Solopreneurship as the Modern Form of Distributism Where Decentralisation is Supported by Technology
This post is the third instalment of the 8-week series of my research about the failing economic system, solopreneurship trend, blockchain, and Solana Pay.
This research wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Superteam UK so go follow them on X.
The solopreneurs trend is on the rise.
This is a response towards the limited choices of work by the kinds of activities that are economically viable while not providing enough or sustainable incomes. On the contrary, with resource democratisation, such as fast internet access, more solopreneurs can leverage the technology at their fingertips to create new jobs and make money.
As I explained in my previous post, distributism looks like an ideal flavour of economic governance where it balances out the supply and demand problems while allowing individuals to regain control of their independence. Instead of the economy being controlled by relatively few riches in a plutarchy system, which is more or less centralised, the economy is in the hands of the many. Revisiting the essence of distributism where the ownership is in the hands of individuals, or families, I will walk you through why I argue that solopreneurship is the evolution of distributism in the modern era.
As an analogy, the economy works in a cyclical process of expansion and contraction. Uncontrolled expansion causes inflation, and the uncontrolled form of it leads to hyperinflation. The contraction, on the other hand, causes the economy to shrink in deflation. The job of the Central Bank is to exercise their authority in intervening in the economy, so the targeted national welfare measures can be reached. Summarising the national money policy from this good book on the visual facts of money (totally recommended, the physical copy is wonderful to read!) [1], the central banks can control the money supply to support the government’s objectives as most of the central banks are independent of their political governments.
For instance, when the interest rate is low, the borrowing is cheaper, then we can expect the economy to expand. As the spending power grows, then the price also goes up to balance the supply and demand in the market. As a result, inflation is on its way. The overall price increase causes the cost increase in the production lines, employees demand better pay, and overall prices spiral up. To control the prices, the central banks can increase the base rate, which in turn influences the interest rates. This means less money in circulation, but also encourages lay-offs, raising unemployment. Another method taken by the government is to increase taxes, which is unpopular.
Reversely, when the economy is in a contractionary period, the government can increase government spending and/or the central banks reduce the base rate to encourage borrowing and hence, the spending. Methods such as quantitative easing and buying bonds in the open market are available to increase the money supply. Businesses expand once again, absorbing the labourers from the job market, and the cycle continues. It’s like operating and fine-tuning the dials that affect millions or billions of people.
Now, not only is the economy cyclical in terms of the inflationary and deflationary periods, which cause the cycles of employment and unemployment, but also it’s cyclical in how the world operates in preferred economic policy. Truthfully, it’s not called policy yet as it’s more on the global phenomena caused by the stages of capitalism.
When the tech companies overhired and then engaged in mass lay-offs, the trend seemed to continue since the governments in the world are in the inflationary cycle, which they seek to control. Therefore, we observe a prolonged period of the “bear market” in tech, and particularly the crypto world.
Outside of the tech world, triggered by the “new normal” of the working style we adopted during the global pandemic largely from 2020 until 2022, many workers realise the essential things are outside of the confinement of office cubicles. Naturally, they demand more flexibility, the so-called better work-life balance. Reiterating from the previous post, with the added risk factor in the global phenomena of mass unemployment and general inflation, the workers have been pushed to seek alternative methods to earn incomes to support themselves and their dependents (yes, that includes your furry babies).
And, what’s the alternative way other than to create the jobs yourself, within your set terms of acceptance?
Therefore, aided by the economic trend, rising collective awareness that there’s a life outside work, and the support from technology that makes the codifiable tasks automated (read my first week’s post on that), working on your own projects is seen as a good alternative to venture [2].
And, let’s not forget about the network effect amplified by social media. With over 73% of small businesses saying that they rely on social media promotion [3], and 2023 data of 20% of side hustlers being involved in content creation, it’s not difficult to imagine that our brains subconsciously internalise that being an entrepreneur is the new normal, given the bombard of the information we consume from social media today.
I compiled several stats on solopreneurship that serve as a base for the arguments presented in the remainder of this essay.
