Introduction to The Global Assembly's Official Transition Plan (Please share!)

The plan we've been waiting for

We've been discussing RBE ideas for 4 years, yet action seems hard to follow. It's not your fault. The problems we face are huge.

Still, we always want to think big- trying to talk to politicians, organize a "mass movement", protest or wait until we have "enough" people instead of starting with what we have.

(And that means starting small.) We can't keep waiting for everyone else to join us. If we wait until we have "enough" people, we'll never have enough! We have to take action now, and when we finally create results people will start jumping on board. Note, we're not talking about "building cities" or ecovillages. In fact, the plan explains why that's a really really bad idea. This is realistic, beginning with the assumption that you have no money and only a few people. Still, with a little ingenuity and luck, a group of 10 people following this plan can take over a city of several thousand in one year.

Over the past several months, we've looked at all the RBE movements and took the best ideas from each one. The Transition, Copiosis, EOS, TZM, TVP, Ubuntu and pretty much everything else.. You name it, we researched it. Together, we combined them to create a transition plan that costs nothing to start, requires no permission and can occur immediately. There's no reason to wait. It begins with each and every one of us! Instead of splitting our efforts, we create local assemblies at the ground level and work our way up from there. Our local teams unify behind a single "brand" to build publicity and clout. The Global Assembly serves as a united front not to spread awareness (since we all have different ideas), but act. Recruiting one new member every month means that we can transition to a free world (the precursor to full-blown RBE) in as little as 2 years.

And that biggest obstacle to transition? It's been figured out. Here's how we get the rich and powerful on our side. 

This plan is long for the casual reader (approx. 7 pages), but it goes deep into detail about what we can do and how we can do it. If you like what you read, please share this as much as you can! Tell your friends, fellow sustainability advocates and join the action group on Facebook to share your ideas: Once we all get on the same page, we can make this go viral. It's as easy as just linking to this post.

I'm ready to get started, are you?

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction, Purpose and Goals

Chapter 2: Creating a Local Assembly

Chapter 3: Stages of Transition 

Chapter 4: How to solve Money, Time and Interest problems

Chapter 5: General Ideas and Starter Projects 

Chapter 6: The Essence Of Transition 

Chapter 7: Closing out- How to Recruit, Slay Dragons, Destroy Big Media and More 

Not "just another movement"

We know- division of effort and everything- but this isn't "just another movement". This is a specific way forward and plan for us to unite around so we can do something instead of continuing to watch the horror unfold behind the safety of our computer screens. Our local focus means that we can't be sidetracked as easily since  lot of work needs to happen in real life, not just online.

The Global Assembly does not conflict/compete with TZM/TVP or seek to duplicate their efforts.
While these two movements are about education and have done excellent work producing materials to share with people (no doubt they'll be very useful in our plan too), TGA is about action. We're talking practical steps that we can all take to not just spread the word, but save money and move ourselves (and eventually our cities) out of the system. Our plan culminates in complete basic self-sufficiency for each city and town around the world in as little as five years. The Assemblies provide the framework and bones for a new society. Each local assembly is a "seed" that will bloom into something amazing if we work hard and stay connected.

Now that we have the roadmap, what are we waiting for?

Dear 1%.html

Okay, 1%; Here's the deal. 

We need your stuff. Not your fancy cars, private jets, mcmansions, butlers or yachts- you can keep all of that-

But your factories, fields, businesses, mines and oil wells? That stuff belongs to the people, and it needs to be returned to it's rightful owners. The world is under new management, and there are going to be some changes.

For one, every business that currently exists must now be owned and operated by the people who work there and live around it. Why should we let absentee shareholders thousands of miles away determine our economic destiny? There will be no more "money" as you know it, and we're committed to putting people before profits- so earth's natural resources will satisfy human needs before human greed.

We aren't going to come after you with pitchforks or expropriate your wealth: You worked hard for it, and deserve full compensation. Paying you in money kinda defeats the purpose though. So instead, we're going to give you shares: For every $10 of net worth, everyone gets a share they can use to vote on public policy in the new government (The Global, Regional and National Assemblies) and receive dividends on any surplus revenue. You can also inherit, give away, sell or trade these government shares just like you would corporate stock. Your economic wealth is not taken from you or destroyed, it is merely transformed into an equal amount of political wealth.

Here's the catch: The dividends you receive are tied to public happiness as measured by a detailed monthly survey. This survey doesn't just ask people whether they're happy or not, it's a bit more complicated than that.

GDP and "Profit" were always flawed measures of success anyway, since increases in them don't necessarily correspond to better standards of living. So you can't just raise taxes to make more money without providing services which make the rest of us better off. This also has the nice side effect of eliminating government abuse, since the pay of government employees is also tied to how happy the people are. Bringing the competitive efficiency of business to governance means that governments around the world will now compete for investment by creating the best public policies.

Just like how capitalism brought us better products at lower prices, The Global Assembly will bring us better public services & governments that waste less money.

Maximize public well-being, maximize profits. Capiche?
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The rich and the poor have a common enemy. Now's our time to fight back. Click here to learn more.

But what about the constitution?

"Face it, these ideas are great, but it'd be impossible to get this through Congress". 

"How are you going to amend the constitution to make this possible"?

"Good luck convincing the politicians to go along with this one". 

Do you ever feel like politicians are some of the biggest obstacles to progress? You aren't alone. They allow their childish bickering to get in the way of policies that make life better for the rest of us, while slavishly follow the party line for fear of rejection. Why do we allow these people to control our lives in the first place? When your vote doesn't matter, who's really in control?

How will The Global Assembly succeed with all of it's radical proposals? How will we convince those in power to give it up?

