Grassroots Economist - Econo-optimist - ❤️ Commitment Pooling and Common Pooled Resources & Regenerative Agriculture🌱 - Founder: @grassecon (a/yeye)
Kenya
Joined December 2007
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What does a bioregional economy look like when local commitments, community pools, and national currency can be seen moving together?
I made a short video walkthrough following five Chama pools near Kiriba and Takaungu across 4,606 public Celo events.
It explores how locally governed vouchers, shared liquidity, community activity, and national currency can connect without collapsing into one currency or institution.
There is a full article explaining this video and software (ask me if interested)
The Revolution Will Begin With the Laughter of a Child
Our three-month-old daughter has an absolutely GLORIOUS sense of humor.
It starts with an eyebrow. Sometimes two.
Her eyes change. Something shifts. The corner of her mouth begins to rise.
And then...
AN ERUPTION OF JOY! 🌈
Gasps, screeches, arms and legs flying everywhere. Her whole little body seems to be in on the greatest joke in the universe.
I start laughing. She laughs (or gasps) even more. I laugh harder.
And I wonder... what on earth is so funny?!
What is she experiencing? What new possibility has she discovered?
Meanwhile, I'm over here organizing, planning, debating, defending my positions, and getting terribly, terribly SERIOUS.
When did being responsible become synonymous with being grim?!
My daughters are my teachers.
Humor gives me freedom from our own perspectives. The freedom to be surprised. To be wrong. To see things differently. To find joy even when the world is difficult.
... achievement matters to me. Building things matters. Changing the world matters.
But her laughter reminds me WHY we strive in the first place: to build lives and a world where love, wonder, and joy can flourish.
Perhaps the real revolution is remembering what all our revolutions are for.
My daughter has no manifesto. No PowerPoint. No reading assignments.
Just one raised eyebrow and an avalanche of joy.
And I'm taking notes. ❤️
More sillyness here: willruddick.substack.com
Money’s institutions form a reinforcing loop. We live in the curves of its intestines. Same digestion, same recirculation.
Programming another metabolism is possible ....... just not the one that already swallowed us.
The protests in France affect me emotionally.
What I feel deeply when I see the anger in the streets is that some part of it comes from knowing that a good life is possible and seeing it become less reachable.
My family and many of my ancestors are French. During a recent visit to rural Normandie, I was struck by how well housed, cared for, and well fed (VERY WELL!) the people around me seemed. I felt I was witnessing something close to the American Dream. .... yet I know many people experience a VERY different France.
How do we build institutions that sustain a good life, and how do we keep the power to change them when their commitments begin to fail?
I've been exploring this through a Commitment-based Political Economy.
We make promises to one another. We entrust people with authority, resources, and responsibility. Sometimes leaders protect us and help others become capable of leading. Sometimes that same power becomes concentrated, and our dependence becomes the very reason we cannot change things.
And what happens when institutions outlive their leaders, or when AI itself becomes a persistent steward?
Does exercising leadership leave more people capable of caring for and governing their communities, or fewer?
I feel love for the institutions that care for us, anger when that care is withheld, tears for what cannot be repaired, and enormous joy when someone else shows up to help.
I want us to build institutions that endure, while keeping the capacity to question, repair, and renew them alive in all of us.
And for the sake of our health and sanity, to sometimes put the work down, eat VERY WELL, and laugh together.
I've written a longer reflection on all this, drawing on France, Kenya, commitment pooling, and our shared responsibility to protect one another.
willruddick.substack.com/p/c…
Mashujaa Day: What Does It Take to Keep Freedom Alive?
In 2009, I first walked past the Kengeleni Bell near Kongowea Market in Mombasa, while exploring ideas that would become Eco-Pesa.
The bell marks the history of Frere Town, built by Africans liberated from slavery. In 1889, £3,500 was paid to those relinquishing claims over 1,442 people. That's roughly £584,000 in today's British purchasing power, or **KSh 100 million**.
The money went to former enslavers, not the people rebuilding their lives. Generations later, much of Frere Town's original land was transferred to other interests.
Today, the surrounding economy is full of wealth: farmers, fishers, traders, carpenters, transporters, caregivers and countless other skilled people.
What if we brought together KSh 100 million in real commitments to deliver local goods and services?
That's the idea behind the Frere Freedom Market, connecting locally stewarded markets where people can exchange food, skills, services and productive commitments.
My experiences around Kongowea and working with Tendai Lewa Mtana and communities practicing Chikola and Dhome have given me enormous confidence in what people can accomplish together.
Thank you, Tendai, for helping us recognize and steward the wealth already among us.
This Mashujaa Day, let's honor those who fought for freedom by strengthening our capacity to sustain it.
What can we build together with the resources we already have?
willruddick.substack.com/p/m…
🩺 What if doctors could accept more than money for healthcare?
Imagine a doctor offering a consultation while a patient contributes gardening, teaching, transport, or another useful service through a community commitment pool.
Through Cosmo-Local Credit, we're exploring how medical vouchers, reciprocal exchange, and mutual aid could help communities make better use of the care and resources they already have.
