Agreements Fields

Here you can find:

• the on-going work in the GoogleDoc
• publications
• white papers
• related posts
• recordings of the Zoom conversations
• framing of the questions in the Agreements Fields Foundational Lab

PUBLICATIONS

• Co-hosting: Creating Optimal Experience for Team Interactions, James L. Ritchie-Dunham and Maureen Metcalf, Integral Leadership, 2016.
  • framing of the co-hosting (C) dimension of the agreements field equations

WHITE PAPERS

• Why Pactoecography (agreements field mapping) -- 27May2019 -- by Jim RD
• Agreements Field Equations -- 27December2018 -- by Jim RD
  • Zoom exploration August 17, 2018 -- video, audio-only
• Ecosynomic Axioms -- 11February2019 -- by Jim RD

RELATED POSTS

• Weak and Strong Agreements Fields
• The Whole Agreements Field Is Always Active — Sometimes Towards Purpose, Often Not

RECORDINGS OF ZOOM CONVERSATIONS

7th Conversation @ July 10, 2019 || Video & Audio

Exploring white paper "Ecosynomic Axioms" -- co-hosted by Jim Ritchie-Dunham

6th Conversation @ June 12, 2019 || Video & Audio

Exploring white paper "Agreements Field Equations" -- co-hosted by Jim Ritchie-Dunham

5th Conversation @ May 29, 2019 || Video & Audio

Exploring white paper "Why Pactoecography" -- co-hosted by Jim Ritchie-Dunham

4th Conversation @ November 10, 2017 Part 2 || Video & Audio

4th Conversation @ November 10, 2017 Part 1 || Video & Audio

3rd Conversation @ November 7, 2017 || Video & Audio

Blogpost on where much of our knowledge resides -- in what surrounds us

2nd Conversation @ October 18, 2017 || Video & Audio

1st Conversation @ October 16, 2017 || Video & Audio

AGREEMENTS FIELDS Foundational Lab

Brief

AGREEMENTS FIELDS explores, discovers, and describes the bigger system of agreements that encompasses the four big questions (economic, political, cultural, social), four different lenses on the experience of Homo lumens in society.

While the ultimate goal, in the near term, is to describe one set of agreements that encompasses the four lenses (EPCS), initially the Ecosynomics 2.0 Foundational Lab explores the origin story and framing of each lens separately, evolving along the rich tradition of observers who have developed each lens. We start with each lens, because when we do not honor the lineage of what is framed within each lens, we run the risk of embedding hidden agreements from one lens into another (e.g., embedding economic principles in political and cultural questions).

Economic Lens. Ecosynomics 1.0 mapped existing scarcity-based economic frameworks, which ask how much resource one has, onto a continuum of scarcity to abundance. This framing shows how specific economic prescriptions (rules/laws) are what economics sees through the four lenses (P—allocation mechanism, C—values, S—organization), and that much of economic formulation focuses on the outcomes level, which can be derived from the light-verb-noun formulation of ecosynomics.

The next stage of development of the economic-lens line of work is:

1. to link experience-based knowing in ecosynomics to rational and behavioral economics,
2. to develop the macro, meso, and micro-levels of ecosynomics, showing how the parallel levels of laws/rules in diverse economic frameworks derive from this higher-order set of principles.

Political Lens. Ecosynomics 1.0 mapped the political question as asking who decides and enforces, showing that a wide diversity of political systems can be characterized by the primary relationship that each system most focused on (self, other, group, nature, spirit), and that there are emerging political forms that bring all five primary relationships simultaneously.

The next stage of development of the political-lens line of work is to describe the evolution of the origin story of who decides and enforces and the resulting framing of the political question.

In the lineage of social contract theory, spanning the last 400 years, from Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau to Rawls, the evolving initial question (origin story) of the political question has focused on the individual (how does man behave in a state of nature, before society) and recently on the other (how does the human determine what is fair in justice, in the original situation). This line leads them to suggest what rules/laws (from Latin lex, to lay down, as in laying down one’s rights) are needed to decide and enforce.