We won't. We aren't going through them. The Global Assembly is not a political party that seeks to change a few laws then call it a day. Nor do we want a new constitutional amendment. We want a new constitution. There will be no referendum, poll or vote. Each person will look over our proposals and decide for themselves whether or not they support them. If you do, then ratify our constitution and vote in our elections. If you don't, then don't. It's your choice. When a majority of people in an area agree with this new direction, they make it happen.

Protest doesn't work. Petitions don't work. Begging for permission does not work. When the system is broken, attempts to work within it will get you nowhere- elections will be rigged, and propaganda spread. That's why it's time to break the system and crash the party.

One thing that you need to remember is that nothing physically possible is impossible. Forget everything you know, forget what you've been told: All authority derives from the people, both figuratively and literally. At the end of the day, government is a group of people like any other. We are the ones who give them their power, and if we come up with something better, we can give them power too. The constitution is a piece of paper with brilliant ideas- but we must never allow the will of the dead to dictate the reality of the living. We need to keep the "brilliant" parts like universal rights and democratic government while leaving outdated concepts such as the electoral college behind.

"There's nothing more powerful than an idea who's time has come". - Victor Hugo

When millions of us stand together in support of change- not just abstract "change", but unified in our demands, there's no contest. Those in power will listen, or those underneath them will walk away. They won't have a choice.

Why Money Needs an Expiration Date (and what that has to do with time banking)

If there's one basic law of nature you can rely on, it's this: Everything dies. 

Yes, it's a bummer. Everything weathers, everything decays. Bread gets moldy, homes spring leaks and cars break down. It doesn't matter how long it takes- whether it's minutes, years or millennia. Nothing lasts forever. 

Nothing, that is, except money. 

And that's a problem, because everything else you can buy with money will eventually go bad. Heck, even the person who currently "possesses" all that money won't be around forever. Because money never "rots", people hold onto it for dear life instead of putting it back into the economy where it belongs. Money piles up upon itself and is handed down through generations, allowing children of the rich to stay rich regardless of their own effort. Do you ever look at Paris Hilton or the Kardashians and ask why? Why do they deserve so much while the rest of us get so little? What makes them so special? 

Inflation sort of solves this problem in a roundabout way,  but it's more of a stealth rot- instead of you directly losing money, everything else just becomes more expensive. The problem with inflation is that 1) it's really hard to control and 2) people don't understand why it happens, so they get upset. 

The more straightforward route would be to implement a fee for storing money in banks, but economists always claim that that wouldn't work because people would just take out their money and hold it in cash. When discussing a contributist economy, it's important to remember that most of the assumptions we have today about how economies must function no longer hold. Our current system isn't a law of nature: It developed over centuries through the random interactions of strangers and the writings of philosophers like Adam Smith. 

Money works in a completely different way post-transition. For one, it's designed to be used, not abused. "Abusing" your money may mean hoarding it, using it to negatively influence others or just allowing it to sit and earn more money on top of itself via the scam we call "interest". 

How many of us know where interest actually comes from? True, when you have a savings account it comes from loan returns, but when you take out a loan, the interest required to pay it back doesn't exist in the economy! Here's the kicker- neither does the money itself! Banks create money out of thin air whenever loans are taken out, and through "interest" that constantly compounds upon itself, these loans can never be fully repaid. 

That's economic slavery. We literally can't afford to let it go on any longer.

Contributism is based on the principle that those who contribute more deserve more. Money can only be "earned" (read, created) through doing work which benefits others in your community. It then circulates, and is taken out of circulation when someone needs to purchase something. Time credits are one implementation of this idea: An hour of work (any kind) is always equivalent to an hour's time credit. 

Time credits are only good for certain basic community service applications though, as some jobs are harder and require more skills. For these, payment could vary based on supply and demand. Is your city running short on doctors? Place an ad online. Raise or lower the listed salary based on the responses you get. Nontransferable time credits could be used to ensure only people who contribute to the economy get rewarded. 

Nontransferable? 

Yes, nontransferable. Making some forms of money nontransferable- like checks or airline miles- solves a lot of problems. Nobody can steal your money because it's only usable by you. Nobody can earn money by exploiting other people because money only goes to natural persons, not organizations or corporations. While you may not be able to directly give your money to someone else, you can still buy a gift and give it to the person instead.

The full effects of this take a while to sink in. Landlords no longer exist because they can't spend the money they receive as rent. Debt is eliminated, as is every other middleman between a person and what they want to buy. The end result is that only the people who directly benefit from something "own" it. 

"Money", then, becomes a token agreement between the individual and society. It's recognition of a job well-done, and a special gift to you as thanks. In this future, money is a claim on a portion of the world's resources- one that belongs to you and you alone. Viewed this way, why would you want to give your hard-earned money away to other people? The Global Assembly makes sure everyone has financial security in the first place, since children and the elderly both can earn time credits for participating in social life or even just being around,  

How does it work? 

Time credits are earned by working on community projects your local assembly approves. Keeping the streets clean, working on a community garden or tutoring children after school can all be "community projects". The project manager receives a set amount of blank time credits and a notepad to keep a record of who attended the project, what they did and how many time credits they've earned. Like a check, the recipient of the time credit is written on the credit itself unless they request to "keep it blank". These records are logged, entered into a computer and used to calculate how much a person has contributed over the course of the year (for voting purposes)*. 

Spending your time credits is straightforward. Just go to the store with your community membership card and credits in hand, then grab what you need. 

Once a person has received their time credits, they can hold them for up to one year. After that, they need to be put in the bank or reinvested into other communities since they expire. 

While in the bank, we charge a 2% per year storage fee to encourage people to reinvest their money into the economy by buying shares in other communities around the world. If money is sitting around for years at a time, it's not doing its' job. 

