Research and Evidence
Everything on this site is grounded in evidence — economics, history, psychology, and social science. We do not ask you to take our word for it. We ask you to follow the evidence yourself.
Status of this work
The mathematical analyses presented here — including the formal models of oligarchic capture, egalitarian and oligarchic attractors, and post-currency system dynamics — are original work grounded in established research in economics, complex systems theory, and institutional analysis. These papers are in preparation for submission to peer-reviewed journals.
The Civilization Simulator is a research-oriented tool, developed and tested using standard social simulation methodology: hindcasting against historical societies, held-out validation (93.8% tuning set, 75.7% held-out set), a 13-invariant automated test suite, and sensitivity analysis of all tunable parameters. The full methodology, scores, and known limitations are documented transparently. It is also being prepared for peer review.
Until peer review is complete, this work should be understood as a serious research contribution that has not yet undergone external academic validation. We present it transparently so that readers can evaluate the evidence and reasoning for themselves.
The structural diagnosis
The claim that currency-based economic systems structurally produce inequality, insecurity, and environmental destruction is not ideological assertion. It is supported by data on wealth concentration, wage stagnation, cost of living trajectories, and environmental metrics spanning decades and across countries with different political systems.
The Cure documents this evidence extensively, with sources. The short version provides the essential argument; the full version includes the detailed data.
Formal research
Documented Alternatives
Historical, contemporary, and theoretical evidence that egalitarian coordination works — and can scale. From the San people to Mondragón, from Teotihuacan to open-source software, from Ostrom's design principles to agent-based phase transition models. Includes evidence on human motivation beyond financial incentives.
The Structural Dynamics of Oligarchic Capture
A formal model showing how currency-based systems produce wealth concentration and institutional capture — and what conditions are necessary for a different outcome. Available in rigorous and narrative versions.
Oligarchic and Egalitarian Attractors
A general theory showing that oligarchic and egalitarian states are both stable attractors of socioeconomic systems. Integrates wealth dynamics, behavioral reinforcement, power-empathy coupling, and emergent stratification.
Foundations of a Post-Currency Society
A formal framework for a socioeconomic system without currency — need-based allocation, feedback-controlled production, polycentric scaling, and failure-resilient design. Grounded in anthropological evidence from egalitarian societies.
The Case Against Hierarchy
Evidence from five independent domains — anthropology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, organizational psychology, and mathematical systems theory — converging on the conclusion that peer-based social structures produce the greatest human and societal wellbeing.
Transition Roadmap
A multi-generational strategic framework for seeding, building, and scaling the transition — from community gardens and time banks through transition nodes to institutional engagement. Includes timeline analysis, AI-trajectory scenarios, a 90-day pilot structure, and outcome measures.
Unified Theory of Socioeconomic Transition
An integrated theoretical model combining mathematical analysis, historical evidence, institutional design principles, and diffusion dynamics to explain how societies may transition toward cooperative, post-currency structures.
Hierarchy Mitigation in Post-Currency Systems
Formal analysis of how hierarchy can re-emerge without currency through bureaucratic gatekeeping, information asymmetry, coercive concentration, prestige capture, and network oligarchy — and the institutional safeguards that prevent it.
Complete Systems Map of Transition
Maps the major feedback loops, empirical cases from the Haudenosaunee to Cherán, and structural dynamics relevant to grassroots socioeconomic transition.
Behavioral Alignment and Transition Dynamics
How societies align behavior with new institutional paradigms — a six-phase implementation framework, historical case studies, a behavioral lag model, and a civilization stability phase map.
Stress Tests: System Hardening
Seven failure mechanisms tested with countermeasures, then subjected to adversarial attack scenarios including coordinated overload, contribution collapse, external economic warfare, and cultural reversion.
Mathematical Appendix
Formal equations for demand estimation, production adjustment, inventory dynamics, feedback control, labor allocation, and system stability — demonstrating that production and distribution can be modeled without price signals.
Strategy and implementation
Candidate Pilot Regions
Strategic analysis of where the first real-world Transition could begin — Estonia, Iceland, Uruguay, New Zealand, and regional zones within larger countries.
Transition Spread Dynamics
A seven-stage model of propagation — from concept seeding through community formation, parallel systems, institutional experiments, pilot regions, and global diffusion.
Legal and Constitutional Framework
Proposed constitutional amendments and legal structures for a post-currency society — rights to life necessities, commons stewardship, and economic democracy.
The Unfinished Architecture of Liberty
The Paine-FDR-Franklin lineage — how economic sovereignty completes the founding vision that the Bill of Rights left unfinished, and what Transition adds to the sequence.
Transition Ecosystem Map
Organizations, movements, and thinkers already working on adjacent goals — from Doughnut Economics to Platform Cooperativism to Open Source Ecology.
Power-Empathy Assessment Framework
A research framework for estimating how authority suppresses empathic processing — trait profiles, ethical dilemmas, constraint responsiveness, and observational scoring.
Communication Psychology for Paradigm Shifts
How to present radical ideas in ways that invite curiosity rather than resistance — narrative patterns, staged worldview change, and multi-level communication layers.
Historical precedents
Large-scale social and economic transitions have happened throughout human history. From feudalism to mercantilism to industrial capitalism, each transformation seemed impossible to those living within the previous system. The transition proposal builds on the study of how these shifts actually occurred — not through abstract theory but through documented historical processes.
What we don't claim to know
Intellectual honesty requires acknowledging the limits of what evidence can tell us. We cannot prove in advance that a specific alternative will work exactly as described. What we can show is that the current system's outcomes are structural and predictable, that alternatives exist, and that the mechanisms of transition are grounded in how human societies have actually changed.
Explore the evidence in depth:
Read The Cure with full citations