Original subtitles

[upbeat folk music]

[ocean waves crashing]

[mellow music]

-[people chatting] -[instruments tuning]

[Yuel Yawney] Should we just double-check our tuning?

[instruments tuning]

[chamber music]

[Gar Alperovitz] I think there's a lot of things going on that are

driving people to experiment, and to explore,

and hunger for something different.

It's a very interesting time in history

where people are beginning to see

the old system isn't working.

Not only economically, ecologically, but in human terms.

[Richard Sennett] You can look at cooperation

as an ethical, good-hearted thing.

Or you can look at it as something people need to do

to take their work seriously,

to take other people seriously,

to organize politically.

This isn't touchy feely stuff.

This is about actually getting the world to work.

[John Fullerton] We're in transition,

and what's remarkable to me is that people feel that in their bones.

We need to figure out how to align

the human economy with the principles and patterns

that tend to operate in all living systems.

That's the essence of it.

And so the challenge is to kind of

figure out how to switch out

the engines on the plane while we're keeping the plane in the air.

[chamber music]

What if we were able to

really build the foundations of a cooperative world?

What would it look like?

What would be free and exciting?

What would be generous?

What would be moral?

What would be exciting? What would be liberating?

That's the kind of direction we're talking about.

We're at ground zero beginning to explore

designs that take us beyond the 20th century capitalism,

20th century socialism.

There are a lot of people beginning to say

there's gotta be a better way.

You talking about changing the system,

the whole system?

That's what this is about,

but that means people have to really

start small, but also think big.

[mellow music]

[Jessy Kate Schingler] Housing is one of the primary social institutions.

We have an opportunity through technology and

kind of open collaborative

philosophies that have been emerging in the last few years

to really rethink the way that the built environment works

and the way

that major societal structures work.

I helped to instigate the project

that we're sitting in right now.

It's called The Red Victorian,

and it's a 20-room hotel,

um, bed and breakfast, it's been here for 100 years.

We took it over about a year ago,

and turned it into what we're calling a co-living hotel.

The Red Victorian is really

a new way of thinking about home and housing

in the 21st century.

It's a combination of long-term residential accommodations,

but in a very fluid way with short-term housing options.

So we have people staying here everywhere from one night

to one month to indefinitely.

We're aiming to serve, you know, the kind of modern,

nomadic creative population,

and so people are often traveling,

or they're working late,

or their schedules are very different.

We don't have a particular hierarchy,

and I certainly wouldn't call myself a, um...

like the boss or the manager, or we're all managers,

or, you know, you can think of it in many different ways,

but it's a cooperatively run space.

[man] Okay, which one are we looking at?

-[woman] Can I show you something? -[man] Sure.

[Schingler] The way we make decisions at The Red Victorian is

open to everybody who's in the community.

I went and I met with the Department of Public Health,

and they provided a couple of options

for what we could do in the short term to be compliant

with what health codes are required.

So the first is that we could be officially

a bed and breakfast, providing the breakfast

and other things that go along with that.

It means that only employees and innkeepers,

which they don't even know what they're defined as,

may provide food for the guests,

but we have to provide it,

and the guests can't provide it, can't access it themselves.

That's so silly 'cause it, like,

precludes you from doing new and innovative stuff.

We basically don't fit into any of the boxes

that they have for anything.

They could basically say you've gotta shut down your hotel

because you're not complaint.

We're witnessing an era

where the diversity of economies are starting to flourish

and so government doesn't know what to do.

[woman] But this seems to be written for, like, a B&B

that's family-run.

-Yeah, yeah. -Is what I'm seeing here.

[man] Family-run bed and breakfast,

-That's a thing right? -Yeah.

But, yeah, that's actually...

It turns out a co-living hotel is a family-run bed and breakfast.

-Who knew? -Easy.

[man] Thanks everyone for coming tonight.

This is our Wednesday dinner at The Red Victorian.

For those of you who may not have been here before,

the Red Vic is our home.

[people chatting]

[Schingler] I'm really inspired by living

around and being exposed to people

who are up to amazing things in the world.

We can provide an environment and a structure

that not only selfishly gets us exposed to those people,

but, actually, I think supports and amplifies the work that they're doing

by making it easier for them to do what they're doing

and also to hopefully meet others

who are inspiring to them.

We've been totally bootstrapped up to this point.

I mean, I think that this--

To me,

a very exciting aspect of having a physical building

is that it's an opportunity

to provide literally a container for a whole bunch of humans

to walk through the door,

and when you walk through that door,

we get to say, "Hey, the rules are a little bit different here."

We really like to play with that in terms of having people getting to say,

"Actually, here you do have a say in things," and then

looking at it and saying, "Okay, well, how's that working?"

Like, you know, "Actually, that didn't work very well,

but that worked really well.

Okay, let's update how we're doing things and try it again,"

And it's sort of a... It's a big experiment.

[chamber music]

[Sennett] I first really understood about cooperation

because my background is as a musician,

and, of course, when we play chamber music

or any kind of music that doesn't have a conductor,

we have to find ways to cooperate.

You know, the way most musicians rehearse

is by grunts

or eye contact, you know,

or grimaces.

[chamber music]

[Yawney] Like being able to really listen to the other person,

all three of them, in fact, you're kind of trying to hear

three voices in your head at the same time

as you're looking at your own music and playing together,

so you kind of get into the flow as a group.

Do you know what? I think we need to practice number one,

just right from there, from one to two.

Yeah, why don't we try one at a time?

Why don't you do it once with her from one?

[playing]

[Nikita Pogrebnoy] Yeah, we are part of one thing and, you know,

each-- each one of us have a role, and, uh...

And sometimes we're trading in roles,

so it's a real conversation, sort of...

Well, reminiscent of... of life.

You know, it's communicating.

It's fun.

[chamber music]

[Lissa Goldstein] We are on about one and a half acres of urban land.

It was a parking lot,

and through a partnership with Concord Pacific,

we have been able to farm this land.

So we are an urban farm.

[Michael Ableman] We felt certainly a great need on the downtown east side

that nothing agricultural was going on,

that a social enterprise based on agriculture

had the potential to not only provide meaningful work,

but also a number of other healing aspects

that occur by nature of working the soil,

growing living things, taking care of something,

feeding other people.

So we have five farms. Each is different.

They each are in different neighborhoods.

They each are doing different things.

Uh, this is an orchard, for example.

Pacific and Carol, our largest site, big production,

and First and Clark, an entire acre,

16,000 square feet

of unheated tunnel houses.

You know, where we're producing tomatoes and peppers

and melons and things like that.

So, we have to, because of the...

the intensity and scale of the operation, we have to make

maximum use of time and space.

So, as soon as a crop is done, boom,

replant, you know.

Here people are using these words "urban agriculture."

Nobody had ever heard those two words together.

When I would describe it, it was like, "What?"

And we felt we needed to demonstrate

that it was possible to have a successful enterprise

business based on agriculture in the city,

and at the same time support people's needs.

We had to bring the farm to the city.

You know, we had to create within these boxes

an entire ecosystem.

Kinda crazy, imperfect,

but has potential. [chuckles]

[Goldstein] We are providing employment to people

who are facing barriers.