Money constantly circulates, doing good as it moves along. The role of the time bank is a clearinghouse and loaner for large purchases- (like homes and cars). The money is then paid back plus a fixed fee proportional to the amount of money taken. For example, if the time bank gives you 5000 hours to buy a house and charges 500 for the trouble of loaning out the money, this is not interest, and that's what is so important. No matter how long you take to repay your loan from a time bank, the total amount of money you owe will still be the same ($5500)- it doesn't grow with time. This stops the "debt trap" where no matter how quickly you try to pay off your debts, the amount you owe just keeps growing.. and growing.. and growing. Borrowers can't claim that they were taken by surprise anymore, so they must repay their loans. 

There are some things that time credits can't buy because they aren't for sale: land, natural resources and the hard work of other people come to mind. 

Hopefully, you're beginning to see some of the positive effects this new banking system will have on humanity. Corporations can't abuse their wealth, nor can extremely rich individuals. The only person who gets to decide what you spend your hard-earned money on is you. 

*In order to remain a community member, each person needs to pay taxes in the form of a set amount of time credits weekly (say, 10). They can donate excess time credits in return for votes in the regional assembly. Depending on what percentage of their yearly income they donate, they get more votes. 

Page 7: Recruitment, Dragons, Media and More.

I CANNOT OVERSTATE THE IMPORTANCE OF RECRUITMENT.

Get each member to gift $5 a week so you can print out thousands of flyers- and leave them all over the place. Each flyer should use a half-sheet of paper to save resources. Voraciously promote your assembly, and share the local facebook group/youtube playlist so they can learn more. Interested people will request to join the group and boom, you’ve got a new member.

We want each member to recruit at least one new person a month, not just the “recruitment” PoC. If your group commits to this, the amount of growth you can create in a short period of time will be astounding.

Month 1 - 12 members: Just starting out, getting settled and getting your project teams sorted out.

Month 2 - 24 members: Your project teams are almost ready and you’ve begun approaching people with your vision.

Month 3 - 48 members: Project teams completed, you are now ready to begin.

Month 4 – 100 members: Your core hybrid group is complete, and filled with a diverse skill set.

Month 5 - 200 members

Month 6 – 400 members: At this stage, most of your service-based needs can be met within the group and you’re starting to have some effect on the local economy. You enter your rapid growth phase. This phase is make it or break it- pull it off, and your success is guaranteed. Fail, and your group will plateau somewhere between 200 and 400 for good.

Being successful requires every tool at your disposal to get the word out, even if it means you become a “walking billboard”. In other words, wear a custom solidarity t-shirt which reads “I WORK 20 HOURS A WEEK AND LIVE FOR FREE Ask me!”

Month 7 – 800 members

Month 8 – 1600 members

Month 9 – 3200 members

Month 10- 6400 members

Month 11 – 12800 members

Month 12- 25600 members

There you have it. In less than a year, you can convert an entire mid-sized town of 100,000 to Contributism. Long before you reach Month 12, other businesses will be forced to adapt or close, speeding transition. As more people become unemployed, they can join your group which accelerates the process.

Imagine 25000 people living the hybrid lifestyle in your town. Imagine two of them sharing a car and selling the extra- that’s 12,000 cars off the road. Imagine the hundreds of dollars being saved monthly by members sharing apartments, homes, cars etc.. All that money can go towards community projects.

This needs to be a coordinated operation. More and more assemblies pop up in neighboring towns, starting the process all over again. As they grow during year 2, millions of people come on board.

That’s millions of people waking up by watching RBE videos on youtube.

Millions of people not shopping at stores owned by big corporations.

Millions of people growing an abundance of food or supporting local farmers who do.

Millions of people who refuse to work at jobs they don’t like.

Millions of people sharing golf clubs, tennis rackets, lawnmowers, power tools..

Millions of people not taking out bank loans or dropping the ones they have.

Millions of people who know about liquid democracy and next time, will vote for it so they can take back government to protect their revolution.

And even cooler, millions of people who get to travel and stay for free in other hybrid towns.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you starve the beast.

Capitalism has a fatal flaw- it requires constant consumption to keep the wheels turning. We do the opposite. Yes, we still have to pay taxes for now- but as far as everything else is concerned, we try to limit the amount of money used in our day-to-day lives as much as possible. The system will collapse within 3 years if we work hard at recruitment. Unlike last time it’ll be planned and we will be ready for it.  

Slaying the Dragons

Most of this so far has focused on business- but there are other interests that may interfere with transition.

The Powers That Be

Dealing with this depends on your attitude. If you take an adversarial tone or blame them for things, understandably they will see you as the enemy and act accordingly. The Global Assembly isn’t anyone’s enemy though; we just see problems in the world and want to fix them. In the beginning, it’s best to just focus on the humanitarian aspect of what you’re doing and leave the politics aside. Once the assemblies mature and build a broad base of support, you can speak out about the political aspects of transition (safety in numbers). Local government officials will naturally be on your side since they see the effects your programs are having on the community firsthand. Over the years, local assemblies will have embedded themselves so deeply within the fabric of communities that attempts to harm them will be considered similarly to attempts to ban churches. Remember: You don’t win by fighting the system. You win by creating a new system that makes the old one obsolete.

The biggest immediate “dragon” that needs to be dealt with is Big Media.

It’s crucial to take control of the narrative from the very beginning. Your local assembly starts as a humanitarian organization- so show it! Make pictures and videos of everything you do, and post them on your social media pages (not just group)

Long-term, if we want to wake up the a large amount of people, we need to replace big media. An idea I had was something called “Channel 99”, and like The Global Assembly it would be a brand. Channel 99 is a grassroots local news source and public access channel hosted on Youtube. “Channel 99” is meant to reference the 99% and associated feelings. The channel would be democratic and public-access so if anyone had something they wanted to share, they could submit it for broadcasting.