In 2020, so we can assume it’s due to the push from the pandemic, the number of solopreneurs in the US rose by ~10%. The recent Statista finding also forecasts that in 2027, 86.5 million people will be freelancing in the US and make up 50.9% of the total U.S. workforce. The sheer number means solopreneurship will become a normalised, revolutionised way to earn income in the near future.
Based on the survey results, surprisingly, having more financial rewards is not the chief motivation. The primary motivation is about freedom or more control (34.35%), followed by the financial reward (22.58%), and then to work on their passion. This is interesting because the workers realise that the currency is time (hence, control), which is the ultimate goal of people working for their financial independence as well. The goal is not the money, the goal is the freedom that comes with having money.
About freedom and working on something people are passionate about, the interesting argument from Bertrand Russell [4] is that leisure classes have always been responsible for the developments in science, culture, and politics because they simply have more time at hand to think and take action on the matter. In contrast, the working class spends their time working. This makes the progress slanted towards the non-working class as they have the privilege of spending time and other resources simply not for mere survival.
Solopreneurship and Human Dignity
Now, without a traditional definition of work, would solopreneurship still be able to improve human dignity, as discussed in the previous post?
As the argument from Gheaus and Herzog [5], there are at least four non-monetary goods to be obtained from paid work:
- Cultivation excellence in our skills
- Contribution to society
- A sense of community
- Social status
Human dignity is the closest to the argument of social status, although it’s not restricted to it, since the other three are critical in being human as a social being.
Since the paper from Danaher [6] pits the work versus non-work state, I would examine how solopreneurship is still a better choice of “work”.
The argument of life fulfilment being obtained from work is highlighted in the research done by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the prominent author of his seminal book, Flow. People are generally more focused, happier, and more satisfied at work than at play. Boredom creates anxious feelings, the “paradox of work”. I found that this argument is biased towards the traditional definition of work, which might suggest that solopreneurship doesn’t bring the same fulfilment.
I argue here that it’s a matter of how we view boredom. Explaining and digressing on two levels here: modern technology is the very reason why people can’t be bored. As soon as they are out of work, people start chatting with their screens, watching the latest news on television, or finding all sorts of information from social media. Doom-scrolling becomes the norm rather than the exception. Why do you think streaming services are a billion-dollar business? Because it brings comfort to people’s very sanctuary: their homes.
Why can’t we just sit in idleness and silence, then?
Why must the boredom be alleviated?
Kierkegaard felt it and attributed that boredom is the absence of meaning. Stringing different ideas together, Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power of Now, a best-selling book in mindfulness and spirituality, explains that most people only think consciously, all the time, without the connection to the subconscious. The mind is a survival machine, constantly being active to gather information and devise plans to attack other minds or to preserve their physical being.
Therefore, it’s the boredom, the activity-less state, that the mind dislikes, because then a person is confronted with the subconscious and emotions brewing in the body. That person might watch them with curiosity, bringing them to light, which results in the dissipating grip of the conscious mind, or as Tolle calls it, the “pain-body”.
In boredom, one’s mind wanders and the subconscious thoughts resurface. Since the subconscious accounts for >75% of our thoughts, the time spent in boredom means receiving the influx of the unknowns underneath to be brought to light. It’s like watching the repressed monsters, hidden down there, rise above the water level. The boredom, which creates freedom later, in the form of time, energy, and attention, is the situation that soon becomes unpleasant to work with.
Quoting the famous statement from Sigmund Freud: Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. The responsibility here may refer to the actions taken to “fill” in the free time. Combining the idea of the power of now, Kierkegaard’s sentiment on freedom, and Freudian view of freedom, when you’re only with your mind, the thoughts come offering you choices you haven’t realised repressed. This makes you free to think for yourself outside of work or mundane scope, forcing you to consciously make choices on how to spend your time and energy. Conscious thinking is energy-expensive.
Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
Consequently, we resort to mind-numbing activities. Work, or structured time allocated by other people to control you, such as your manager delegating tasks to your plate, is such a perfect activity for two reasons:
- You won’t need to think about how you spend this time, attention, and energy currencies, because you must do something for someone else
- You get paid, which is a good outcome, and which you can spend on more mindless consumption
Hence, boredom in the absence of work itself is not the problem. Our grappling fear of confrontation with our thoughts and free time is the problem. On the other hand, I tip my hat off to those who are constantly keeping their subconscious subjected to light, preventing their life from getting sucked by the downward spiral of mindlessness.
