Distributive Enterprise

Description

From the Open Source Ecology wiki:

"A Distributive Enterprise is a social enterprise that focuses on open economic development. In particular, it is a transparent enterprise which maintains the open replication of such an enterprise - independently by others - at the core of its operational strategy. As such, this differs from a traditional franchise - in that the Distributive Enterprise (perhaps to be called Open Franchise?) has no strings attached. The goal is to create an economic system that promotes not only production of wealth, but also, its distribution. The goal of Distributive Enterprise is to bring about true 'enlightened self-interest' into the economic playing field - by an a priori assumption that economic self-interest is promoted most deeply via the efficiency of collaboration.

The goal is to address the issue of artificial scarcity and Disparity of Wealth as related both to peoples' lifestyles and to global geopolitics. Another goal is to embody a Higher Purpose in the economic system and in lifestyle choices.

To test the usefulness and purpose of its results - a distributive enterprise dogfoods its own products. Participants in distributive enterprise aim to blend their lifestyle with their work - as an expression of consistency between one's values and one's actions. This leads to a connection of the economy to addressing pressing world issues.

The Distributive Enterprise concept builds upon the notions of appropriate scale proposed by E.F. Schumacher, upon the concept of economic swadeshi proposed by M.K Gandhi - and it is updated by bringing it into the digital age where information can be shared readily. The Distributive Enterprise model is an expression of human-centered economics of collaborative production - where people regain their autonomy in a complex world." (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Distributive_Enterprise)