There are lots of general politics and political talk youtubers out there, but Channel 99 is different because of the local focus. “Channel 99 Chicago” would be the Chicago branch focusing on local Chicago neighborhood happenings for example.

What you place on this channel is limited only by your imagination. Cooking shows, dramatic book readings, game shows, talk shows.. We want this to be a real tv station that people can tune into, livestreamed during certain times of the day. You don’t have to produce all, or even any of the content. Just look around to see who has some stuff they’d like to get out there.

Local musicians and artists looking for a wider audience? Check.

School plays? Check.

Church events? Check.

Low-budget DIY home movies and funny local clips? Check.

Cooking and game shows? Check.

Women sitting on a couch and talking? Check.

Deconstructing advertisements and other BS peddled by the mainstream media? Check.

In return for promoting them, guests can promote you and expand the reach of Channel 99. 

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The end! We hope you enjoyed this short series of articles on how to transition to a Resource-Based-Economy. Stay tuned for more!

First: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-guide-to-global-assembly-and.html
Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-6-essence-of-transition.html

Page 6: The Essence of Transition

The Essence of Transition

Transition happens by turning the machinery of capitalism against itself. Don't be afraid to use money to get rid of it! Everyone wants a lower price, and everyone wants to save. The twin processes of ephemeralization and productive maximization will work together, forcing all businesses within a certain radius to adapt. The first has to do with labor, while the second deals with production. Both feed a vicious cycle of cost reduction that pushes the price of goods and services towards zero.

Ephemeralization

Why pay workers when you can get volunteers to work for you for free? Ephemeralization is a term coined by Buckminster Fuller which describes the process of doing more and more with less and less. He used a bridge as an example: Our first bridges were very heavy and made of stone. Later, we learned how to use lattice steel and our bridges became lighter. And on and on it goes, until today we can cross oceans with little more than a few feet of concrete and some steel cables.

Participating businesses enjoy free labor because people who work there earn time credits. After seeing initial positive results, the business owner will naturally want to expand the program. 

Productive Maximization

It’s amazing what can get accomplished when we all unite on a common goal. Residents who get together to work on projects create things at a lower cost, and these low-cost items can be used as inputs for ephemeralized businesses.

How this relates to your group.

It just doesn’t make sense. How can a small group of 12 or so people rally an entire town to a cause and create change? Every change in history has always begun with a small core of dedicated, highly-committed people. And once you get roughly 5% of the population involved, the rest will join by necessity.

If each of your seed members builds a team with three other people on it, your group has suddenly quadrupled in size to 48. From there, it isn’t far to 100 and beyond if every member recruits one new member per month. Each of these people provide free services to each other (denominated in time credits to keep track of everything and shut down freeloaders) while cooperating to save money and slash their living expenses. Each group member agrees to work for 10 hours per week together on common projects that help the group become self-sufficient. That’s your “membership fee.”

Here’s where the program developed by The Transition comes in. Within the group, we aim to use very little money- but outside it, we charge for services.

The secret is sharing your way to success. If you know how to cut hair, give other group members who present their membership card “free haircuts” in exchange for a time credit. Group members earn time credits volunteering for you now. The same goes for nail salons, mechanics, auto body shops, computer repair.. Whatever your skill, trade it on a one-to-one hourly basis with contributing members while charging everyone else full price. Aim to give whatever you can each month to help fund projects and expansion (like buying an apartment or more businesses so you don’t have to pay rent).

Getting rich is no longer the goal. Businesses must earn profit to stay afloat, but the profits won’t be large. We must rely on our network of support and self-sufficiency to get through this rough period.

Three simple steps:

1) Work: Share what you can with other group members. Your tools, equipment, meals, chores, anything you feel comfortable with. Keep track of what you share and who you share it with. When enough members get together in one area, they pool their money to purchase a large home or apartment, maybe renting out half to non-members to make money and saving half for themselves.

2) Gift: Save up for local sustainability projects (solar panels) and give what you can to other communities.

3) Recruit: Spread the word and try to grab one new person each month. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, worry about meeting your own goals.

4) Start small home businesses like window washing, lawn care and dogwalking to bring more money in, charging 20-30% less than the other guy.

If the local assembly owns one restaurant and we charge 20% less than other restaurants for the same food because we don’t have to pay employees, get free eggs, vegetables and electricity, you can kiss the other restaurants goodbye.

Painter charges $3000 to paint a house, you charge $1500.

Plumber wants $150 to fix a pipe, you charge $50.

All the while, you are building relationships with local business owners to volunteer in exchange for more services that you can’t do on your own. 

It’s important to work with landlords to see if there’s any deals you can make. Does your group provide services they need? Perhaps the landlord can offer the business owner a reduction in rent in exchange for being paid in credits + a share of the profits. The housing director will phone-bomb local rentals to see if any are interested in setting up a cost-saving arrangement. 

Next: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-7-recruitment-dragons-media-and.html

Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-5-general-ideas-starter-projects.html 

Page 5: General Ideas + Starter Projects

General Ideas

- Begin your local assembly’s Facebook group as a giveaway group to pull in people. Network with local organizations to spread the word, and see if you can post flyers in neighborhood businesses and schools so as many people join as possible. The giveaway group enables community residents to lend or give away extra stuff they don’t need anymore, and allows members to freely ask for what they desire.

- Host screenings of important videos and documentaries centered around free food. Each screening should ideally be less than an hour long. See if you can host one at a library or school. Give people an hour of free time credit for attending!