Towards a political system for Homo lumens, Ecosynomics 2.0 strives to build on this lineage of an evolving answer, adding a developmental perspective, from one historical level to another. Encompassing the five primary relationships simultaneously, the origin story shifts to how Homo lumens is able to realize (from the French réaliser, to make real) one’s available ecology of consciousness and nature. Who decides and enforces, amongst Homo lumens, is framed by the experience-in-relationship of unconsciously accepted and consciously chosen agreements in the five primary relationships.

Following the framing of Hegel’s historical developmental dialectic, Homo lumens has evolved through three stages of rule and is now entering a fourth. Initial political systems focused on “what being rules,” finding one to multiple spirit or nature beings. These systems evolved into the second stage, asking “who rules for that being,” finding divinely-expressed human beings in the monarchy or church. The third, and most recent stage, evolved from the Enlightenment into asking, “who else rules, instead,” finding many forms, such as: rule of self—autocracy, rule of other—sociocracy, rule of group—?, rule of nature—?, rule of spirit—theocracy, rule by few– oligarchy, scared rule–hierarchy, without rule–anarchy, rule by wealthy–plutarchy, rule by best– aristarchy, rule by holy–hagiarchy, and rule by propertyowners–timocracy.

Developmentally, following the dialectic process of the synthesis that transcends the thesis and antithesis, AGREEMENT FIELDS frames the fourth stage as asking “why rule?” If to rule means to create a stable, straight line, focused primarily on resource-power, the fourth stage suggests probocreatio–tangibilization-power, where the question shifts from who rules, who sets the straight line, to who sets the principles, from which the standards and rules derive, in context.

This line of inquiry develops a cosmovision of who decides/enforces and the accompanying principles. This frame is informed from what CHOICE is mapping in the field (GI_MEDIR, Vibrancy, CHOICE networks) and through CHOICE field experiments (what is happening with most people, with positive deviants, with our projects).

Terms relevant to the political lens–social contract, constitution, rule/standard/principle.

• Social – from Latin socius "companion, ally”
• Contract – from Latin com- "together" (see com-) + trahere "to draw"
• Constitution – from Latin from com- “with,” + statuere "to set," from PIE root *sta- "to stand, make or be firm"
• Rule – from PIE root *reg- "move in a straight line"
• Standard – from PIE root *sta- “to make or be firm”
• Principle – from Latin principium “a beginning”

Cultural Lens. Ecosynomics 1.0 mapped the question of “what criteria” with existing value sets, usually of very simple, outcomes-based wealth indicators, into the vibrancy experienced in the five primary relationships in the three levels of perceived reality (light, verb, noun). Initial inquiry into culture focuses on who we are, as Homo lumens, the structures of symbolic meaning that identify us, on ritual, and on identity holders. The WECAN Advanced Study Group is taking up some of these questions.

The next stage of development of the cultural-lens line of work is:

1. To identify the origin story of value in cultural anthropology (descriptive) and in moral philosophy (normative)
2. To connect the cultural-lens origin story to the moral philosophic inquiry that initiated most existing EPCS systems
3. To develop a set of values in agreements fields that reflect the vibrancy experienced in being fully Homo lumens

Social Lens. Ecosynomics 1.0 mapped existing organizational forms, as described through a diverse set of sociologically-informed frameworks, asking the question of how do we interact, what are the rules of the game? Initial work mapped the origin story of sociology that focuses on the inequities that emerge, now that people rule (level 3 systems—who else rules), concentrating on one or more of the four lenses:

• Economic—surplus definition and distribution
• Political—power to decide and enforce
• Cultural—whose values, including mostly my needs
• Social—rule setting that includes me

Towards the ecosynomic description of a social systems of tangibilization, the next stage of development of the social-lens line of work is:

1. To frame – design principles, standards, rules for segregating, flocking, uniting
2. To reframe inequities from what to get rid of to what to realize