Sometimes that's an addiction,

sometimes that's a mental illness,

sometimes it's a physical illness.

Whatever the barrier,

it makes it hard for most of our staff to work a regular job.

They need a job where there's flexibility and understanding

about the ups and downs of their-- of their lives.

-Right there, lemon tree

with lemons, right?

That's special.

It's awesome, yeah, yeah.

I missed my calling, man.

I should have been a fucking gardener, right?

You know, instead of what I was.

[Hayes] It's not very often, like, down here

'cause, you know, you're pretty rough around the edges,

that you get to care and nurture for something.

When I was a kid, punishment was going to weed the garden,

so when I came here, it's like, "Oh, man what am I doing?

I remember this."

But it's not like that, right?

You get into the soil and stuff.

You get to see stuff grow, and, actually,

it's kind of beautiful, right?

It is beautiful. It's not kind of beautiful. It is beautiful.

[Ableman] Sole Food has two primary goals, you know.

One is the a social one,

and I think one is an agricultural one.

The social one is first and foremost.

But the agricultural one

dominates and informs the social piece.

This, as a community,

this is a place to go,

this is a reason to get up in the morning.

This has a choice between something that's gonna bring you down

and something that might be positive and, you know.

This is where you're getting hung up right here.

[Alain Guy] 'Cause these guys, they don't give up on you.

You don't show up, you're not feeling too good,

you're not making it, come back the next day,

we'll keep working.

You don't get fired here.

And, hey, I come in every day.

Oh, I missed one day last month,

and that's the only day I missed.

I do all the seeding here just about.

Yeah, I guess I'm the boss for here.

Tell people where they need to be,

what needs to get done and stuff like that,

but it's only my second year, and I'm still learning,

and I'm learning from the best.

Lissa is a beast.

She might be small, she's strong, too.

She can work her butt off.

[Ableman] She's awesome.

She really kinda holds us all together for us.

And-- and she's a good weeder.

Thanks, Michael.

At least I know I can't mess that up.

[laughing]

[Goldstein] Why do I do this?

Some days I don't know. [laughing]

I mean, we all want the world to be a better place,

and I think that there's real...

For me, personally, there was a lot of transformative power

in agriculture in my life.

I come from a really privileged world.

I... I went to university,

which was paid for primarily by my parents.

I grew up in a stable household

with a really loving family.

I had people all along telling me that I could do things.

It is quite hard coming in this.

You try to find a common ground with people.

I don't know what it's like to go through opiate withdrawal.

I don't know what it's like to be... not be able to get

my prescription in the morning when I need it every day.

There's days when, like, I really can't understand

what someone's dealing with,

but you can be compassionate.

[mellow music]

[Hayes] A lot of people on the east side are great people.

It's just that they don't think that they're worth

the puddle that they're stepping in,

and that's the truth, right?

You know.

I've been a heroin addict for about 20 years.

I battle with addiction, and, uh...

it didn't matter to them.

Right? Like, it didn't matter to them.

Like, you know, I had track marks, it didn't matter.

I wasn't being judged, you know, like,

"What's going on here?" Right?

[Ableman] The power of what we've done here

has to be shared, both by the influence

of the soil and the plants and the healthy food,

but also by the community of people

who have been involved with this experience.

It's about the people.

[Fullerton] What we see emerging is what we call

a regenerative economy,

and in very simple terms, we're having this conversation

because our bodies have been,

and are continuing to regenerate.

So we're sustainable because we're regenerating,

and, uh... and the whole universe works that way.

And we see it everywhere,

usually driven by the intuition of an entrepreneur,

who has no theoretical framework in mind.

They intuit it.

So that's why I'm confident that it's an emergent property,

and it's amazing how often we see these patterns repeating themselves.

[mellow music]

[David Thuss] The London Brewing Cooperative

is located in London's Old East Village.

Tight community, vibrant community,

um, a community that really has its own identity and is

uh, kind of moving forward.

[Aaron Lawrence] I suppose it's got its roots in, uh,

my friend Marcus receiving a used book for his birthday

Papazian's New Complete Joy of Home Brewing,

and he sent me an email and said, "Hey, you wanna brew beer?"

And I liked beer.

I had no idea it could be made.

[Thuss] We were brewing together, you know, in my garage

just with, you know, something we built.

It was a propane-fired, gravity-fed system.

I mean, we didn't paint it up even to look nice.

It was very utilitarian.

It made beer, it made very good beer.

Everybody has a good time brewing the beer.

Everybody has a good time sitting around and chatting.

And usually beer brings out some good debate,

brings out-- brings people together.

[Jeff Pastorius] It was a very makeshift system

uh, that we had, you know, thrown together

and garage door wide open so the propane fumes could go out and...

You know, we were just having a lot of fun brewing beer.

And, uh, we started to realize, wait a minute,

these recipes are actually...

people kinda like them, and it's starting to work.

And we looked at different models of... of cooperative brewing,

um, ways that a brewery could both be

financially viable, but also be collectively owned.

And, uh, we couldn't figure it out,

so we just kept brewing,

but we just enlarged the circle.

At that point, it was myself, Dave...

Dave often jokes that he got involved 'cause he had a garage.

Um, that's partially true.

[Alperovitz] I think people want to be in on big decisions that matter.

How to structure that becomes really tricky.

We have to learn that. It doesn't come naturally.

A cooperative is simply a one-person,

one-vote ownership structure.

So you get a group of people together, everybody gets a vote,

and you set up a company or a bank or a store or a farm.

It's a very simple structure.

[Thuss] We purposely located ourselves in Old East Village.

It's a neighborhood we love,

it's a neighborhood that many of us live in,

and so we want to be part of that community.

So we don't want to have a huge,

you know, pollution-spewing kind of operation.

We want to have a community brewery,

so one that everybody feels they can be a part of,

um, everyone feels that

is doing things that are in the best interest of the community.

[Lawrence] Co-ops, I mean, they're a very old business model,

they're an underutilized business model,

and, I mean, at the premise,

they're about a more equitable distribution of power and wealth.

If we can just make a couple of notes of positive

and then things to improve on maybe?

[Thuss] The idea is a very beautiful one

when you think about how it can work

and how everyone works together.

Do it on a night that...

Like, on a Friday or a Saturday night potentially

when we're gonna be busy in the cellar.

[Lawrence] It's one member, one vote. It's not $1, one vote.

So it doesn't matter how much of the company you own,

how much you have invested, um...

it's that you have a stake in the outcome.

That's a food house. That's a real food house.

[Thuss] So there's no need for a president,

there's no need for a secretary,

but they say, "No, no you need to have one.

What kind of corporation doesn't have a president?"

[Lawrence] So it's about engagement.

It's about folks having control over the workplace

as much as they also end up in a position

of the workplace having control over them, right?

[woman] He must have misgivings.

[Jenellie Hellyer] At the end of the day, we're people helping people,

and I think that's how a lot of

my coworkers view this job,

and if you're coming into this job from a non-cooperative structure,

then it can be very different,

but I do think it-- it encourages folks to view their work differently,

and, therefore, work in... in a different way.