- Talk to people. Really. Chat up the cashier, and hand them a flyer. If you volunteer in projects a lot, be a cheerful giver and hand out free time credits- make sure people know what they are and how to spend them, though!

- Network with colleges and do presentations.

- Try a recruitment bonus. Those who invite new members to your facebook group can earn two 30 minute time credits- one to keep, and one to share.

http://www.complementarycurrency.org/ccLibrary/materials/time_banks_rewarding_community_self_help.pdf

Spice Time Credits has an excellent video on time banking, with the exact same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYAnb-jybo

Projects

These are some example community projects local assemblies can work on. Choose which ones you want to tackle first, they’re categorized for your convenience. Once a project has begun, neighborhood residents are asked to work on it in order to earn time credits.

There are four immediate (6 month) goals for any new Global Assembly that’s just starting out.

1) Establishment of an internal trading network

2) Working towards Food Independence

3) Working toward Energy Independence

4) Reduction in monthly housing expenses by 50%.

Keep these goals in mind at all times while considering projects.

Issue membership cards to group members so they can be eligible for discounts at assembly-run stores. A membership card may cost $10 monthly, with the money going to a common project pool. This is a great way to raise money and determine who’s serious about transition.

Food

[Food, Property] - Build relationships with neighbors to pursue landsharing agreements. Even if it’s too late to garden, gauge interest in who would be keen on allowing you to garden in their backyard in exchange for some of the produce next year.

[Food] - Create a buyer’s club. Buy direct from farmers if possible. Look at programs like Angel Food and Value Box- these organizations cut deals with low-cost suppliers to provide entire standardized boxes of food that could feed a family of four for a week, at half-price. Design a set of meal boxes and canvass the neighborhood to see who may be interested. You can collect the boxes and deliver them to houses while charging a small fee. The residents save up to 30%, and you make a handsome profit.

[Food] – Roughly 10% of your members should be full-time farmers. A single person can work plots up to a half-acre and grow enough to feed 10 other people. A lively preserving program will freeze and can extra veggies, allowing you to use them all summer long. Getting most of the community involved means you can sell your bounty in a large-scale farmer’s market abutting a neighboring town. Grow high, price low: Look at other stores and do your best to beat their prices.

[Food] - If each person in your neighborhood grows a large crop of a single vegetable, you can trade the produce and eat for free!

[Food, Business] - Each local assembly should have “starting a restaurant” as one of its’ long-term goals. Seriously. Because of our cooperation-based internal economy and low cost of living, it would be a cakewalk for our restaurants to beat the competition and rapidly expand.

Let’s take McDonald’s for instance- you think that they’re unassailable, but they’re actually sitting ducks. 25% of their operating cost is labor, and they only make 4% profit. If we open a hamburger shop that strives to use locally grown vegetables and potatoes when possible (that other people in the co-op grow and give to us at no cost), with free labor working to earn time credits, we could charge 15% less for everything and outcompete. Key would be finding a partner who’s willing to offer restaurant space in exchange for a cut of the profits instead of a fixed rent. Keep the menu simple. Hamburgers, veggie burgers, chicken sandwiches, fries, canned pop, milkshakes and salad. No more, no less.

[Food] – Man does not subsist on fruits and veggies alone. Some of your members will need to think meat! See if your group can start raising chickens and collecting food waste from surrounding grocery stores/restaurants to feed them. With more community buy-in, you can consider goats.

Energy

The energy transition manager has both the easiest and hardest job. They have to research and bring together locals to start a solar energy-coop, which involves a little bit of business and government. It’s a good idea to wait until you have at least 100 households on board before you start seriously pursuing this project.

[Energy] – It’s been said before, but do everything you can to reduce home energy use at home.

Housing

There’s only one big way to save money here, and it will take a leap of faith: find housemates. If you have an empty bedroom, get to know someone else within the group so you can move in together and split costs with them. With all the money you both save, you can save it to fund more transition efforts. Be sure to blog about your experiences on your local assembly’s facebook page!

From Hybrid Transition:

“One of the reasons we ask members to recruit just 1 new member a month each is so we can find other like-minded people living closer to us to do stuff with. Then if 2 single members are each renting a 1 bed apartment with total costs being $800 - $1,000 a month each, they get TOGETHER and rent a 2 bed apartment for say total $1,200 a month, $600 a month each. This is an instant savings of $200 - $400 a month each, use $1 a week for global Hybrid efforts and use the rest for something local. Then keep recruiting to find more people to do the same.

“Maybe then 3-4 single members in 1 area get together and rent a 3-4 bed home. Now they work TOGETHER growing food in the yard and inside the home, maybe having less cars (saving thousands of dollars each year per car) and sharing rides, taking turns cooking and cleaning etc. With all their savings they again gift just $1 a week towards global Hybrid efforts and use the rest for something local. When 20 - 40 members are living this way in 10 homes in 1 area they use their savings to buy a small apartment building, renting out half to nonmembers to help pay the bills, again growing food in the yard, basement and in their apartments, sharing cooking and cleaning etc...

 “Once fully up and running a Hybrid Money/No Money Lifestyle is one where members work together up to 20 hours each week as needed. Instead of getting "paid" they receive FREE rent, utilities, food, clothes, cell phone, internet access, local transportation, haircuts/styling and other salon offerings, massages, gym membership, tool rentals, boat rentals, camping gear rentals, play tennis, golf, basketball, volley ball and just about any sport they want to play, classes in anything they want to learn (exercise, yoga, martial arts, cooking, baking, computer, arts, crafts, language and anything else our members know and can teach as part of their 20 hours a week work for the Hybrid group.”

Healthcare

[Healthcare] – Healthcare will remain a significant expense for some time, so try to stay healthy. One way you can get people involved using time credits would be on the home care services side of things, helping the elderly in-home and paying them for each hour.

