Skip to content
More
Share
Explore
New economic modelling based around natural systems design codes:
Fractal Economics: A Community Adventure
Introduction
Fractal economics is an approach where patterns of value creation, exchange, and organisation repeat at every scale: individual, group, and community-mirroring the self-similar patterns found in nature. When applied to community adventures, this model offers a equitable and participatory economic system that values all contributions, fosters agency, and supports collective wellbeing.
By embedding these principles into our local economies, we can create systems where every act of care, creativity, and collaboration-no matter how small-ripples outward, strengthening the whole. This document explores how these concepts are being put into practice and how they might inspire broader transformation.
Community Ownership Models: Evidence-Based Transformation
The Challenge
Our current economic and social systems are failing to meet the needs of people and the planet. Extractive models, designed to serve their own growth, have led to ecological breakdown, social fragmentation, and economic exclusion. In Lewes, as in many towns, we see the effects: high street shops closing, unaffordable housing, congestion, pollution, and a growing reliance on food banks.
The average house price in Lewes is now over £470,000-more than 18 times the average UK salary. Many who grew up locally are priced out, and the community risks becoming fragmented, ageing, and gentrified. The term “community” itself is under threat, as the structures that once held people together are eroded.
The need for equitable models
To address these challenges, we must move beyond individualism and extraction, towards models that are equitable, inclusive, and community-led. This means:
Community in Operation: Developing an Ecosystem
Who are is involved and how does it operate?
Building organisations who are able to work in partnership and using legal structures to ensure that the outcomes are based upon equity is not something that our current economic system can support. So, the challenge is how do we transition whilst using structures that have been built. The question is not about what these current legal forms have been designed to do but more of how it is possible to use them. Creating flows between CIC, Coops, public sector, charity and not-for-profit entities means that it is possible to ask what each organisation can take on and how they can operate to support those equitable outcomes.
For example, it is possible for organisaitons to consider how they are able to support their employees or their volunteers, they can use any income generated for this purpose. They could also flow their income to Cooperatives who support their members to access housing, food, or utilities.
Contribution Accountancy
A core innovation is “contribution accountancy”-a system that values all forms of input, not just financial. Whether you contribute time, creativity, care, or skills, your input is recognised as essential to the community’s health. This approach disrupts the traditional economic focus on profit and instead centres on shared value and mutual benefit.
Transforming Communities: Regenerative Economic Principles
Community Wealth Building
To move beyond capitalism’s cult of growth, we must build operational models that are agile, effective, and regenerative. This involves:
Funding the Transition
Innovative mechanisms such as community shares, loan stock, and equity units allow communities to fund projects collectively, keeping resources circulating locally. These tools enable the creation of circular economies, where value is retained and reinvested in the community.
The Interconnectedness of Issues
Housing is a major lever for change, but it cannot be separated from other issues like living costs, commercial rents, and wages. A truly regenerative model must address these interconnected factors, recognising that they are all part of the same systemic problem.
Embedding Fractal Design
The most resilient systems-whether ecosystems, neural networks, or river deltas-are distributed and fractal in nature. By embedding these patterns into our economic models, we can create networks that are adaptive, supportive, and enduring.
Setting the Background: Systemic Breakdown
We are witnessing multiple breakdowns in our wider ecosystem, directly linked to the failures of our current ways of organising. In Lewes, the closure of shops, unaffordable housing, and rising living costs are symptoms of deeper systemic issues.
Our economic system, driven by the imperative for capital output to exceed both labour and natural resource input, is inherently extractive. Money, once a simple exchange token, has become a commodity in itself, fuelling a system that prioritises growth above all else.
A New Model: Encoding Ecosystem Design
To move forward, we must encode ecosystem design into our socioeconomic instruments. This means:
The Role of Education
Only a small percentage of academic outcomes are determined by schooling; wellbeing and community resilience are far more significant. Education must be holistic, focusing not just on academic achievement but on nurturing agency, resilience, and a sense of belonging.
The current system, with its focus on performativity and accountability, is failing to meet the needs of many young people. A new approach is needed-one that values diversity, supports lifelong learning, and recognises our innate connection to the natural world.
The Importance of Nature and Place
Research shows that our relationship with the natural environment is fundamental to our wellbeing, cognitive function, and sense of self. Yet, our systems often treat nature as separate from humanity, leading to objectification and crisis.
Education must help young people understand their place within the ecosystem, fostering a love of learning, a respect for diversity, and a commitment to regeneration.
The Path Forward
Recognising the finiteness of natural resources and the reality of climate crisis, we must adapt to support and nurture community resilience while working to mitigate the consequences of environmental change.
A holistic approach to education and community life-rooted in fractal economics, regenerative practice, and collective ownership-offers a path towards a more just, resilient, and thriving future.
Conclusion
Fractal economics is not just a theory but a living practice, grounded in the everyday actions of communities like those in Lewes. By valuing every contribution, fostering collaboration, and embedding regenerative principles at every scale, we can build systems that are truly life-affirming.
This is our community adventure: to learn, build, and regenerate together-one step, one project, one relationship at a time.
If you would like this further tailored for a particular audience, project, or publication, or need specific sections expanded, please let me know!
Citations:
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.