We're not taught to cooperate,

and we're not taught to trust.

Um, think of all the board games that we played when we were kids.

I just remember playing with my cousins and you got,

Monopoly, and it's about being at the top.

-Working together is-- -Working together is really hard.

[laughing]

Um, and when everyone has...

I mean, the purpose of a worker co-op is democracy between workers.

Um, so when everyone has an equal voice,

it-- it can be difficult to reach a consensus.

But, yeah, basically human interaction is hard,

especially when there's not a hierarchy saying,

you know, "I'm the manager, this is what we're gonna do."

[Thuss] We can all work together for somebody else's goals.

So cooperation to me means

deciding on those goals together,

and maybe the benefit of having a brewery is that

you get together and you have kind of that

you know, Habermasian cafe style where everybody debates is that...

that's the democracy,

and not a voice that's just understood through a vote,

but a true voice at the table.

Well, we're having a baby in

-a few months. -Four and a half months.

Yep, really soon, coming up really fast.

You know, this has brought another aspect

of long-term planning into our co-op meetings

and the development of our co-op. So, you know,

what does... what does maternity leave look like?

Well, we have to decide that, right?

What does paternity leave look like?

Is it going to be possible for me

to step away from my daily job

for, you know, three, four months,

maybe longer?

Um, which brings us to another complication,

which is where do we find more people

with the... you know, the vision that we have,

the dedication we have to our work?

[Lawrence] Who was I speaking to the other day

who said, "Never get in business with your friends."

And it's just like I don't know who I'd wanna work with otherwise,

because if they don't know you,

if they don't know your story,

then how do they understand where you're coming from?

It's running at 100, though, with just one element.

-100 with one is probably good. -Yeah.

But I thought a couple boilers is all right.

[baby fussing]

[Thuss] It can be a real difficulty to be

cooperative at all times, right?

To work in a democratic way

and to make sure that everyone's on board.

-How long does it take to-- -It takes 40 minutes in total.

You know, it's, again, a real reality in the corporate world.

You have a child and you need to take time off?

You're falling behind.

Do you wanna baby piece of toast?

[Lawrence] It might be easier to do if it were

just a straight-up business sometimes.

If you didn't have to deal with relationships

and you didn't have to deal with cooperation,

you might be able to do something

that was far more efficient

than what we have, but it wouldn't...

We wouldn't be the ones doing it. It'd be somebody else.

[Kelsey Brick] Well, I had kind of come to, I guess, like the end of my rope

with job hunting and had applied for several things

and wasn't really getting anywhere and saw this job posting

and then I was like,

"Oh, well, somebody who knows how to work with food

and can talk to chefs."

I'm like, "Well, that's pretty much what I've been doing my whole life,

so that job has got my name written all over it."

I guess, technically, I'm a salesperson,

but maybe this is why I'm good at sales

is 'cause I don't like sales.

I just let the quality of what we do speak for itself,

and they either

want it or they don't want it.

I don't wanna sell something to someone who doesn't want it.

There's, like-- There's-- It's dishonest.

[Kenny Vallee] My job is what I call quality control.

So, I mean, everything you see here

I-- I make sure that

I go through everything before it comes here,

so that means everything's as best as possible

and as perfect as possible.

One of the things that Sole Food's always been about,

it's always been about quality.

We will not put anything out that, you know, we wouldn't take ourselves

or more likely better than we would eat ourselves.

[Hayes] Another bonus I get that some people don't get,

I get to work the market.

So I see the finished product

and then I see the people that are buying that product

for a really good price

and how happy they are with it.

People are happy with our product, and I love that.

[Kaylah Zander] One thing that's so great about Sole Food Farms is

I think that they know their community.

They know their neighborhood,

and that's why it's important that they're nearby.

That's why-- Another thing why we choose them is they get it.

You know, they understand the difficulties that we have.

We're very, very small, first of all,

and every day, the menu's different.

It's what's ever in season, whatever's fresh,

whatever they're proud of they send to us,

and then we use that as inspiration.

[Ableman] It's embodied in how you feel

when you've done this work.

How you feel when you see somebody who's eaten the food

and comes back and tells you how incredible it is.

Those are the things that are so intangible

and so difficult to put a value on.

-You had those before? -My first time.

Oh, man, let me see what you've got here.

Oh, yeah, that's gonna be good.

[mellow music]

[Ableman] These overpasses,

they're gonna come down in four years.

And when they do, where we sit right now,

where there's these wonderful crops growing,

you know, the carrots and the radicchio and the arugula

and parsleys and whatever's here

will be replaced with high-rises, and people will be living

on this land where we sit right now

20 or 30 stories up

as far from this

as you can possibly get.

[Thuss] So what we're doing today is

going up and down the corridor in the Old East Village,

which is where we wish to maintain our presence as a brewery

looking at potential spaces.

[realtor] Okay, so there's no light up here,

so you have to be careful and watch your step.

Okay.

Right now, we're in a lease situation,

so if we could potentially purchase a building,

if that makes more sense,

either sharing it with other businesses, et cetera,

that's what we're interested in doing.

So we're kinda doing walk-throughs.

[Thuss] Like, there was work done.

-At some point. -At some point here.

[Lawrence] Not that long ago.

[Thuss] At least it's easy to find where the roof is leaking.

There's a lot of opportunities, a lot of options,

and we're trying to just determine, what options are in fact opportunities

and what may be, uh, money pits, if you were.

[owner] The second level's been renovated.

I put $75,000 in it, brand new.

I mean, that-- It would be, um...

It's the skateboard co-op, main floor, right?

[Lawrence] Skateboard co-op on the main floor?

[owner] Yeah, yeah.

-What is the next one down? -658?

-Yeah. -Yeah, let's go. You wanna see it?

'Cause we like the skateboard co-op. They're good guys.

We don't wanna mess around with their spot.

Oh, no, they're cool. I already got a spot for them.

They actually might go there regardless if you buy it or not.

-Yeah, yeah. -'Cause they wanna go over there.

We've already talked about it.

I spoke to them about it a couple weeks ago.

-Oh, that building? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you want it, they're taken care of, trust me.

I love those guys.

-Come on in, everybody. -All right.

We're here to stay as long as we can stay.

Oh. Well, that's-- That's what he said.

We're like, "We don't even wanna look at it

if you guys are staying."

Oh, he's trying to get you guys to buy the building, too?

-Well, yeah, that's news. -Yeah, well, no, no.

The whole thing is is this is the building we want.

Yeah, that's awesome and we support that 100%.

So we'll stop looking right now.

Yeah, we wanna stay here.

There's a chance that if it doesn't work out for us here

that we'll try to get the Father and Sons building,

but this is 100%, like--

-Where you wanna be. -Yeah, man.

Oh, dude, let's... Now we're just on a tour.

Yeah, that's what we were just told that out back.

We're like, "What?"

Sorry, man, We didn't-- we didn't know that.

Well, yeah, but a certain level of honesty.

It's a chance for us to start talking about

this landlord nonsense.

Yeah. The owners of these buildings, come on.

[overlapping dialogue]

So, interesting day.

We did a bunch of stuff

and we're planning on making a ramp tonight.

