Pluralistic Capital Allocation Using Blockchain Tools
* Article: Beyond Narrow Optimization. Reimagining Capital in the Networked Age. Benjamin Life. Sep 03, 2025
URL = https://omniharmonic.substack.com/p/beyond-narrow-optimization?
Description
"This essay argues that by developing pluralistic capital allocation systems, we can transcend the limitations of narrow financial optimization while preserving the coordinative efficiency that markets provide. By expanding what we measure, value, and incentivize, we can build economic systems that optimize for human flourishing and ecological sustainability rather than extraction and accumulation."
Contextual Quote
1.
"What we need is neither unfettered markets nor hegemonic state control, but a new economic theory of value—a regenerative cryptoeconomic framework that leverages decentralized technologies to create pluralistic economic structures. Such structures would enable communities to define, measure, and exchange diverse forms of value without relying on either corrupted state power or extractive market mechanisms. By creating economic infrastructure that can recognize and incentivize contributions to social cohesion, ecological health, and human flourishing, we can build systems that generate and equitably distribute real value rather than extracting and concentrating financial wealth."
2.
"The future of capital allocation lies not in the persistence of monistic valuation nor in its mere negation, but in a dialectical synthesis that preserves the coordinative efficiency of markets while transcending their reductionist value frameworks. By expanding what we measure, value, and incentivize, we can build economic systems that optimize not for narrow financial returns but for the flourishing of human and more-than-human communities across multiple generations."
- Benjamin Life [1]
Discussion
A Commons-Based Peer Production System for Capital Allocation
Benjamin Life:
"The transition from theoretical frameworks to implemented systems requires attention to what sociologist Bruno Latour terms "translation"—the process by which abstract ideas become concrete sociotechnical arrangements. This translation process involves several interconnected components:
Ontological engineering. Developing formal taxonomies of value that can be computationally represented and operated upon. This involves collaborating with diverse communities to articulate the values they wish to see recognized and incentivized.
Mechanism design. Creating incentive structures that align individual actions with collective flourishing. This draws on game theory while recognizing that people respond to social and intrinsic motivations, not just financial ones.
Governance protocols. Establishing decision-making processes appropriate to different types of value creation. This incorporates insights from democratic theory and commons governance.
Integration interfaces. Building bridges between on-chain and off-chain systems to ensure real-world impacts. This involves developing verification systems that connect digital representations to material outcomes.
These components form what might be termed, following Yochai Benkler, a "commons-based peer production" system for capital allocation—one that enables distributed coordination without requiring reduction to a single value metric.
The implementation of these systems builds on what philosopher Manuel DeLanda, following Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, terms "assemblage theory"—recognizing economic systems as emergent from heterogeneous components rather than expressions of underlying universal laws. This perspective allows for experimental implementation rather than awaiting comprehensive theoretical resolution of all conceptual tensions."
(https://omniharmonic.substack.com/p/beyond-narrow-optimization?)