Author: Zine. Translated by Cointime: QDD.

Most organizations in our lives want time to flow the same way. This is capitalism at work: the only way to survive is to grow, up and to the right. Companies want more profits and higher stock prices, countries want higher GDPs, and families want more income so their children can live better than their adults. Regardless, growth must be continuous with time and, hopefully, predictable. These are interesting times, but time itself becomes dull and boring.

In the pursuit of decentralized autonomous organizations, I’ve noticed a distinct trend: DAOs are beginning to rename the units and flows of time. They often use metaphors like “seasons,” “epochs,” “cycles,” “phases,” and “waves” to define their governance or operations. In practice, these may not be much different than a traditional company’s “quarter.” However, this shift presents an opportunity to rethink how we self-govern the flow of time. What would happen if we took this renaming seriously?

Back in 2019, I coined the concept of an “exit to community.” The idea is that entrepreneurs should work to guide their companies toward a transition to community ownership, rather than a traditional acquisition or IPO. In some ways, the idea is radical. But it doesn’t go very far in rethinking time. It involves a linear progression from more centralized project ownership (perhaps founders and investors) to more decentralized ownership (e.g., workers and users). However, in my years of researching and working with collaborative enterprises, I’ve seen that this linear story is only the beginning.

Non-linear energy shocks help keep communities vibrant, while the linear push for economic growth at all costs is eating away at our ecosystems.

If a cooperative does not undergo a period of renewal or even a revolution, its community ownership will degenerate into a state of thermodynamic heat death of diffuse power and responsibility. In this case, the cooperatives that have lasted for several generations appear to be indifferent. Moving in only one direction means no progress at all. Maybe the exit needs to happen multiple times, in different directions—from the founders to the community, and then moving to another structure when changes are needed. Non-linear energy blasts help keep communities vibrant. And the linear push for economic growth at all costs is eating away at our ecosystems.

As a new type of organizational form, DAOs are an opportunity to rethink how we govern over time. I’ve seen firsthand how DAOs change over market cycles, from bull to bear and back again. The bull and bear versions of the same DAO can look like two completely different organizations. They can have different attitudes toward money, different ways of incentivizing work, and very different priorities. For example, Kevin Owocki has written about “wartime” and “peacetime” DAOs, which are actually the same DAO changing its structure based on market conditions. Stellar Magnet goes a step further and imagines “Transformational Autonomous Organizations,” which are “collective entities that can transform the way an organization is governed as needed, easily switching between different modes.”

What patterns might we want to plan and design for?

Precedents and Bloodlines

The practice of “archaeology of governance” invites us to explore what has been done before, to listen carefully and think critically, and to give our governance ancestors the credit they deserve. The archaeological record of human self-governance, much of which remains latent in the habits and muscle memory of present-day communities, offers many revealing examples of nonlinear design.

For example, Owocki’s concept of a wartime DAO evokes the Roman Republic’s concept of a dictator. This was an official who was given broad powers for temporary periods, such as war, and whose powers were to be revoked when the crisis was over. As Julius Caesar demonstrated, dictators can have a hard time giving up their prerogatives. But many indigenous tribes in North America have successfully employed different hierarchies in times of war and peace. For example, a peace chief might be expected to govern through consensus and consultation, while a war chief would have more decisive power in times of crisis. Among the Haudenosaunee, replacing war chiefs and exercising oversight over their powers are among the most important tasks given to women in the community.

There are many examples of nonlinear designs for the temporality of governance. But most are more predictable than war or crisis; they are cyclical. David Graeber and David Wengrow argue that seasonal changes in governance were common in prehistoric societies. Such changes are common among indigenous peoples of the Americas, from the Great Plains to the Inuit. Early seasonal modes of governance survived in medieval Europe in seasonal festivals that temporarily reversed social hierarchies through revelry and jesters.

As weather and living patterns change, so too can social structures. Families might gather into cities in one season, then disperse again in another. While most cycles occur annually, there are examples like the Hebrew Bible's command to leave fields fallow every seven years and to free slaves: social resets, counterbalancing excessive concentrations of power and wealth.

In less stable societies, migration is part of life, and politics change with location and conditions. Online life can also be migratory.

Graeber explores the practice of "winter solstice celebrations" among the Kwakiutl people of the Pacific Northwest in what is now the United States. He writes:

“During this ritual season, normal social structures are suspended, people even adopt different names, and the whole society is organized around the right to play a specific role in a large ritual drama.”

The season gives rise to a phenomenon Graeber calls “clown police,” a combination of ritual theater and moral enforcement. This seasonal arrangement replaces a year-round police force. These enforcers exercise power under term limits, and seasonal boundaries limit the scope of enforcement power. Communities seek balance through alternating rhythms of higher and lower normative scrutiny.

Graeber and Ungro found that in seasonal governance regimes, “this back-and-forth shifting makes mature and self-aware political actors constantly aware that no social order is immovable: everything is at least potentially open to negotiation, subversion, and change.”

When exploring these historical examples in more depth, we should make sure to recognize the cultural traditions from which we draw. We should give credit to our sources and acknowledge any differences or adaptations we make. In some cases, where there is a danger of appropriation, it may also be possible to connect with the activist communities from which these traditions originated. Regardless, we should start with the goal of making these lessons available to more righteous communities, rather than perpetuating the long history of repression and appropriation that often exists.

design

In online governance, I can think of two ways to implement nonlinear time: decision-based or algorithm-based.

A decision-based approach would enable people to make the transition when they see fit. It could be similar to a vote of confidence: a referendum is held, and if it passes, a portion of the existing governance structure is cleared out. This could act as an emergency brake when things go wrong, temporarily shutting down a broken representative system, installing a random member as a temporary dictator, or arranging elections for new representatives. This approach would respond based on participants' interpretation of their own situation, rather than relying on arbitrary metrics or rigid timelines.

Another approach might be to set some algorithmic thresholds for transitions in governance. The simplest approach would be regular intervals, like quarters, seasons, years, centuries. This is how our 18th century electoral system worked, with elections happening one after another. Familiarity and predictability have their merits, and their rigidity may be less susceptible to capture than popular decisions.

Algorithmic transitions might also be more flexible. As mentioned above, a DAO might adjust its structure based on the value signals of its token price or treasury; in a bear market DAO, hierarchy and discipline might be adopted, while in a bull market, broad and creative use of resources might be prioritized. If low voter turnout threatens to trigger temporary dictatorship, this might encourage more token holders to vote. Perhaps a DAO that values ​​experimentation could adopt a randomly selected governance structure at a random time to prevent the community from becoming too settled.

The benefits that Graeber and Ungrove find in nonlinear governance may not be appreciated by others, especially those seeking to profit from the community. Investors may object to disruptions that check concentrations of wealth and power. Linear time is the preferred governance logic of capitalist companies for a reason: linearity is friendlier to sustained upward growth. Societies based on seasonal, cyclical governance cycles tend to be self-sufficient and focused on balance with their surroundings rather than on sustained growth based on some abstract metric. There is not much profit to be made in this regard.

Embracing nonlinear time in governance could mean challenging capital accumulation and other forms of domination. Just as religious calendars distinguish their communities from others, a different relationship to time in governance could be a path to making DAOs and other communities more fully autonomous, for those who want to govern themselves, and ungovernable by those who seek to govern them.