[Pastorius] Like, Jim's like, "What are you guys doing here?

No, we want this building."

Like, "Aw, come on, these guys are friends. That's no good."

So we gotta clean that up.

[laughing]

You need small businesses

that may not have a ton of capital in order to buy it

to at least have a reasonable expectation that

the building won't be swept out from under them

as soon as it becomes profitable to somebody else.

[Pastorius] This neighborhood provides a real opportunity

in that it can become, if we want it to be,

it can become a place where all are accepted

where we have a mixed neighborhood

where people from all income brackets,

all walks, all backgrounds have a capacity to interact

and build a good life.

That's what we're aiming for.

Uh, there are some pretty big, um, obstacles in our way,

and quite directly,

it's those who control the property are in our way.

[Thuss] It's not money.

I mean money is, it's a necessity in this world,

but that's truly not the relationships we're trying to build.

[Fullerton] Collaboration is ultimately the more sustainable approach than...

uh, than competition,

whereas, of course, our competitive capitalist system,

in Wall Street no more than anywhere,

is rooted in the idea that, you know, this--

this false understanding of Darwin.

What Darwin said is the fittest...

In fact, he didn't even coin the term "survival of the fittest,"

but the way he used it is

fittest as in the one that fits best

within the whole system, not the strongest.

[mellow music]

So, my name is Tiberius Brastaviceanu.

People know me as Tibi.

When I first came to Canada, I was 14 years old,

and I went to University of Montreal

for a master's in Applied Physics.

Laser applications to biology and medicine.

I work here at the Sensorica Lab.

Sensorica is this new type of organization

where you're free to join

and to take initiative and start new projects.

It is a commercial venture,

and you work collaboratively with people.

And, uh, you share the revenue according to everyone's contribution.

It is a decentralized network, and there is no boss.

We focus on material production,

meaning hardware, electronics,

so we put stuff together.

So we're trying to solve how material stuff

could be produced in an open way.

Sensorica started by focusing on open source hardware,

but on the high-end side.

So we said, "Let's first prove that open source

can produce scientific instruments."

Five years ago, open source hardware was just starting.

Now we see drones and 3D printers.

These two industries are driven by open source.

[machine whirring]

This is the main hub of the network where things happen,

uh, where hardware gets done, prototyped, and produced.

And there's other people working

from their own little home labs around the world,

uh, that do some prototyping and then we mirror it here.

We're democratizing here access to the micron world.

Traditionally these pieces can cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

Open source, um, maybe 20% of the cost,

allow scientific labs in universities in the emerging world

to do their science.

My background is in lasers,

so everything you see with optics, optical fiber,

that's my contribution to the projects, yes.

The mechanical side and the electronics part,

these are other people that have contributed to it.

It's a collaborative work.

There's many different sections here.

So this is our micro 3D printer,

which will be used for, um,

micro 3D chips design.

What we do, we add an optical fiber.

It's just the size of a little hair.

So this is like a pen of light

that solidifies or polymerizes

the, um... the resin that you put inside,

and you're able to do tiny, tiny, tiny structures.

It just needs a bit of integration, but the proof of concept is done

so that's something that will go on crowd funding pretty soon.

The tiniest printer in the world. [laughs]

People here are motivated by

what's the next big thing we can work on

uh, that can... can be so disruptive, right?

From micro 3D devices

and democratizing testing of food and water quality,

how to automate a garden, how to automate a greenhouse.

Well, here's all the electronics that you need

and the software to run it.

We affectionately call this the iPot. [laughs]

A completely autonomous flower pot.

We have an atmospheric temperature and humidity sensor,

so the plant knows if the air is dry

or if the air is very humid, and it knows the temperature.

And here we have a light sensor,

so the plant knows when to turn the LED off/on

based on how much light it got during the day.

You know, the scientific instruments that reduce the cost of innovation

allows people in Africa and Asia and South America to...

to catch up with scientific development,

so I think we're highly motivated by these kind of projects.

The real change happens when economic relationships change,

and-- and so then the idea was let's set up new economic organizations,

um, based on these new principles

by respecting some fundamental principles

that were behind what was already existing,

so let's build the enterprise of the future.

And that was the seed value for the Sensorica network.

[Fabio Balli] First you have to, uh, release all the air you have, okay?

So you can jump into the water,

and then you can try to catch the stars by exhaling, okay?

Breathing Games is a project we started for children

with cystic fibrosis.

Blow, blow, blow, blow, or you're gonna hit the banan.

Ah, you hit him.

It's really about making the therapy fun.

[chuckles]

Having the therapy is quite a challenge

-for, uh, chronic illnesses... -[coughing]

...and about one person over two doesn't do the therapy well.

It's an exercise they have to do daily,

so it's quite tedious and, yeah, boring.

So the games make the...

the therapy fun, but it also gives the feedback to them

about you're breathing too... too low or too high or...

[laughing]

We just connect this medical device to the computer

so that we can use the data

for the game and for the research, too.

[man] If you want to print sensor value...

[Balli] For hospitals, it's costing

at least $1,500.

So it's not something you can have at home easily.

If we include all the parts that we plan to add

such as the memory card and the battery and so,

it would be about $200.

In a later phase, we want to do a microchip,

and it would reduce the cost to maybe $60, $80.

[Brastaviceanu] The cost of innovation using open source is very low.

These products can be 10% of the market price.

So you're sinking the, um, costs of innovation,

and you're taking away some costs of production or assembly.

Here's the file printed at your local, uh, 3D printing shop,

uh, and then put it together IKEA style.

It really reduces the costs of a product.

[Balli] With, like, open licenses,

someone could take this and improve it,

and re-share it-- re-share it.

But once it's completed,

the "how to" is gonna be put out to the world,

and anyone that has the capacity to replicate

the device can do it?

-Yes. -No cost?

But there's also going to be potentially a commercial aspect to it.

How's that gonna work?

The question is open source hardware

a viable, uh, you know, business model?

You have something at home to bake something, to bake bread?

-Oh, yes, I do. -Everybody has right?

Why don't you make your own bread?

You find tons of recipes on the Internet,

why don't you make it?

You know, and then you make money on convenience.

You say, "I can source the parts for you,

put 'em in a bag, and send them to you."

Open source hardware businesses also survive on services, okay?

People are asking, "Yeah, but if you can't patent,

how can you protect? People are gonna copy you."

[Daniel Brastaviceanu] You might gather your thing to protect your idea

and develop it,

okay, but then you patent it and you protect it,

what if tomorrow somebody,

uh, thinks of something that you guys didn't think of

and improves it, and all of the sudden, uh,

releases their new technology

that is better than yours, so yours is obsolete.

So your patent, uh, is useless.

[chuckling]

[Fullerton] This is a journey. We're on a journey to figure this out.

I'm pretty confident that

the regenerative frame is the right frame,

and a regenerative frame means that a system

is self-organizing, self-refueling...

-[chamber music] -...self-learning

and so, you know, we see it in lots of projects in the world.

It is-- It is emergent.

[Patricia Shih] Did we mention not to...

to vibrate here, or are we vibrating?

-No. -Should be no vibrato there.

[Yawney] No vibrato, okay.