Inspired by my search for healthcare for my daughter, I've written Healthcare Commons for Doctors and Patients.
Could this work in the US? What about taxes, medical ethics, and regulation?
I'm inviting doctors, dentists, healthcare lawyers, accountants, patients, and mutual-aid organizers to help us build the foundations for a small, responsible pilot.
🌱 What if more healthcare could begin with a promise to care?
willruddick.substack.com/p/h…
within the last 3 years, i ve witnessed my partner going through surgery and recovery
Watching her heal has changed how I think about rupture, acceleration, and recovery.
As a physicist, I think about how quickly forces can break things, and how much longer healing can take.
I wonder what it would mean to accelerate toward health as a society.
I think of our relationships, trust, mutual aid, and shared capacity to respond as a kind of social soil. Like living soil, it takes time to build and can be depleted much faster than it regenerates.
This connects to my work on settlement acceleration: how quickly we can increase the rate at which our commitments to one another are actually fulfilled.
Can we accelerate the flow of resources, care, and cooperation without exhausting the people and relationships that sustain them?
I've been exploring these questions in a new essay, Healing the Ruptures, connecting physics, violence, nonviolent communication, and commitment pooling.
willruddick.substack.com/p/h…
#🐂💩🪞
🤖 Made with AI
🐂💩The B.S. Mirror Test
... aka Recognizing What We Externalize
How easily we recognize domination, dependency, exploitation, and broken commitments in the world, while overlooking these same patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our institutions.
The B.S. begins when our certainty about what's wrong with others exceeds our curiosity about what is happening within us.
Calling B.S. is an invitation to consciousness and hopefully a way to laugh through the tears. To notice where we externalize problems that may also be present in how we think, relate, and live. To recognize our contradictions without shame or blame, with curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to understand.
What we see in the world may also be a mirror of what we have yet to recognize in ourselves.
Perhaps that recognition is where transformation begins.
Try the 🐂💩B.S. Mirror Test today:
👀 Spot it: What B.S. bugs me in others?
🪞 Flip it: Where do I do that too?
❤️ Feel it: What's going on inside me?
😂 Laugh: Oops! Caught myself!
🌱 Shift: Try something different, with care.
🐂💩The B.S. Mirror Test
... aka Recognizing What We Externalize
How easily we recognize domination, dependency, exploitation, and broken commitments in the world, while overlooking these same patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our institutions.
The B.S. begins when our certainty about what's wrong with others exceeds our curiosity about what is happening within us.
Calling B.S. is an invitation to consciousness and hopefully a way to laugh through the tears. To notice where we externalize problems that may also be present in how we think, relate, and live. To recognize our contradictions without shame or blame, with curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to understand.
What we see in the world may also be a mirror of what we have yet to recognize in ourselves.
Perhaps that recognition is where transformation begins.
Try the 🐂💩B.S. Mirror Test today:
👀 Spot it: What B.S. bugs me in others?
🪞 Flip it: Where do I do that too?
❤️ Feel it: What's going on inside me?
😂 Laugh: Oops! Caught myself!
🌱 Shift: Try something different, with care.
💟Ahh the beloved 📶TCP/IP🛜 … and the growing concentration of internet infrastructure and platforms reminds me that interoperability alone doesn't prevent concentration of power.
At the same time I wouldn't try to encode the governance of a whole society into a protocol. I'd rather make the protocol simple, useful, and available to everyone. Although, of course, how we implement and design the protocol matters too!
… TCP/IP as an open protocol allows independently governed networks to communicate over HAM radio, Wi-Fi, fiber optics, and other technologies. It doesn’t dictate whether those networks belong to individuals, companies, communities, or governments.
So where do power asymmetries appear (in the CPP lens)?
Curation: Who decides which commitments are accepted or excluded?
Valuation: Who sets their exchange values, and whose contributions are discounted?
Limitation: Who sets the boundaries on access and exchange?
Exchange: Who controls the liquidity, fees, and settlement?
Imagine a farmer whose maize commitments are valued poorly or restricted by a pool controlled by a large buyer. Transparently published valuations, limits, and rules could make some of that power visible.
But the farmer's dependence on that buyer, their ability to challenge decisions, and their real alternatives require us to look beyond the software.
There's also power in registries, applications, technical controllers, and legal institutions.
Understanding who can decide, challenge, repair, or leave … requires looking at and distinguishing exchange routes, assets and obligations, technical controllers, and legal powers.
We're putting this into practice through CosmoLocal.Credit, currently on @gnosischain .
But CPP needn't belong to any particular blockchain. Its functions could be implemented through other blockchains, conventional ledgers, or even community memory, with appropriate connecting layers and agreements.
My hope is for a simple, open protocol that many different institutions can use, adapt, and connect, rather than one governance model imposed on everyone.
That won't make power asymmetries disappear. Nor will the protocol automatically make them visible or fair. Transparency, real alternatives, accountability, and meaningful exit need to be built and maintained.
I would like to make the underlying arrangements easier to understand, question, and change. CPP (if well implemented) might help us see what's being played, while leaving people the freedom and responsibility to decide how they orchestrate.
