# History

The traditions Commonweal comes from. Commonwealism is new, but its parts are
old.

## The commonweal

*Commonweal* is an old English word for the common good: the welfare of the
whole community, the *weal* we hold in common. It is the root of
*commonwealth*. Medieval and early modern writers used it for the idea that
rulers and property exist to serve the wellbeing of all. Commonwealism keeps
both words: the commonweal is the common good, and a commonwealth is a
self-governing community that holds it in common.

## Subsidiarity and the guilds

Catholic social teaching, especially Pius XI's letter *Quadragesimo Anno*
(1931), set out the principle of subsidiarity: a larger body should not take
over what a smaller one can do well. Medieval Europe's guilds, associations of
craftsmen and traders, kept standards of skill, trained apprentices and cared
for their members. Commonwealism's nested commonwealths and its national
guilds draw on both.

## Solidarism

In the 1890s the French statesman Léon Bourgeois argued, in his book
*Solidarité* (1896), that everyone is born in debt to society and owes
something back, and that the state should guarantee mutual protection against
illness, accident and old age. The German Jesuit economist Heinrich Pesch
developed a solidarist economics in which classes cooperate under the common
good instead of fighting. Commonwealism takes from solidarism its central
idea: mutual obligation, with the strong owing the weak.

## Catholic social teaching and Christian democracy

In 1891 Pope Leo XIII's letter *Rerum Novarum* defended workers' right to a
just wage and to organise, while also defending property and the family. That
teaching inspired the Christian democratic parties of the twentieth century,
which joined faith and tradition to a strong welfare state. Commonwealism keeps
that union of faith and social care, but makes no faith compulsory.

## Stewardship and participation

The idea that owners are stewards, holding property in trust for the common
good, runs through both religious and civic traditions. In postwar France,
Charles de Gaulle championed *participation*, giving workers a share in the
running and profits of their companies, alongside a strong state that steered
the economy in the national interest. Commonwealism's stewarded economy draws
on both ideas.

## Cybernetics and Project Cybersyn

Commonweal's method comes from cybernetics, the science of how systems steer
themselves through feedback. In *Brain of the Firm* (1972) the British
cybernetician Stafford Beer set out the Viable System Model: the five parts any
self-governing system needs.

From 1971 to 1973 Beer applied it in Chile, in Project Cybersyn, with Fernando
Flores and a team of Chilean engineers and designers. It had four parts:

- **Cybernet**, a network of telex machines that carried daily production
  figures from factories to Santiago.
- **Cyberstride**, software that flagged unusual changes early.
- **CHECO**, a simulator of the economy.
- **The Opsroom**, an operations room where decisions could be taken quickly
  with the facts in view.

In October 1972, during a strike by truck owners, the network helped keep food
and fuel moving with a fraction of the usual trucks. The project ended with the
military coup of 11 September 1973.

Commonweal is not a revival of that government's politics. It takes Cybersyn's
lasting technical lessons: shared, current information lets a nation
coordinate itself; problems are best caught early, by the people closest to
them; and a small team can do a great deal with little.

## Open source

In 1983 Richard Stallman launched the GNU project to build an operating system
that anyone could use, study, change and share. That free software movement,
and the open standards that let the internet's machines all talk to each
other, show how technology can belong to everyone. Commonweal is free software
for the same reason.

## Lessons Commonweal carries forward

1. **The common good is the measure.** Every institution, the state included,
   is judged by how well it serves the whole people.
2. **Mutual obligation.** The strong owe the weak, and everyone owes something
   to the nation that raised them.
3. **Feedback beats guesswork.** A nation that can see itself clearly can govern
   itself well.
4. **Power must stay accountable.** Records and systems can be captured and
   turned against the people. Openness, consent and the people's power to
   overrule are the defence.
5. **Open technology is national strength.** What everyone can read, fix and
   build on cannot be held hostage.

## Further reading

- Stafford Beer, *Brain of the Firm* (1972; second edition 1981).
- Eden Medina, *Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in
  Allende's Chile* (2011).
- Léon Bourgeois, *Solidarité* (1896).
- Leo XIII, *Rerum Novarum* (1891).