Prefiguration
PREFIGURATION
Prefiguration is the creation of working models of the future in the present.
It is a political act that strives to change the present through the direct development of a more positive future through these working models.
Each act of prefiguration is simultaneously a resistance to the current society and a creation of the new society.
The working models that are created are a short-term solution to immediate problems and a long-term alternative to the deep structures that cause those problems.
In order to be fully functional, prefiguration must engage in the reclamation of the contents of society while at the same time offer a substitution of the forms of society.
This active process of reclamation and substitution offers people the opportunity to escape the current society.
The new society that is created would be defined as more inclusive, participatory, and egalitarian.
The ultimate goal of prefiguration is to replace hierarchical societies with egalitarian societies.
THE PUBLIC OPTION
Capitalism is a game that has its own system of rules and choices within those rules.
What makes capitalism distinct from other games is the fact that capitalism is a mandatory game.
The rules of capitalism determine human behaviour, while the choices in capitalism all serve to reproduce the structure of capitalism.
The result is that capitalism appears to be natural, eternal, and normal with no apparent way to choose an alternative option.
The rules of capitalism, based on scarcity and competition, produce inequality.
This inequality controls human actions by limiting the scope of possible choices.
In contrast, the equal use of resources acts as a foundation for freedom of choice in a society.
And this equality of use must include freedom of choice in regards to the rules of the system.
Freedom of choice over the formation of social rules completes the freedom of choice that defines human self-determination.
The creation of a public option in terms of institutions or infrastructure insures equality of use, and consequently the public option promotes freedom of choice.
The public option in a society does not necessarily mean government ownership.
Rather, a public option must be owned by communities for the shared equal benefit of all, in direct defiance of any preexisting political, economic, or cultural hierarchy.
Equality of use relieves humans from the struggle for survival and creates the opportunity for leisure as liberated time.
This leisure is the space for free choices to be made.
With freedom of choice, humans can practice true self-determination.
Self-determination in a society can lead to self-actualization of each individual.
The full expression of self-actualization can culminate in the self-creation and transformation of all humans.
This process of self-determination, self-actualization, and self-creation is the core of human existence and purpose.
The most direct way to develop equality of use and freedom of choice is through the public option.
The most immediate form of the public option is a basic income coupled with the commons and governed by direct democracy.
These approaches can be implemented through the working model of the future.
THE EVENT
A mutual aid organization is a grassroots group built on solidarity, not charity.
People help each other meet basic needs.
This organization offers mutual credit as a type of basic income to members.
Its purpose is not just to relieve poverty, but to affirm the worth of each individual.
The current social situation is one of scarcity, competition, and inequality.
In that situation, the value of people is based on work and productivity.
Existential meaning is lost within economic survival.
Any aid is typically bureaucratic, top-down, or stigmatized.
The worth of human beings outside of capitalist productivity is ignored or excluded.
The mutual credit based basic income can serve as a new positive event that interrupts the dominant order.
This event is unexpected, where people are helping themselves and not waiting for the state.
It breaks with the logic of worth defined by work, and it affirms an egalitarian truth that everyone deserves freedom and equality, regardless of productivity.
Members of the mutual aid organization act on this truth by creating new practices such as inclusive participation and shared ownership.
They challenge the old order by offering a transition from survival to meaning.
The search for meaning is a vital part of human existence.
People need the freedom to explore human meaning.
A mutual credit basic income creates the conditions for this freedom.
People are no longer trapped in a survival mode of being.
The event creates a rupture of the status quo that opens up the possibility of a different form of human life maintained by those who participate in the mutual credit system.