[Healthcare] – Attending group exercise sessions (and exercising for the entire thing!) may also be a way to earn credits.

Education

[Education] – The Zeitgeist Movement has an excellent program called “TZM Educate” where members host talks at schools in an attempt to introduce them to sustainable philosophy.

[Education] – Connecting with food, see if you can get school waste to go into a compost pile instead of the trashbin.

[Education] – Offer to “pay” teachers in time credits for what they’re already doing- it’s essentially free money.

Politics

[Politics] – Government Capture describes what happens when a large industry or special interest “captures” the government and uses it for it’s own ends. This is a natural end result of the late-stage transition process. Once time credits become more popular, we could set aside a certain amount of time credits and offer them to other local councils to use for their own needs. This gets them using the currency and working with its benefits on a day-to-day basis.

[Politics] – Run for office to gain publicity, and get people together to hold a constitutional convention for your city. The local assemblies will eventually become the basis for a new form of political organization as described in Libertarian Municipalism: http://autonomous-england.blogspot.com/2013/11/libertarian-municipalism.html

Networking

[Networking] - Use Streetbank to trade stuff with your neighbors!

[Networking] – Encourage the formation of local assemblies for other cities near you on facebook. Form into confederations and network with each other- as an example, 50 nearby local assemblies will each elect two delegates to the next-higher assembly facebook groups and so on.

[Networking] – Run happiness surveys to see how well you’re doing and how you can do better.

Recruitment

[Recruitment] - Along with your work less have more flyers, print out pitch scripts that you can go door-to-door and read to your neighbors. While you’re reading from a flyer, have a copy ready for the neighbor to keep. They may read a little something like this…

-----

Hi! Have you heard about The Global Assembly?

We aren’t trying to sell you anything- in fact, it’s the exact opposite. We’re a group of local people who want to help build stronger communities and save money doing it. Times are tough, and any way we can get together and save for the things that really matter is a blessing.  

--Pause to let them talk, maybe start a short convo. Be friendly, smile and listen intently.--

Have you ever noticed how neighbors don’t get out and talk to each other anymore? People are afraid to go outside their homes or even ask for help nowadays, it’s a shame. If it takes a village to raise a child, well- whatever happened to the village? We created a facebook group to help  rebuild community spirit. It’s a giveaway group- so if you have extra things around the house you don’t need anymore, you can post them and give or lend them to neighbors. It’s okay if you don’t have anything to give- if you need something, you can ask to see if anyone else has it. The only rule is that everything must be given away for free to build gratitude and generosity. It’s a great way to meet new people and save money.

Joining is easy and free, would you like to check it out?

---

If they say yes, hand them a flyer. Also casually mention the work less, live more project. The flyers should have an extended section which bullet-points the other community programs your local group is working on.

-----

The Global Assembly: “Take care of your community, and your community will take care of you”.

Here are some of the other awesome money-saving, community-building activities we’re working on in [your neighborhood name]

- Want free electricity? Join our neighborhood solar co-op! Call (Phone #)

- Need extra help around the house? Join a community project to earn time credits you can use to get people to help mow your lawn, cook for you, keep company or almost anything else- all for free! Learn how it works here. (link)

- Save up to 50% on groceries by joining the neighborhood buyer’s club! 

Next: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-6-essence-of-transition.html

Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-4-how-to-solve-money-time-and.html

Page 4: How to solve money, time, and interest problems.

Three problems, and how to solve them.

We now return to the three major problems listed in the beginning and explain how this new approach can solve them in one go.

1) Money and 2) Time. Money-time. Why not just put the two together? They’re closely related. If you don’t make money, you can’t survive. To make money, you spend time working at some job. The time spent at the job takes away from the time you can spend helping spread the word about RBE. In order to transition to RBE, it’s going to take money. Some plans cost more than others, and this is certainly on the low end of the scale, but it still will require money nonetheless.

It’s even more basic than that. Whenever you buy something, you’re really paying for someone’s time. “Material Costs” are just time costs- the time it took for someone to build the necessary materials. Of course, profit and subjective demand fits in there too, but for the most part everything boils down to time.

We may not have a lot of money, but we do have time. Since time is money, that’s all we need. Even with a small group, we can trade meals and services amongst ourselves to save and put the cash towards a monthly energy independence fund. Money is just an abstract representation of value anyway, and anything can be money so long as someone accepts it.

Which leads us to…

Funding initial community transition efforts through Time Credits

These ideas are adapted from Ubuntu and Spice.

Lower your expectations. You will not be able to completely stop using money in one go. Our goal is gradually lowering the amount of money we use in everyday life until we simply don’t need it anymore. The most elegant solution I’ve found so far is time credits. The idea is simple: One hour of community service equals one time credit. You can then use these time credits to “buy” one hour of time from someone else. Your credits can continually circulate through the community, creating more value as they go along. For example, if you spend an hour growing food for the group, you get a time credit someone else in the group will accept to clean your house.

At the time of writing (9/12/15), time credits are considered nontaxable by the IRS so long as they are only used for services and not exchanged for goods. If you live somewhere else, we encourage you to do research and consult legal counsel.

Through The Global Assembly, we can “fund” transition efforts by giving away Time Credits and creating a platform of exchange. One hour’s worth of work is always equal to one hour- no exceptions. In later stages, we can pay essential workers (doctors, farmers, policemen etc) a “bonus” hourly credit for each hour of work to motivate them to join.

Printing your own time credits is easy. Create a captivating design and aim to fit 10 to a sheet of paper, while including a “learn more” link to your local assembly facebook page on each one. If you can, add in a QR code for easy scanning. Educating people and getting your time credits circulating is the hard part, and that’s why you need to partner with other local organizations. This is where our brand name can begin to work for us as our groups lean on each other.