Yeah, okay, let's... let's try that.

-You wanna try that? -Yeah, let's try it.

Let's try that from the top.

[chamber music]

[Sennett] A good listener is somebody who can understand meaning

beyond what people actually say.

Very few of us actually can find right away

particularly the words that

we want to use

to explain what we mean.

And a good listening skill

is the ability to sense

what's behind

what people obviously say.

If you're playing a faster tempo,

then we can't fit together, it's not working.

[Shih] Yeah, and I think Yuel's in between us,

so it's real hard for him, too.

Yeah. Well, let's try it again,

see if we can kind of feel this a little bit more together as a group.

[chamber music]

[Ben Knight] If you were describing Loomio to your brother,

I think you would say something like, um,

"Loomio is a, you know, simple technology that enables people

to come together to talk an issue through,

generate ideas,

and come to a clear, shared understanding together,

and a decision about what action to take together.

The idea came out of our experience during the Occupy movement

of the potential for collaborative decision-making.

When the process is well held,

it can be totally amazing,

like, transformative for people.

When diverse perspectives

continually fade into a collaborative process,

you know, groups can end up making more intelligent decisions

than any individual would by themselves.

[Schingler] At The Red Victorian,

we invite many people to be part

of the decision-making process,

and the way that we do that is we provide them a link to Loomio.

I'd love to get people to chime in in the next day or two.

Well, yeah, in the next 24 hours

on the Loomio thread, and then at least I'll have some

kind of direction to start a conversation with them.

Some things are decided fully on Loomio,

some things involve the offline component as well.

For larger issues, we tend to

then take that Loomio conversation,

meet in person,

and kind of go over some of the nuances,

um, as a group.

So it's like do we wanna, like, take that battle on as our own, or...?

[Knight] So when a discussion gets to the point

where someone in the group thinks,

"Hey, we can make a decision here.

I've got an idea, this is what I think the group should do."

They can put up a proposal.

And so you've got discussion on the left of the screen

and decision-making on the right,

and a proposal always has a time limit on it.

So it always comes to a clear conclusion.

So you've got this sort of divergence in the discussion,

and then you converge

on a shared outcome, an agreed outcome.

People participate in a decision

by clicking one of four buttons.

So you can either agree,

or you can sort of opt out or abstain,

or you can disagree,

which is like saying, "I don't know that it's the best idea,

but I'm not gonna stand in the way of the group,"

or you can block or raise a red flag,

which is saying, like, "I think this is a really bad idea.

I've got a serious concern that I would like to be addressed

before we move forward with this.

That's huge!

[Schingler] I think that Loomio is really interesting

for the fact that it creates space

for people to kind of take the time to deal with their emotions,

and then process them, often in more constructive ways

by writing... writing down what they're thinking.

There's all kinds of, like, you know, awful stuff that happens online,

bullying, and...

but Loomio's sort of designed with that, um...

I guess with this idea in mind that

if we design online environments

in a way that makes certain types of behavior easier,

uh, you know, so really fosters a sense of respectful, constructive dialogue,

I mean, it's really about people coming together to achieve

a shared purpose in a way that works

for all of the people involved,

and it's kind of that simple. Like, little kids get this stuff.

You know, we have 12-year-old kids using Loomio effectively

in their schools with parents and teachers

making decisions together.

[Schingler] I think that Loomio really catalyzes

those kinds of conversations, because you...

you pick up on those nuances, and you start to see them.

And it's not just actually the technology,

it's the types of collaborative structures that technology enables.

This idea that we expect democracy from our government

and we're totally fine with, like, tyranny or dictatorship

in our workplaces for some reason,

even though that's where we spend eight hours a day

for most of our lives.

Um, so I have a lot of hope that that's changing.

It feels like there's a real movement building around changing it.

It's just people coming together to achieve something

around the creation of value,

and the cooperative structure is,

we've found it to be totally flexible enough

to have, you know, real room to move,

to be adaptive, to be...

You set things up in a resilient way that does involve specialization,

and, you know, most effectively serves the social mission.

[Brastaviceanu] At Sensorica, we found, um, a system,

which is the value accounting system,

where we can log our time.

And as soon as we have finances,

we can use the log we created to redistribute the money.

Pizza number one.

Ladies and gentlemen, pizza number one.

Sensorica is a network where

people can collaborate on different projects,

and the idea is, um, that the system that we have put in place

captures all these contributions from different individuals

in the context of that particular project.

And then we decide how to share the benefits.

According to the value equation.

According to a value equation,

which is a social contract

that we, um, make and we agree on before the project starts.

So there's 5% that goes actually to sustain the infrastructure,

to sustain the labs, okay?

So, let's take this little part here,

and nobody eats this one, right?

And now here's a guy that contributed, let's say, a quarter.

Our system allows anybody in the world to contribute

as much or as little as they want.

Somebody's gonna get just a little piece,

and that's fine.

Because this guy is probably doing something else,

he's working on other projects,

and that's his little contribution.

Here, I'm gonna take this piece.

-I'm gonna be modest. -So conservative.

[laughter]

Got a big one right there?

[Brastaviceanu] How I got to the participatory economy

is by having been shocked, you know, with my previous job.

In 2006, I left Montreal to the Silicon Valley

near San Francisco,

and this is where I got my first job

as an engineer in a company manufacturing lasers.

I was very stimulated.

I put a lot of heart into... into the work,

and then 2008 financial crisis comes,

uh, and then you see how people are treated

once they're not, uh, an asset anymore.

So, I just got laid off and kicked out essentially.

That led me to use the Internet to find solutions,

and I realized how much power

the Internet can give to an individual,

um, and to groups.

So that frustration turned into something constructive.

I got the pictures.

[man] Yeah, I'm trying to see if there's more.

Well, you're-- you're there? Are you there?

[Brastaviceanu] When I first came to Canada,

I just knew a bit of English, uh, not much,

and I didn't speak French.

Canada was pretty open to

immigration from Romania back then.

I think the second community that adopted us

was the Italian community.

We spoke Italian,

and they were more established than Romanians,

who were just arriving.

[man] So you started here, what, bus boy first?

-Yeah, for sure, for sure. -I didn't speak French or English.

I just, uh... I just started working here.

And then slowly, slowly, I started to pick up orders.

Tarly was here every week.

Those were the days, my friend.

Beautiful days.

Now all of a sudden, you got smart.

Whatever you do, I hope it makes a change.

[Brastaviceanu] What do you think about change?

If it comes from you, it's probably a good thing.

[man] What a beautiful day, huh?

[speaking foreign language]

My father's place from in Romania, it's the capital of watermelon.

So this is something that we eat every day.

[woman] Do you need help? Do you need help eating it?

Yes, yes, go ahead.

It drives my mother crazy the way we eat it, going...

[laughing]

I knew the truth since I was young,

because my father was very open about it.

My father was imprisoned in Romania when he was young.

He always stood up against the regime,

so I grew up in an environment where, you know,

idealism comes first.

They're very, very supportive parents.

You know, we're always speaking about what people have done for society,

so it runs deep.

-How do you say father in, uh... -[speaks foreign language]

-Huh? -[speaks foreign language]

[Brastaviceanu repeats]

They just dropped everything to flee the country,

and that was to give us a better future.

