integrating innovation with empathy, business principles with service, and outer transformation with inner change (Mehta & Shenoy, 2011).” Therefore, Aravind is a prime example as to why we don’t necessarily have to fight the capitalistic system. If we truly begin to innovate, collaborate, and integrate, we may slowly feel as though we are returning home - to our economy and ecology. 

References 

Akuno, K. & Nangwaya, A. (2017). Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and 

Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi. Montreal, QC: Daraja Press.

Albert, M. (2003). Parecon: Life After Capitalism. New York, NY: Verso. 

Capra, F., & Luisi, P. (2014). The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision. Cambridge, United 

Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Chen, J. (2019, June 30). What Is a Stakeholder? Retrieved from 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stakeholder.asp

Denvir, D., & Harvey, D. (2018, July 12). Why Marx’s Capital Still Matters. Retrieved from 

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/07/karl-marx-capital-david-harvey

Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006). A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis, MN: The University of 

Minnesota Press.  

Hart, K., Laville, J., & Cattani, A. (2010). The Human Economy. Malden, MA: Polity Press. 

Hayes, A. (2019, September 5). What Is a Shareholder? Retrieved from 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shareholder.asp

Johansson, F. (2017). The Medici Effect: What Elephants & Epidemics Can Teach Us About 

Innovation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Johnson, S. (2010). Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. New 

York, NY: Riverhead Books.

Khan, A. (2017). Adapt: How Humans Are Tapping Into Nature’s Secrets To Design And Build A 

Better Future. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. 

Marron, D. (2017). 30-Second Economics. New York, NY: Metro Books.

Meadows, D. (2008). Thinking in Systems. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. 

Mehta, P. & Shenoy, S. (2011). Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest 

Business Case for Compassion. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.