- Have your project manager create a “Council of Elders”. Bring together 12 respected people from around your city, perhaps church leaders/members, nonprofit managers and business owners. Sell them the vision of an abundant, self-sufficient city described in Ubuntu. This council will decide which community projects get “funded” in time credits. Since our project manager created the council and controls it, he/she can steer it towards sustainability projects such as gardens, housing and education. The core ongoing projects can’t change, but any number of additional community service initiatives can be added. The project manager only stays as an official member until the council can stand on its own two feet- then, to grant it more legitimacy the council holds public elections to choose future members.

You don’t have to build from scratch, and if you attempt to go it alone you will fail miserably. Approach organizations who are already doing volunteer work and ask them to start handing out community credits. To motivate people to work on community projects, participating organizations should “charge” a small amount of credit (15 or 30 minutes) for their services.

- Put that business manager to work. Grow your network and get businesses involved by convincing them to accept community credits. For tax reasons, only service-oriented businesses will be eligible to participate, though any business can accept the credits at their own risk. Give people places to spend their credits. School performances, hair salons and barber shops, massage therapists, bowling alleys and so on.

- Have your social media manager create a local service exchange on reddit. The service exchange functions as a way for people who have time credits to find people willing to do projects.

3) Interest: How do you get other citizens to join? Here again, it’s pretty simple. Appeal to peoples’ interest in saving money. Avoid discussing a moneyless economy, the Federal Reserve, banks or environmental catastrophe. There’s no need to get into hour-long debates. It’s so much easier when you just ask people if they’d like to “ work less and have more.”

Simply print up a bunch of Work Less, Have More flyers and distribute them within churches and schools. Here’s an example flyer, edit it as you see fit.

---

Originally Written by Michael E.V Knight

Would you like to..

Work less and have more?

If only you had to work for just 20 hours a week to get everything you and your family need- and instead of getting “paid” you receive FREE rent, utilities, food, clothes, internet access, local transportation, haircuts/styling and other salon offerings, massages, tool rentals, golf, basketball, swimming and just about any sport you want to play, classes in anything you want to learn like cooking, programming, art or any other skill our members know and want to share with each other.  

If only you could cut your cost of living by up to 50%-all while enjoying a higher quality of life and more time doing what you want to do.  

This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, and you don’t have to move out to the country. We’re just a rapidly-growing group of people who are ready to drop out of the rat race and save money so we can spend more time with friends and family.

Sound good? If so, please watch these videos for more info: goo.gl/2K2isA

After you watch and like this video, you’re ready to get started. Please join us here to learn more- It’s free! [insert your local global assembly facebook group]

Together,

We can all work less and have more. Thank you.

Next Page: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-5-general-ideas-starter-projects.html

Previous Page: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-3-stages-of-transition.html

Page 3: Stages of Transition

Stages of Transition

Step One: Take stock of local assets and create an action plan.

Each community has different resources. You may have plentiful sunshine, wind power, or empty lots. Work with your group to take stock of local assets that could be useful in transition and create an action plan. This action plan, which is a localized and in-depth transition plan, is then presented to community thought leaders you identify in an attempt to “sell your vision” and get them to help promote the time bank. Keep in mind you don’t need their support before your group can start trading with itself.  Make two versions: One that’s in-depth, and another that’s simple so it can be read by people who don’t have much time.

Step Two: Decide where you want to begin.

Chances are, you don’t have a “full team”. That’s okay- just determine your priorities, assign roles and develop your satellite teams.

Step Three: Sell the vision, sell the plan.

One thing I’ve learned from experience is to have your plan ready BEFORE you attempt to sell your vision to others. Start with the overview to gauge interest, and if you find people who want to help, invite them to your local group. Build a mailing list and get more input. At this point, you may have to edit the plan somewhat.

Step Four: Get on the floor.

(Actually ground, but hey floor rhymes). Each of your independent members’ satellite teams should have mini-plans of their own. They should have a list of 2-3 near-term projects they can work on to further the transition in their area.

- Develop near term projects and begin work preparation

- Fix any niggling issues

- Consolidate your attainable goals

Step Five: Deepen your network.

Get more people involved and broaden your reach. Actually do projects, and network these projects with other efforts. This step may take some time.

- Don’t go it alone

- Results matter, not speed

Step Six: Local Assemblies gain legitimacy

Legitimacy and recognition come only from results. Around now, you should begin to see some payoff from all that hard work, and you can hold your first elections. Assemblies assume the position of a parallel institution and provide local services, as desired by the people.

- Give the people true democracy: Start offering happiness surveys and being responsive to the needs of your community. It’s at this point where you can start referring to people as “citizens” of the global assembly.

Murray Rothbard:

“The American Revolution occurred precisely by the people spontaneously and voluntarily creating local and then regional committees and assemblies totally apart from the State apparatus, and progressively taking on more and more of the State’s functions."

Step Seven: Community-owned businesses are created and gain market share

Following your local transition plan, your COBs open for customers and gain market share due to lower prices.

- Acquisition of resources

- Pay for more advanced self-sufficiency technology

Most societies of any size follow these stages of development; they may be useful for you when deciding which businesses to open first.

1. Agricultural (Mainly grows crops)

2. Cottage (Using the crops you grow to make clothes, cheese and baskets etc)  

3. Light Industry (Final Assembly of products from other places)

4. Heavy Industry (Creation of raw materials)

5. High-Technology (Where most 1^st world countries are now)

6. Full Automation? (Where we want to be in 10-20 years)

Step Eight: More growth

Nearby communities are forced to get with the program through pure economic necessity.

- Open “embassies” in nearby cities to act as pop-up information centers

- Blue shirt rallies and flash mobs are organized to raise awareness.

