Presentation in 'Rebooting Economies' session, FABxLive

1. Miro board for brainstorming
Cindy Kohtala
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Design
Aalto University
Finland
miro.com/app/board/o9J_koBpCjs=/

2. Helsinki Hacklab
May 2015
photo Cindy Kohtala
THE PRESENT

3. "Distributed
Economies"
“increasing the value addition to
local resources”
“increasing the diversity and
intensity of communication and
collaboration among regional
activities”
Mirata, M., Nilsson, H., & Kuisma, J. (2005). ‘Production systems aligned with distributed economies:
Examples from energy and biomass sectors.’ Journal of Cleaner Production, 13(10–11): 981–991.
”large scale,
centralised
production units"
“distancing production from
consumers and thereby hiding
the environmental and social
costs”
“weakening the local actors’
possibilities to have ownership
and control over their immediate
economic environment”

4. Distributed Economies
Flexible, small-scale production systems
Reinventing quality and prioritising it before production
efficiency
Heterarchies and open innovations instead of hierarchies
and closed innovation
Symbiotic relationships – higher performance needed for
future challenges come from self-organising non-
competitive processes
Johansson, A., Kisch, P. and Mirata, M. (2005). ‘Distributed economies –
A new engine for innovation’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 13(10-11): 971–979.

5. Vezzoli, C, García, B., Kohtala, C., dos Santos, A., Balasubramanian, R., Ceschin, F., Molina, S., Punekar, R.M., Castillo, L., Raymond, C.,
Ruhode, E., Zhang, J., Xin, L., Diehl, J.C. (2020, in press). Designing Sustainability for All: The design of Sustainable Product-Service
Systems applied to Distributed Economies. London: Springer Nature.

6. Trashlab repair event
February 2016, Fine Arts Academy, Helsinki
photo Cindy Kohtala
THE PAST

7. Kalmi, P. (2007). ‘The Disappearance of Cooperatives from Economics Textbooks. Cambridge Journal of Economics 31 (4): 625–647.

8. Sabel, C., & Zeitlin, J. (1985). ‘Historical Alternatives to Mass Production: Politics, Markets and Technology
in Nineteenth-Century Industrialization.’ Past & Present, 108: 133–176.

9. Carson, K. A. (2010). The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto. Booksurge.

10. prefigurative movements “inculcate the cultural
values, habits, or personality styles around which
we envision the successor society being
constituted”
interstitial describes an approach “to building the
actual institutional structure of the successor
society within the shell of the existing one” …
“things that will grow and coalesce into the core
of the postcapitalist system and eventually
supplant capitalism”
Carson, K. A. (forthcoming). Exodus: General Idea of the Revolution in the XXI Century.

11. Fellesverkstedet Fab Lab
Oslo, Norway
Sept 2017
photo Cindy Kohtala
THE FUTURE

12. https://disco.coop

13. Commons/P2P
Self-organising systems
stewarding resources to
meet human needs while
leveraging the power of
networks
https://disco.coop
Open Coops
Combine Open Source
and Commons Principles
with the Cooperative
and Social Solidarity
movements
Open Value Accounting
Enables value
sovereignty by
rewarding meaningful
contributions to projects,
rather than wage labour
Feminist Economics
Challenge normative
economic abstractions
while factoring
reproductive and care
work

14. Based on seven non-prescriptive principles
(updated from the original cooperative principles),
DisCOs are:
Oriented towards social and environmental ends
Multi-constituent in nature
Active creators of commons
Transnational in nature
Centered on care work
Prototypes for new flows of values
Designed to be federated
https://disco.coop

15. cindy.kohtala@aalto.fi
@ckohtala
ckohtala@social.coop Open Source Circular Economy Days Helsinki 20
June 2017, Teurastamo, Helsin
photo Cindy Kohta