Knowledge library

Articles for independent inquiry.

Shorter entry points into the questions explored across THY-REALITY. Browse by field or search directly by title and description.

ACTION PATHCreate a local economyStart with a map of critical dependencies, local capabilities, suppliers and financial flows; build more local options while keeping wider links where they increase resilience.

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Local sovereignty: resilience without isolation

R50 · Natural Law August 20, 2021 18 min read

Local Sovereignty: How to Build Resilience Without Isolation

A free community does not need complete self-sufficiency. It needs enough local capacity that one distant failure cannot become a command—and enough connections that a local crisis does not become a catastrophe.

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A multigenerational community caring together for a shared garden and local space.

R51 · Natural Law August 21, 2021 20 min read

Who Takes Care of the Commons?

Shared resources do not necessarily need one owner or one central manager. They need clear boundaries, fair rules, visible responsibility and people who can participate in governing them.

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People of different ages care for a community garden together, each contributing according to their capacity.

R53 · Natural Law August 24, 2021 16 min read

Voluntary Cooperation and the Free-Rider Problem

Voluntary cooperation does not require everyone to contribute equally, but it does require a fair relationship among benefit, capacity and responsibility.

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A group of people at sunset linked in a circle of relationships, symbolizing the formation of community.

R56 · Human relationships August 27, 2021 19 min read

From a Group of People to a Community: What Actually Connects Us?

Being together does not yet make a community. This article shows how belonging, repeated relationships, trust, reciprocity, shared memory, and the capacity for joint action create more durable connection.

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Several local circles connect their smaller funds into a wider protection pool while remaining autonomous and linked to an outer reserve layer.

R67 · Community building September 9, 2021 11 min read

Mutual Aid, Insurance, and Social Security from the Bottom Up

How does direct help become durable protection? This article separates aid, savings, community funds and insurance, then shows why small voluntary pools need wider networks for large risks.

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A central pool of created value branches into clearly separated flows toward labour, operating surplus, taxes, interest, rents, and ownership returns.

R68 · Economics and ownership September 10, 2021 10 min read

Where Does the Value We Create Go?

This article builds a basic map of economic flows: from revenue and value added to wages, operating surplus, taxes, interest, rents, dividends, fees and reinvestment—without double counting or a pre-written ideological verdict.

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A central enterprise connects four distinct roles—labour, entrepreneurship, capital and management—with separate flows of decision-making, risk and surplus.

R69 · Economics and ownership September 12, 2021 11 min read

Work and Enterprise Ownership: Who Decides, Who Bears Risk, and Who Receives the Surplus?

This article separates labour, capital, entrepreneurial risk, management, oversight and residual claims, showing why none of these roles by itself automatically justifies all the others.

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Four connected organisational forms around a shared core: company, partnership, cooperative and commons.

R70 · Economics and ownership September 13, 2021 10 min read

Cooperative, Company, Partnership, or Commons?

This article compares the company, partnership, cooperative and commons through capital, decision-making, risk, surplus, exit and stewardship, showing why no label by itself guarantees justice.

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A house sits on a marked parcel while links to surrounding infrastructure illustrate the distinction between the structure and location value.

R71 · Economics and ownership September 14, 2021 12 min read

Land, Housing, and Rent: Who Captures the Value of Place?

This article separates structure value from land value, rent payment from economic rent, and private improvement from location value created by scarcity, infrastructure and community.

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A network of banks, a borrower and central-bank settlement illustrates how credit creates deposit purchasing power together with debt.

R72 · Economics and ownership September 15, 2021 9 min read

Money, Credit, and Debt: Who Creates Purchasing Power and Under What Conditions?

This article separates cash, reserves and bank deposits, shows how credit creates purchasing power, and tests constraints, interest, central banks and financial power without myths.

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Shared infrastructure at the centre connects to several funding channels, illustrating polycentric and mixed financing without a single fiscal centre.

R73 · Economics and ownership September 16, 2021 8 min read

How Do We Finance Shared Functions Without Automatic Centralization?

This article compares voluntary contributions, dues, user fees, pooled funds, capital, debt, local taxes and transfers, showing how finance should follow function and scale.

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A local economic hub with workshop, market and circular flows connects to several external supply routes, illustrating local resilience without economic isolation.

R75 · Economics and ownership September 19, 2021 8 min read

Local Economy Without Autarky

This article shows how to build local capabilities, value circulation and fallback supply routes without confusing resilience with economic isolation.

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A network of local farm, storage and market nodes connects to regional and external supply routes, illustrating food resilience through multiple independent sources.

R76 · Food, water and energy September 20, 2021 7 min read

Food: How Much Locality Increases Resilience?

This article shows why food resilience is not the same as self-sufficiency: seed, fertiliser, energy, processing, storage, logistics, trade and access all matter.

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Solar panels in the foreground and a settlement in a mountain valley illustrate local energy generation connected to a wider shared system.

R78 · Food, water and energy September 22, 2021 10 min read

Energy: From Consumer to Energy Cooperation

This article shows how local generation, energy sharing, storage, flexible demand and community governance can increase resilience without the illusion of complete energy self-sufficiency.

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A group of people work together to repair and reinforce a shared crossing over water, illustrating practical stewardship and long-term infrastructure maintenance.

R79 · Community building September 23, 2021 11 min read

Who Maintains Shared Infrastructure?

This article separates ownership from operational responsibility and shows how roads, transport, waste, logistics and communications require clear stewardship, life-cycle planning, financing and fallback arrangements.

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A valley where a local community connects with rail, road and port transport illustrates multiple supply routes between nearby capability and a wider trade network.

R86 · Economics and ownership October 2, 2021 17 min read

Trade and Supply Chains: Mutual Benefit or a New Dependency?

When does trade expand freedom, and when does a supply network become a critical dependency? This article measures specialisation, supplier concentration, upstream bottlenecks, substitutability, redundancy, switching time and the real option to exit.

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