- “Colonies”, or outlying business partners join the network to cut costs and begin step seven anew.

- The bustling market becomes a major revenue generator and attraction in its own right.

Step Nine: Local Assemblies network with each other and begin to govern

After creating so much change on the ground, The Global Assembly has given community residents a taste of true autonomy. We encourage residents to ratify the new constitution they’ve developed through numerous consultations, and the city becomes fully autonomous if not by law, in practice. Local Assemblies provide education, health services, recycling, community policing plus a fair system of dispute mediation. All the while, the same thing happens in nearby cities around the country and world.

There will be no distinct day or moment when The Global Assembly “takes control”. Rather, a gradual process of the new constitution spreading and being seen as legitimate, along with an effective hollowing-out of state power will lead to transition over time. Compare to how the seemingly all-powerful monarchies and Soviet Union crumbled through loss of authority and legitimacy. Very few people will be voting in the “official” elections at this point.

Step Ten: The assemblies’ first IPO

Any remaining private businesses cash in, give their resources to the people and use the credits to buy stock in various assemblies around the world.

Step Eleven: Transition Complete

The worlds’ resources and people are now under democratic control. 

Next: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-4-how-to-solve-money-time-and.html

Prev: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-guide-to-transition-for-rbe.html

A guide to Transition for RBE supporters: Page 2

Creating Your Local Assembly: Get Your Dream Team.

Before you do anything, make sure you have a core team of committed and highly-motivated people who understand the vision. One person is not enough: 5-10 is the best place to start, but getting a team of 12 on board is the end goal. If you haven’t already, create a local assembly on Facebook (Click here for more info). You’ll organize efforts, events and projects from the Facebook group while trading services on Reddit. Each assembly member has a unique role to fill- it’s here that you’ll choose which projects you want to work on first and who will do them.

Roles

Each team member focuses on a specific aspect of transition and develops a small satellite team around their efforts. These new members should come from outside the seed group so everyone has time to devote all their attention to one particular area. It’s every member’s responsibility to network with other residents and organizations to spread the word, although the group as a whole can get together when necessary.

- Business: Gets local businesses on board with the time credit program described below.

- Food: Works on food security: This member creates a buyer’s club for the assembly or otherwise approaches landowners to do landsharing- where a landowner allows a gardener to farm on their property in exchange for a share of the crops. Local schools, churches and next door neighbors are good places to start. A natural extension of the buyer’s club is a supper club- where members of the group rotate meal preparation to save time and money. This can only work if people live close together.

Food buying club: http://www.foodclub.org/

Land Sharing: http://www.landshare.net/

- Energy: The goal of the energy transition manager is to work on energy independence in the form of a neighborhood solar co-op. You can save up to 30% if you buy solar power in bulk, and canvassing the neighborhood is a great way to get the word out. Partnering with existing organizations is the best bet here. We want to add a twist to our solar panels: The panels will be collectively owned, with a requirement to perform three hours of community service weekly (on a sustainability project) to retain them.

- Education: Builds relationships with local schools to help make open schooling a reality. These relationships can then be used to get the principals on board with the community credit program. “Open schooling” means that schools are free and open for 2 hours after classes to anyone who wants to teach a class/share a skill.

- Recruitment: Creates advertising, passes out flyers, builds buzz, with a goal to sign up as many for the global assembly’s projects (listed below) as possible. An initial goal is to grow your seed groups on Facebook and Reddit to at least 100 people so real expansion can begin.

- Project Manager: Someone who creates community projects, vets them and distributes time credits to team leaders to pay volunteers. 

- Legal: A person who has legal knowledge and has preferably worked with nonprofits before.

- Social Media: Social Media managers manage the local assembly’s facebook and reddit pages, with the goal of building an active group.  

- Government:  Builds relationships with local government officials and works to slowly introduce them to the vision.

 - Transportation: Arranges carpools.

- Media: Works on public image and news stories, actively carries out the media plan to build robust assembly-managed local alternatives. Controlling the message is essential.

- Housing: The housing manger looks for ways to save money on housing costs- and the main way (other than cutting work-for-shelter deals with landlords) is sharing a home with 1 or 2 other group members while splitting the expenses.

If you have more people, you can add positions like: 

- Accountant: Keeps track of the inflow/outflow of time credits, monies and deals with whatever taxes should they be necessary.

- Property: This member creates a local community land trust to begin accepting land donations.

These are only examples, and it’s okay to start small. The important thing is to get started. Pick the roles you feel are most essential and expand later. This is just a core list of skills that are helpful for most transition teams.

Making Decisions

Stay away from consensus-based decision-making like the plague! It’s slow, crippling and has paralyzed far too many activist groups (poor decision-making is why Occupy failed). Instead, if you want to make sure you’re making the right choice, use 66% or 75% supermajorities. Create a group constitution to spell out how you will operate, your core values, aims and goals.

Our Value Proposition

We can't succeed without buy-in from the larger community. "Selling" our vision won't be hard as long as we stay reasonable. It’s not unattainable or out-of-reach: We want to build stronger neighborhoods that save money. Our goal is to create abundant, prosperous communities where everyone’s basic needs can be met if we all pitch in 10 hours of community service per week (Contributism). Avoid talking about a moneyless economy or eliminating money in this early phase- that will only scare people away. Keep the conversation directed towards working less and having more while preparing your community in case the food or energy supply is ever disrupted. All we need is 5% of the local population to participate, before the rest are forced to join.

That’s really all we can ask for. From there, we can work on automation to eliminate most of those hours. 

Next Page: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/page-3-stages-of-transition.html

Previous Page: http://globalassembly.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-guide-to-global-assembly-and.html