[chamber music]

[Alperovitz] People actually come to this

kind of notion of,

what I call it building the next society,

building the next system.

They come to it from different reasons.

Some come out of a lot of pain and poverty

and excruciating difficulties.

Either try something new or we're in real trouble

Another part of it, I think, is, um...

kind of, it's cultural, but it's also people

who... who really crave getting away from individualism

somehow,

but the hunger for what community can bring.

[chamber music]

[Shih] Sometimes we can just play through the music,

the first time's not so good,

but then, even without words,

it-- it evolves into something.

I mean, we're just all giving and taking at the same time.

[mellow music]

[Sabina Ali] The mothers in Thorncliffe Park,

we wanted to make this place a better place for everyone.

I'm originally from India,

and one of my husband's friend,

he gave a tour of Thorncliffe Park,

and the first day itself, we felt home here.

The next day when we got up,

and we wanted to walk in the neighborhood,

we walked into the park,

and we were really not happy with the condition

of the park and all.

But when we are here, we have to fix things.

We came to know about a lot of women

who live in this apartment buildings,

mostly the immigrant,

and they are doing businesses from home.

-No. -[woman] Oh, my God.

They bring stuff from their home countries,

and then sell it to their neighbors, friends,

at a very good price,

and make a supplement income for themselves.

[women speaking foreign language]

This is for your great grandchildren.

[woman] When we come together, we talk about,

"Oh, this is our,

like, backyard,"

because all years, we're in back home when we are living,

house always have backyard or front yard.

There in the building, you don't have any backyard any private.

So we call this there is a backyard.

So in backyard, we have to have some activity, too.

[Ali] So we thought that this, uh, is a really good idea

to create a market.

This market will serve as a platform

for the vendors and these newcomer women

where they will feel confidence,

and, you know, and it will also empower them,

build their self-esteem,

and build the clientele as well.

This is the magical storage.

[laughing]

What you think it will be inside?

You will afraid to go farther.

[Ali] The park completely transformed.

People gathered, they--

they started looking from their apartment buildings,

and we could see the change in the park.

I'm making roti.

Roti in Persian, we say this is naan,

and the dough for roti is different,

because we add yeast for this one.

[Ali] The park serve as a common space for them

where they meet immigrants and new Canadians

and spend some good time having tea, coffee.

That was the main goal.

We are waiting, waiting until Friday come.

When we, Friday come, we come out just we enjoy.

There is something,

just because of market we come out.

[Ali] As in the new immigrants,

a lot of women go through stress and isolation on a regular basis.

And we thought, like, this market would serve

as, um, a stress-relieving agent

or something like that where people feel

really good when they come outdoors.

I mean, it's good to empower, empowerment in women

the support to get out house and to learn, yeah.

So, yeah, there's the main goals, yeah,

to empower the women, ladies.

So, yeah.

Did you buy any tray for yourself?

Did you buy any canopy for yourself?

Next year I'll be [speaking foreign language]

You won't be coming to the market.

[Ali] There are challenges, and there are achievements, right?

We started with zero,

nothing in our hands, and...

But we had a strong vision.

We had that commitment to give it to the community,

to return back to the community.

The community comes up with their own ideas,

and all because they can feel comfortable.

They feel, they see us as

part of their own self,

which is really challenging for us to take

everyone's suggestion to work on one thing,

but we do acts of the suggestions,

and we, uh, choose how best

those things fit into what we are really trying to do.

I mean, looking at the bigger goal.

Her husband passed away recently, and, for her,

these are the opportunities which provide supplement income for her

to run her house, and she has kids,

and she has to look after them,

and the more over is when she comes to the market,

she comes with the friends,

and they are supportive,

and, you know, they are always there for her.

It's like a building family kind of environment in the market,

and they're all friends come to the market to eat

what she is making, and they love doing it.

Thank you. Enjoy.

[Ali] You know, when I look at their faces,

I can see in their eyes, you know.

I can sense that happiness.

And that is-- I think that's the value this market is bringing.

It's emotionally, and, uh...

Though there is definitely a financial support

for them, but still it is like more about

building relationship, building trust.

She is very nice,

and she always support us, and this she bring.

-Thank you so, much. -Aw, my pleasure.

-Thank you so much. -Pleasure.

[chamber music]

[Sennett] Maybe there is no reward

when cooperation works well.

Maybe you're just in the process,

and the process is the reward.

There's something that's innately satisfying about that.

[chamber music]

Sorry, sorry, can we do it again?

We didn't start together I don't know why.

[Yawney] If we weren't able to work together,

music itself would suffer, and it would be, probably,

we wouldn't be able to communicate effectively as a group.

The music might still sound like music,

but it just wouldn't be convincing.

We wouldn't have the organic quality

that we are always striving for.

[chamber music]

Should we just do it one more time with Sungyong now?

And then I'll join in the end 'cause my part's easy.

Yeah, let's see how it works.

[chamber music]

Here's our motor, right? We have this engine,

then we have the car driver. [laughs]

[chamber music]

[Pogrebnoy] The process itself is very satisfying.

You know, you go through stages,

and, uh, you come to a different result,

but all the stages, you know,

it's enjoyable, yeah.

I would just say, it's a lot more fun.

There's certain times when you have to play

like a soloist with a virtuosic passage in every one of our parts.

And there's no leader, but then we're all leaders, too.

So it's just-- It's just-- It's just a great experience.

[chamber music]

[Hayes] I don't know if I was a bad guy or not,

but I definitely wasn't a good guy.

You know?

You know, you gotta leave that shit behind you

if you wanna grow, right?

And so, that's what I've been trying to do.

The farms in themselves by nature of what we're doing here

are kind of like the great equalizer, you know.

If you're out there picking radishes or filling boxes

or planting trees or...

It doesn't matter what your history is,

how much suffering you've been through,

it really levels you off.

Yeah, it was a good opportunity to get

into the, uh, giving back department a bit, right? You know?

Working for your community a bit, right,

instead of taking from it all the time.

It wasn't a big idea that we were gonna go out and, you know,

rescue people, you know.

We just-- Our idea was set the table here,

and do it with soil and seeds and growing food,

and allow that process to do what it does for all of us, you know?

You know, people ask me why I farm.

You know, it's as much for my mental health

as it is for anybody else who's working here.

I'm in no different. I'm--

We're different in some ways,

but we're all alike in other ways.

-We all have our stuff. -It is spiritual for me, too, right?

Like, you put something in the-- a seed in the ground,

ya nurture it,

ya care for it,

and it gives you something back.

Yeah, it is something actually that changes...

changes ya.

[Ableman] We've survived a lot of crazy stuff,

but I think it's important enough

to the people who we work with

that it has to continue.

And it's important enough that it has to include more people

who haven't been able to take part.

And our goal is not, unlike most social service agencies,

is not to graduate people and send them down the road.

No, we feel like we want them to be

for as long as they want, to be able to come here.

Yeah, you guys are my family, right?

[Ableman] The first time I met this guy,

I was like, "Who is this guy?" you know.

-Yeah. -And you had kind of a hard edge.