June 1971: ALOHANET becomes operational, serving as the first public packet radio network and laying foundational groundwork for modern wireless communication and Ethernet technology.
I am loving this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlin…
the history of TCP/IP is amazing
thanks substack.com/profile/3611069…
Come visit us together with our community! Oct 31st
(p.s. might be the last chance for a while) facebook.com/share/1DQ98AMrE…
Come visit us together with our community!
(p.s. might be the last chance for a while)
facebook.com/share/1DQ98AMrE…
Lula vs Flávio Bolsonaro … I just want to remember that after October 25, the Brazilian people will still be neighbors with each other. The music we make together will matter long after the election.
Words like "communism," "socialism," and "capitalism" have become instruments of fear ….. while real concerns about livelihoods, public services, freedom, and economic power deserve much more serious discussion.
I am hearing of, Brazilians supporting Lula abroad were branded "communists" online, while arguments over spending cuts and social programs have become very very charged.
We really need to look beneath these ideological tunes to the sheet music of economic coordination. Who decides what is valued, who controls resources, who benefits, and who bears the risks?
Healing begins when we can hear the real needs and fears beneath the labels, question our own assumptions, and recognize each other's humanity despite deep disagreements.
Note…. After October 25, Brazilians will still be neighbors. The music we make together will matter long after the election.
.. again: after October 25, the Brazilian people will still be neighbors with each other. The music we make together will matter long after the election.
P.S. We're also working on Portuguese translations of the Cosmo-Local Credit documentation to make these ideas more accessible and invite wider participation and discussion in Brazil. 🇧🇷
Can Capitalism and Socialism Play the Same Sheet Music? 🎶
I began noticing something curious. Rotating labor associations, cooperatives, banks, and markets all seem to share four underlying functions: curation, valuation, limitation, and exchange. These observations led to the Commitment Pooling Protocol (CPP).
What if we could make these functions programmable and interoperable?
Private enterprises, worker cooperatives, communities, and governments could develop and connect their own economic arrangements without adopting the same ownership or governance systems. Perhaps the innovation isnt discovering new economic music, but making it possible to read, modify, and connect the arrangements were already living within.
When the music stops, whose promises were fulfilled? Who has food, shelter, and a voice?
🎵 Read the full article: willruddick.substack.com/p/c…
… a reflection exploring capitalism, socialism, and the many other tunes our economies might play.
I'd love to hear where you see possibilities and tensions.
Can Capitalism and Socialism Play the Same Sheet Music? 🎶
I began noticing something curious. Rotating labor associations, cooperatives, banks, and markets all seem to share four underlying functions: curation, valuation, limitation, and exchange. These observations led to the Commitment Pooling Protocol (CPP).
What if we could make these functions programmable and interoperable?
Private enterprises, worker cooperatives, communities, and governments could develop and connect their own economic arrangements without adopting the same ownership or governance systems. Perhaps the innovation isnt discovering new economic music, but making it possible to read, modify, and connect the arrangements were already living within.
When the music stops, whose promises were fulfilled? Who has food, shelter, and a voice?
🎵 Read the full article: willruddick.substack.com/p/c…
… a reflection exploring capitalism, socialism, and the many other tunes our economies might play.
I'd love to hear where you see possibilities and tensions.
Anyone can ask an AI to produce fluent writing.
The harder question is: why are you writing it?
What experience, curiosity, stake, or relationship brought you to the question? What did the AI contribute? What do you actually know, what are you inferring, and what are you willing to answer for?
I wrote a short style and AI-use guide around this idea of epistemic integrity: using AI without disappearing behind it.
willruddick.substack.com/p/w…
If only these were trade-able ....
Starbucks books as income the money customers load onto cards and never spend. From $31.2m in fiscal 2010 to $222.4m in 2025, that income grew sevenfold while revenue grew 3.5 times. An AI agent that tracks every balance and spends it down will eat into it. Any business selling prepaid cards should work out now how much of its profit depends on customers forgetting.
ALT Bar chart: Starbucks' income from gift card and app money customers never spend, FY2010 to FY2025, rising from $31m to $222m.
What holds a person when the salary or grant disappears?
In the United States, the Federal Reserve found that in 2025 only 63 percent of adults said they could cover an unexpected $400 expense entirely with cash or its equivalent. Twelve percent said they could not cover the expense by any means at that moment. In the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority found that one in ten adults had no cash savings at all in 2024, while another 21 percent had less than £1,000 available for an emergency. About a quarter were classified as having low financial resilience.
Financial buffers matter a lot .... But I’ve been thinking about the other things that hold capacity in place: employers, professions, families, communities, savings groups, friendships, cooperatives, even collective practices.
An institution does more than provide money. It can make a person’s capacity recognizable, trusted, priced and usable.When that scaffolding disappears, the capacity may still be there.
That leaves me with a #dogliving question: before building another tool or institution, what is already alive? What is already standing? What has fallen away?
And if something new needs to be built, what exactly are we asking it to hold?
What Holds Me?
Buffers, institutions and what remains when the salary or grant disappears.
willruddick.substack.com/p/w…
