Manifesto

Manifesto8 min read

01The problem 02Community 03Aims 04Doing things differently 05A theme

Why 400,000,000 exists; what it is trying to stop, organize, and create; and what doing things differently means.

01The problem

Many in the first half of the 21st century (in North America and around the world) are wondering why it feels as though the quality of media and technology most engaged with is largely empty or degraded.

In the broad strokes, most of us can identify this problem as a result of “things being all about the money.”

Some can even loosely tie “money” or systems of “greed” to their own existential dread around ecological collapse and the threat it poses to our future as a species (makes it harder to actually enjoy things too, doesn’t it?).

But as the old saying goes:

The devil is in the details.

02Community

For those at 400,000,000, the “details” converge in a thing we call “community.”

400,000,000 began in 2020 as a network of artists who could recognize that their art was being thrown into the extractive social media ether; sapped by media conglomerates that reach many, but only after forcing them to compromise on their artistic integrity; or channeled into membership/subscription models that could mean financial success and sustenance, but not without some degree of isolation (i.e., lack of community with other creators).

These artists decided they wanted to explore ways in which they could relate to their labor in a different, more cooperative way.

In 2022, more technologists and designers became involved, and 400,000,000 went from just being a creative collective to being a federation of worker cooperatives: 400M: Productions and 400M: D+D (Design and Development) (respectively). And as this happened, some members began to think beyond just “labor.”

It is on the point of “community” that some 400,000,000 members discovered aims central to working with others to build systemic alternatives to the social and cultural hellscape we are all currently in (addressing labor, but also land and social relationships more broadly).

03Aims

These aims now form the backbone of 400,000,000’s aims as an organization. They are defined as follows:

StopHelping cultural workers, technologists, and designers (collectively) stop letting their work (and any subcultures that might spring out of their work) be sucked dry by exploitative megacorporations and world systems that make it harder for humans to survive.

OrganizeHelping cultural workers, technologists, and designers democratically and collectively organize their talents, labor, and resources in order to address their survival as individuals, and create territories in which they no longer have to worry about survival (where they can instead focus on creating).

CreateHelping cultural workers, technologists, and designers create their best and most self-fulfilling works while generating a surplus; via cooperative and directly democratic organization of both their production and distribution; and without operating from a place of scarcity.

In essence, those within 400,000,000 decided to help themselves and other creative humans “do things differently” in a time where it seems all hope is lost for organic creative culture and community.

04Doing things differently

400,000,000 members have determined that “doing things differently” means:

01Producing and distributing both art and technology cooperatively and democratically (without bosses and shareholders standing over their shoulders).

02Using the resources generated through cooperative/democratic production and distribution to service (a) creatives via permanent housing and more (within eco-communities), (b) creation (via art funds, tool-sharing, new technology, and more), (c) culture, (d) the humans who support creatives and their events, and (e) the shaping of cooperative and directly democratic eco-communities all throughout the continent and world.

03Not being bought off or absorbed by traditionally capitalist enterprises (ensuring that their institutions are unbuyable and ungovernable — this means no selling of their organizations or operations to exploitative corporations, large or small, that are uninterested in democratizing and supporting cooperative labor or transformative infrastructure-building as a whole).

05A theme

A theme emerges:

Understanding of what got us into this mess informing the means by which we try to get out of it, ultimately being led by what is possible, not probable.

In the name of life, creative life, and a creative life of freedom.

This defines 400,000,000 as an organization and informs all of its operations today.

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