Well, I wasn't very, like, socially integrated, either, right?

-Well, you were new. -Yeah, I was.

[Ableman] This guy's got the softest core.

You hear that guys?

-He's got a really good-- -That better be on tape, man.

[Ableman] He has a good heart. He's got a good heart.

I might need that one day as character evidence.

[Ableman] That's right.

No, I mean it blows my mind,

somebody who's gone through the kind of shit

that you've gone through, and that you're--

Yeah, I appreciate that, Michael, I do.

[Ableman] You guys don't have the monopoly on suffering by the way.

-Oh, yes, I know this. -And so, I'm just saying, for me,

You know, I needed to do this

for myself as much as for anybody else,

and that's the honest truth.

It's hard to admit, but it's true.

I mean, I got my own stuff I gotta deal with.

[chamber music]

[Pogrebnoy] Actually, the, you know, music

is sort of like a reflection of life.

This medium allows to have a conversation

with different people at different times,

and-- and if it works well,

it's-- it's-- it's really

it's really good. [laughs]

[chamber music]

[Fullerton] It's very clear to me that to have a healthy system,

finance is a-- is a piece of a bigger whole,

and needs to be in service of that whole.

The basic premise of investment

is to invest money in order to create more money at the end.

We call that return on capital,

but it's money in creating more money out.

So we've grown a pile of money

while we've destroyed the atmosphere.

That-- That's not sustainable.

There's a whole sense is that

we've gotta go beyond just profit-making,

which takes no regard for what happens to the environment.

And another piece of it is human and communitarian,

trying to build a different sense of community.

But those themes, I think, democracy, wealth,

changing wealth and ownership, environment,

community, participation,

those are the themes that we're seeing develop

in many parts of the country and in many parts of the world.

[chamber music]

[Thuss] I think of the first time the beer was served at the Root Cellar.

I mean, that feeling is-- is tremendous,

and you realize that, "Hey people are enjoying this,

it's not just us."

There's a great mix of younger folks, older folks,

uh, women, men, those who are coming in

who might not feel that the beer culture

is currently really speaking to them,

that might feel alienated.

I think our approach helps to kind of even that playing field

to where it's like, "Yeah, this is a, you know... it's a good beverage."

I love craft beer. I just do.

And really, in London, there's not a lot of options right now,

and as soon as I found it, I'm like...

I'm just happy that I have a beer that I enjoy,

and the whole co-op idea is so cool.

I've actually never experienced that in a beer-wise.

The big brewers out there who are...

they're sales and volume, and that's their market.

The more they can sell the better.

[man] There's a lot of beers, you drink one,

and it tastes the same as the other,

and these ones, every...

When you look down, even the colors are different,

the flavors are different.

It's worth supporting, yeah.

[man 2] When they name some of their beers,

you recognize the name of...

it was the Springett Stout.

These are farms that I grew up around the corner from.

They're bringing in local ingredients

and making a fantastic beer with it.

There's a morality to their business.

Like, these guys aren't gonna make it rich.

That's not the point of their business.

They're providing good beer for the community,

making jobs in the community.

It's a fantastic way to kinda go about it.

[Fullerton] We've known for decades

that if you circulate money

and materials in a local economy,

you get these multiplier effects.

And so, um,

by circulating money and materials and information

in a local economy,

you're gonna be more in alignment

with the regenerative process that actually run--

You know, it's the way the world works.

[Thuss] What I really love about that kind of community engagement

is our neighborhood tart.

So it was a wheat base with rhubarb,

and that rhubarb came from Old East Village.

So we had somebody take up the cause,

she went around and just chats on the street

trying to find rhubarb in people's backyards.

We got a ton of it, we threw it into the brew,

it was really tasty, and I think for us it, again, just...

it's a lot of fun.

I mean, beer can be a lot of fun.

Right now, we brew an incredibly inefficient beer.

Um, it's... It is not a turnkey process.

It is not pressing a few buttons and things work.

It is a labor of love, but it is a lot of labor right now.

And so, we're hoping to streamline some of those processes

by an expansion so that we can focus on

the kind of value that we feel our beer is bringing as well.

The hops for the next one are sitting over there

with the Irish moss in the latest edition.

[Lawrence] Brewing is an economy-of-scale thing.

It takes largely the same amount of labor

to produce one barrel of beer

as it does to produce ten times that amount.

[Pastorius] The London Brewing Co-op at its current size,

it fiscally doesn't work.

So we need to scale up.

And in order to scale up, we need more space,

we need, well, resources,

time, energy, to do that.

We're gonna need some investors, willing investors

to believe in the co-op model, believe in our product,

and believe in the local food movement.

I don't know that Josie's ever been down here.

-Okay. -So, I think a lot--

[Thuss] Is demonstrating what-- what works?

What-- What's here.

[Thuss] We know what the expansion looks like, 225 to 250.

That's not including a purchase, but...

-Mm-hmm. -[chuckles]

Have I got an investment opportunity for you,

and in the first year, you'll double your money.

-Nice to see you. -Yeah, good to see you.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having us in your business.

[Pastorius] If you're up for it, love to chat about

what we've done here,

and maybe where we could go into the future.

Financing in part may come from Londoners who support

our vision and our dream.

And we want it to be angel or patient investment

where they believe in the purpose of what we're doing,

not just the fiscal return that they will receive.

[Thuss] I think certainly those short-term goals that

you know, the expansion of the brewery system,

that would be in a lease situation.

[Pastorius] So it's specific investors that we're looking for

who understand our vision and believe in it.

And that'll include

doing the renovations in the next building,

moving the brewery there, and having it up and going?

Okay.

[Thuss] Yeah, we'll get that to you soon.

[Lane] Yeah, absolutely, and if you have any questions,

you know, anything putting into it just let me know.

-Yeah, absolutely. -Fantastic yeah.

It drives me nuts when I start talking this way,

and people, "Ah, you're a socialist or you're a communist."

This has nothing to do with--

This has nothing to do with socialism versus capitalism.

This is how real systems in the real world work,

and that's physics and biology and energy.

Everything is energy.

This is the way it works from a tornado, to boiling water in a pot,

to, um, insects,

to entire ecosystems,

to human bodies, to human consciousness,

to the entire universe itself is a learning, living system.

[mellow music]

[Brastaviceanu] We are in Whistler, BC, at the Impact Economy Summit.

We've been trying to cook

a new economic model for the citizen media ecosystem.

There's a lot of energy in the room with ups and downs,

which is normal for these kind of

interactions, discussions, and working together.

So, this is building bridges, right?

Um, building bridges between the open world and the classical world

so that we can establish these flows of resources

in this process of metamorphosis, right?

We can't just start building from scratch from nothing.

We are within the system,

and by establishing these interfaces and the trust, okay?

We can allow these resources to flow.

This is not in any way a classical business, right?

This is not-- This is not around a corporation

that wants to maximize profit for its shareholders.

[Brastaviceanu] I see traditional corporations as boxes.

Okay? So they're spaces of confinement

that limits you in what you wanna do.

Let's say you have a project and you go to a corporation,

and the question is, do we have the budget?

Or the budget, that number is a

parameter that confines you.

