Session 1.3
Grassroots Economics’ Commitment Pooling
3rd November (Monday)
1.5 hours
New York 05:00
Buenos Aires 07:00
Amsterdam 11:00
Nairobi 13:00
Bangkok 17:00
Warrane-Sydney 21:00
Aotearoa-NZ 23:00
Organiser: Thomas Smith
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AbstractWill Ruddick is the founder of the Kenya-based Non-Profit Foundation Grassroots Economics and author of the 2025 book Grassroots Economics: Reflection and Practice (https://willruddick.substack.com/p/grassroots-economics-the-book-is). The cornerstone of his work has been a realization that the widespread, cross-cultural presence of commitment pooling systems (known as Mweria in Kenya, Mutirão in Brazil, Minga in Colombia, and by many other names globally) reveals a foundational economic logic that predates written history and challenges dominant market-based paradigms. Far from being isolated traditions, these decentralized, trust-based systems for mutual labor and resource sharing represent a convergent evolution of human cooperation, functioning as proto-economic protocols rooted in reciprocity, memory, and collective care. Their structural similarity across continents suggests that humanity evolved not in competitive exchange economies, but in relational, regenerative systems—what might be called the original "economic grammar" of our species. Recognizing and reviving these systems, especially when integrated with modern digital tools, opens a path for designing post-extractive, resilience-based economies grounded in ancestral intelligence. This session will be an opportunity for members of CERN and others to converse with Will about his work.
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