Ecological Institutions
= refers to the work of Austin Wade Smith: "an evolution of non-human personhood vis-à-vis earth law. Its a framework for the legibility of ecosystems".
The Concept
Benjamin Life:
"Smith argues that the twentieth century gutted what Robert Putnam documented in Bowling Alone: the thick middle of associational life, the guilds and leagues and mutual societies through which communities once pooled risk and governed shared fate. In their cybernetic framing, our institutions have lost requisite variety. Their internal complexity no longer matches the complexity of the challenges they face, which is why insurance markets are exiting whole regions and state agencies are abandoning the places outside the levee. The associations of the future, Smith argues, will be resilience institutions native to their landscapes: risk-pooling, fire-mitigating, water-governing bodies, the bowling leagues of the polycrisis."
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The Book
* Book: Ecological Institutions: Law, Economics, and Technology in a More-Than-Human World. By Austin Wade Smith. Regen Foundation, 2025 (Limited edition print run)
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"It serves as the first compendium of the Regen Foundation's work on expanding non-human agency at the intersection of earth law, regenerative economics, and decentralized technologies."
Description
The book explores the possibility of new institutional forms that emerge when living systems and digital/technical systems are recognized as having never been separate in the first place—a concept Smith terms "undualing." Rather than simply integrating nature into existing human institutions, *Ecological Institutions* argues for the creation of organizations and institutions that are "Earth native," capable of nourishing and regenerating the planet rather than consuming it.
At its core, the work outlines tangible means through which non-human organisms and ecosystems may not only have intrinsic rights, but further possess the capacity to:
- Own their own currency
- Possess their own land titles and contracts
- License their own data
- Compensate their guardians
- Safeguard their biodiversity
- Pressure their political delegates
Smith provides concrete examples: "Imagine if a sacred mountain was also a fund used to teach and preserve ceremonial rites, or a river directly compensated stewards for their cleanup efforts along its banks, or a pod of whales received royalties for the use of their imagery."
The book proposes that the more-than-human world might be recognized as "legitimate" social actors, leading to "novel eco-social assemblages which redefine concepts like rights, ownership, identity, privacy, responsibility, and politics beyond solely the human realm."
Key Concepts
Progressive Formalism
The book introduces "progressive formalism" as a method for expanding non-human agency across five primary domains:
- Biophysical systems
- Legal systems
- Economic systems
- Information Technology
- Political systems
Smith argues these domains form a spectrum from the "hard" life sciences to the "soft" social sciences, and that the domain of social life cannot be exclusive to human beings. The approach is "progressive" in two senses: first, as an experimental application of social technologies to an expanded cast of non-human actors; second, in recognizing the nested nature of these systems, where patterns of agency in one domain create possibilities in another.
Convivial Ecological Institutions
Convivial ecological institutions describe the ways human beings might participate in the expanded legibility of the living world. "Convivial in this sense, is to be 'alive with,'" Smith writes. The concept emphasizes that people are part of ecosystems, not separate from them, and that significant decisions on behalf of a forest should include governance by its guardians.[reference:12]
These institutions may evolve from community-governed resource management, multiplied by the expanded legibility enabled by progressive formalism. They function as "durable containers which legitimize and bolster emerging patterns of socio-ecological governance across different systems."[reference:13]
Protocollary Ecological Institutions
A related concept developed in the book, protocollary ecological institutions use decentralized protocols to enable novel legal and economic actors. The work positions blockchains and distributed digital addressing systems as capable of supporting essential patterns of commoning and mutualism, suggesting that DAOs can be a continuation of the commons movement—hybrid commons both biophysical and digital.
More information
- Episode 220 of the Future Fossils podcast, hosted by Michael Garfield, features an in-depth conversation with Austin Wade Smith about the book's core themes, including "Convivial Ecological Institutions" and "Open Source Commons for Sensemaking." This episode serves as a primary source for understanding the book's arguments in the author's own words.
Related P2P Foundation Wiki Entries
- Austin Wade Smith on the Core Patterns of Bioregional Governance
- Undualing
- Making the Non-Human World Legible Through Technology
- DAOs as Commons
- Legal Recognition of Non-Human Agency