This document discusses rules and principles for regenerative modes of production. It begins by looking at some existing rules for production, such as production being embedded within geography and economies. It then examines the meta-level consequences of rules like division of labor. Next, it finds inspiration from living systems and their rules, like cooperation within groups and social segregation of tasks. Finally, it proposes some new rules, such as management replacing economies of scale, and having a clear purpose or telos for economic systems.

1. Divisions to Integrations: An Ecological and
Economic Foundation Supporting
Regenerative Modes of Production
Tom Snow
Systemic Design Consultant
Regenerative Systemic Design
Value adding, inspired by living-systems
Agence designContext EURL, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 64500, France
e-mail: tom.snow@designcontext.org
twitter: @design_Context
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
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2. © Agence designContext Eurl 04/2018
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Introduction
Holistic Value Networks
2) What are some of the META consequences of these Rules?
3) Inspirations from Living Systems
1) What are some of the Rules for Production?
4) Some New Rules

3. How do I manage the team?
How big does the structure need to be?
Who does what?
How many activities do we do?
What is our business model?
What is our organisational form?
How can we be economically regenerative?
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How do we manage investments and distribution of incomes?
Production is not just about organising flows of matter and energy
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
How do we manage I.P?
How we manage R&D?
How big motivate collaboration?
What is our purpose or goal(s)?

4. ® Rules that we make that makes a META
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Rules
META REALM –
ways of paying attention and caring
Impulses
Ideas
Moments of
Choosing
Logical or
Rational
Inclinations
Source: Inspired by a talk by Nora Bateson: Future Thinkers
https://futurethinkers.org/nora-bateson-complexity/ Retrieved October 4, 2019

5. ® Embedded Meta Realms : Upward and downward causations
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Rules
META REALM

6. 1: What are some of the Rules for
Production?
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7. Production is Embedded in a Geography®
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0

8. MineralsCare, Health
& Culture
1: (RE)Production
2: Distribution B: Allocating Effort
A: Mobilising Effort
Politics of
Collective
Organisation
Food, Water,
Medicine, Fibre &
Timber
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Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Production is Embedded in an Economy

9. LAND CAPITAL
GOODS
ENTREPRENEURS/INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL
LABOUR
FORCE
The Four Sectors
of Production
The Four Factors
of Production
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Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Factors – or Sectors - of Production have Power
AGRICULTURE/
MINING/
LAND OWNERS
(Primary)
INDUSTRY
(Secondary)
SERVICES
(Tertiary)
Financial
Capital
10101
010101
01010
Data &
Information
Goods &
Services
KNOWLEDGE
(Quaternary)

10. “Division of labor, a phenomenon as old as society,
springs from differences inherent in the facts of sex,
geography, and individual endowment… ”
Karl Polanyi
Abilities
Knowledge
Experience
Geography
Gender or Age
4800 Pins
Per Worker/Day
(1832)
800,000 Pins
Per Worker/Day
(1980)
10-20 Pins
Per Worker/Day
Before 1832
The Production Process Needs to be Organised®
Source: Polanyi, Karl (2001 [1944]) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, USA: Beacon Press

11. 2: What are some of the META
consequences of these Rules?
Focusing on (for this talk):
A) Division of Labour
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Social Division of Labour
Foragers : Social Division of Labour
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
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Social Division of Labour
Farmers : Divisions Within Households and Between Households
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
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Forced Labour
Peasants
Elites &
Aristocrats

14. Trust
Efficiency
Quality
Checking
Working
Agreements
Insurance
Certifications
Transactions
Interface
10101
010101
01010
Data
Abilities
Knowledge
Experience
A-Z Map
Memory
Can
Drive
Knows where to
find customers
® Uber Example
Driver
Passenger
Platform
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Extraction

15. 3: Inspirations from Living Systems?
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16. Living Systems Can Use: Cooperation Within Groups qualitatively Equal Kinds of labour®
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0

17. ®
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Living Systems Can Use: Strength in Numbers

18. ®
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
“Competing is intense among humans, and within a group,
selfish individuals always win.
But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat
groups of selfish individuals.”
E. O. Wilson
Evolution: Group Selection (Vs. Individual Selection) and Altruism
Source: Wilson, E.O. (2012) The Social Conquest of Earth. USA: Liveright

19. Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Leaf Cutter Ants
'Defenders’
'Foragers’
'Farmers’
'Child Carers’
® Living Systems can have a Division of Labour : Social Segregation : Eusocial Animals

20. ®
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Root
System
Shoot
System
Brain &
Nervous System
Organ Segregation in a Multi-Cellular Individual
Roots, Shoots, Brains…
Single Cell Segregation between
Single-Cellular Individuals
Cyanobacteria (Anabaena Spp)
Heterocysts
Cellular & Organelle Segregation
in a Multi-cellular Individual (Plant)
Photosynthesis and Respiration
Granum
Thylakoids
Stroma
Starch
Glucose
Biosynthesis
Carbon
Dioxide
(CO2)
Chloroplast
Mitochondria
Nucleus
Central
Vacuole
Amyloplast
Golgi Apparatus
Rough Endoplasmic
Reticulum (ER)
Smooth ER
Lysosomes Plasmodesma Peroxisomes
ATP
Energy
Sinks
Energy
Supply
Mesophyll Cell
Heat
Oxygen
(O2)
Water
(H2O)
Living Systems do have a Division of Labour: Segregation of Tasks

21. 4: What are some of the new Rules?
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22. One of Aristotle’s concepts of value was based around the
concept of ‘Telos,’ which attempts to:
“…identify the norms appropriate to social
practices by trying to grasp the characteristic
end, or purpose, of those practices.”
(Sandel, 2010)
And so Telos (from the Greek τέλος for "end", "purpose", or
"goal") is the concept that things should and do have purpose.
In this way, one can ask, what is the purpose of economics – or
a business?
An Economy can have a goal - Telos®
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Source: Sandel, Michael (2010) ‘Justice: What’s the Right Thing to do?’ UK: Penguin Books

23. ® (Ecological) Management can replace Economies of Scale
Tom Snow, Agence designContext EURL, France Cc-by-nc-4.0
Cheap, portable Infrastructure
Temporary/polyvalent structures
Stacking Functions
Renting Farm Land
Solar Electric Fence
Holistic Management, and
Regenerative Agricultural Design
Direct Sales
Cool Bot
Economies of Scale

24. ®
Thank you for your attention