Do we have the skills?

So, essentially, you're looking in a box,

and you see what's in there?

How much money we have, how much people we have.

So NASA is doing a lot of prizes,

and this is competitive crowd sourcing.

You see, you have a prize, you have a project, and you say,

"All right, who comes up with the best design,

you know, they get the prize."

And there's a lot of redundancy,

and everyone spends money for their own prototyping,

and for delivering something,

and then you have one winner and the rest are losers,

and the only thing they take home is the experience, right?

Um, so, with the value accounting system, we say,

"Well, why don't you collaborate,

and log your contributions,

financial materials, time, everything you put in there,

and then the prize, you share it

according to everyone's contribution."

Okay, so you turn competitive crowd sourcing

into collaborative crowd sourcing.

What you're building is a set of businesses

that feed the community.

'Cause this is a real paradigm shift what you're doing.

It's-- This is not capitalism as we know it.

-This is something entirely different. -[Brastaviceanu] Yes.

Then it's clear that this is really another way to go for me.

This is the kind of answer to a big problem that we have today, which is

you know, you don't get paid for things you like to do,

you only get paid for the things you don't like to do.

So I think the system that is actually able,

you know, to create livelihoods without destroying the planet

and without creating social strife

is the one that eventually, hopefully, has to win out,

because otherwise we're all doomed anyway.

[chuckles]

[woman] If everyone wants to take their seats, that would be lovely.

[glasses ringing]

I will go home with a positive message, um,

that, you know, what we're doing is important,

that it's perceived as important,

which is a validation of what we do.

Um... yeah.

So... that's why I live for these kind of moments.

This is the currency I'm looking for.

I met some people that said, "You, Tibi, you can't fail,

because you've been there, and you've paved the way,

and if Sensorica fails, then it sends this message."

I said, "Holy shit, so now I'm kind of trapped

with all this responsibility to show that, yes, it can be done.

Everything's converging towards a more collaborative economy for sure.

And when you free people economically, they're free.

[upbeat music]

[tape rips]

-I like that noise. -What?

The tape, it's like, "You're moving, man."

[man laughs]

The actual lab space that we have now is pretty packed.

There's a lot of people, so very crowded.

It's kind of tough on us to have to move,

but it's something that we have to do,

and we're pretty tired. We're pretty, uh, drained.

There's a new chapter for Sensorica.

We are really coming out.

You know, we're getting exposed downtown Montreal.

I see myself as part of the Montreal new economy set-up.

We're taking over, guys.

[laughing]

The belly of the beast.

Visibility and presence, legitimacy, right in people's face.

When it's time for you to go,

you know, you look back and you're not gonna count your money

or your material possessions.

I think the things that will give you more satisfaction is,

"Do I leave a trace?"

Well, the greatest hope for the collaborative economy

is to have this smooth transition without too many bumps,

because we can feel that we're frustrating, uh, the losers,

and they're powerful.

[Ableman] There's no land.

I'm hoping that we're gonna get

some acreage in the middle of a park that has to be developed here.

We need a permanent location.

We need multiple locations,

but we need one permanent location

to replace Pacific when the viaducts come down.

We need more people who can

really carry the workload.

And I think eventually we could, if people felt that incentive,

that they had something at stake beyond their hourly wage,

develop something that was,

did return something to our staff, but we're not there yet.

I want them to come to work

because they're working for themselves, you know.

They're working for their own healing,

and for a community of farmers and eaters

that surround it, you know?

I want them to feel that sense of ownership.

[mellow music]

I think it's probably better than stock options

or shared ownership or anything.

I mean, we've had this idea of a cooperative,

turning this into a workers-owned cooperative.

But the truth is what would they be owning?

There's nothing to own.

So what we can offer

is this shared experience of what happens

in the process of doing this work.

Hold that. Oh, awesome.

I wanna retire here. I'm 56,

I'll be 57, November,

and this is-- this is it for me.

I think it's my last stop. If we last that long,

this is my last stop, and I'm hoping we do.

All we need is boxes.

We can fill the boxes,

we will put out whatever we need the boxes.

We need infrastructure.

If we get the infrastructure, we will... We can do--

We will fill them up and we'll...

We're good, we really are good, you know.

[Hayes] Here's what the garden kinda taught me.

Like, if you're not gonna help yourself,

it's pretty hard for other people to help ya.

Right? They can't.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, if you're not willing to do it,

why should they invest all the time in fucking spinning their wheels?

Man, if I didn't have this job,

where would I be in the last three years?

Like, think about it, right?

Like, dead,

in an alley shooting up,

or a penitentiary.

Those are my three options.

So, yeah, Sole Food saved my life, right?

What else can I say, it did.

Over the carrot or over the leaves?

Over the carrots on the first one,

then over the leaves on the rest.

[Hayes] For me at this stage of my life,

this is value to me.

Spending time here with my friends,

feeling good about myself.

Right? Being able to close my eyes at night,

saying, you know, I didn't hurt anybody today, right?

I did maybe a couple good things.

That's value to me.

[mellow music]

[Fullerton] So what is real wealth?

Well, let me tell you what it's not.

It's not money,

um, but, you know, there are people going around saying

we need a new theory of value.

So we don't really know what that is.

I can rattle off a few ideas.

So, obviously,

fresh air to breathe,

clean water to drink,

access to clean food,

family, friendships, community,

art, beauty, is obviously what we know is real wealth.

[Thuss] I think that's a big thing, too,

with the cooperative is that

the cooperative shifts with the needs of its workers,

not just with the needs of the end product.

[mellow music]

I think the five of us

I would imagine soon won't be the five of us

from a, you know, worker/owner perspective.

I think really we wanna see that full realization of the cooperative,

so that we can bring in new workers

who have the same values that we do

so that when people come into work, it's 'cause they wanna be there.

It's 'cause they know they're part of,

you know, kind of a larger movement,

and it's not to the detriment of who they are.

Of course, the timing is hilarious. [laughs]

Um, 'cause I don't know,

is it legal to have babies brew beer for us?

I don't think so.

No, but babies with, like, craft beer marketing is really cute.

[laughing]

[playing scales]

[chamber music]

[Knight] We'll never make really good progress

until we realize that it's not a chore to get there.

You know, you don't have to have a really

unenjoyable life in service to this cause.

It's gotta be fun, right?

I mean, fundamentally, it actually needs to be enjoyable.

Just taking that approach to thinking about how we do activism,

how we do social change, how we organize our work,

I think it's one of the most powerful levers of social change.

[Fullerton] I don't think we're gonna wake up one day and say,

"We're now in a regenerative economy."

You know, how did we know we were in the Enlightenment?

This is a lifetime's transition,

and the challenge is are we gonna screw this up

before we make the transition?

The symptoms that we feel will lighten.

It will feel different.

It will feel healthy.

And then we'll say, "Wow, it feels better."

[Alperovitz] It's a very moving period in history.

Potentially big things can happen.

I think we are at a moment, maybe--

always a maybe-- that we are laying the groundwork

for potentially,

not only transformation, but irreversible transformation.

That's a big deal in history.

It's a very interesting time.

[chamber music]

[piece ends]