Back to the essay.
So, based on the explanation above and contrasting it with the argument presented in the Flow, even doing solopreneurship work (which, tbh, might not generate any revenues for a long time at first), or all things about passion projects that light us up, may still bring the flow state. The reverse is also true: working for our bread and butter job may still fail to elevate us to the flow state.
Now that we have addressed the peak of consciousness in the flow state, which is also applicable to solopreneurship, there’s another problem of how to obtain meaning from the work or projects, due to the job polarization I discussed in the first week’s post.
Danaher’s paper offers a guide about types of work where human contribution is still valued more than AI, which is in the realm of private, playful, or aesthetic. Furthermore, Metz’s paper on what makes life meaningful ultimately narrows down the three values, namely The Good, the True, and the Beautiful [7]. Danaher’s paper points out that we are left with the Beautiful one.
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful
However, Danaher also provides the optimistic view, that instead of making AI our foe due to the technological unemployment threat, in solo- or micropreneurship, technology can find its purpose in an integrationist approach.
For instance, because a solopreneurship must juggle different activities, ranging from managing tasks, scheduling appointments, and ensuring their private life is not in a semblance of disarray, technology can help in a way that the traditional approach lacks. Despite technology becoming more externalised outside our control, the use cases steer towards the trend of embodying technology into our lives, an integrationist outlook. Smartphones can remind you of the next meeting schedule, a product suite and task manager can centralise your thoughts and metrics in a dashboard, and so on.
It is not as dystopian (or, probably, utopian) as Chalmers’ paper on AI singularity [8] where humankind can preserve its cognition by uploading it to the generative AI so their human touch can remain, but at least the AI innovations can help solopreneurs run their day-to-day task more efficiently.
Solopreneurship and Distributism
The economic cycle leads to a trend of decentralisation again. The number of blockchain-based startups is on the rise. From the failed capitalistic system that we went over last week, people are looking at being entrepreneurs, as the stats show above.
However, the reality is not everyone is aware of or willing to take the risks that entail the more than one-person entrepreneurship life path. With the steps of having to register your business right away, finding co-founders, and hiring and firing team members, it’s understandable that the founders start as a one-person business, hence, the solopreneurship. We can stretch that into micropreneurship with less than 5 people in the team.
Its nature has been steering away from a centralised team, to more decentralised expertise that works together, often globally. For instance, a virtual assistant in Spain who runs her 5-client business works with a coach in South Africa who runs his health coaching services. The virtual assistant isn’t technically a subordinate to the coach because it’s a client-provider relationship.
Looking back to the definition and spirit of distributism, therefore, solopreneurship is the better model of distributism in the modern economy. This is how we benefit from the prolific use cases of technology that may cause unemployment. Instead of fearing it for driving the loss of jobs, technology is our weapon to create a better economic system that distributes ownership.
The spirit of distributism is that everyone has their unique skill sets that can contribute towards the advancement of society. The collaboration has been happening and growing in the digital space. For instance, influencers or content creators create posts together, one interviewing the other, or work on a set of tasks.
The Second Machine Age book [9] has this quote from Eric Raymond, an open-source software advocate: Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. This is true because the recombination of innovations will boost progress, as the interconnected brains work together.
Now, let’s address the critique of distributism [10], [11].
Critique of Distributism and Its Rebuttal
1/ Everyone is still a “wage slave”, even the entrepreneurs
This critique does not negate distributism in general, as it stems from the personal choice of whether to pursue a certain price point or an amount of money.
2/ Willful ignorance of how economics works
This critique points out that addressing “fair and just” wages will jack up the prices, driving inflation. While this is true as to how the current economy works, the proponents of distributism seek the underpinning principle of fairness and justice in setting up the prices, which might be far from the truth in the centralised economy.
As mentioned in this introduction to distributism [12], what distributists seek is distributive justice prior to corrective justice. Distributive justice is more cultural, involving decisions of what merits are constituted of. Because of the modern liberalism view, with the “invisible hand” in the economy, distributive justice has been reduced to the unintentional result of competition in the market. However, distributive justice can never be decoupled from human intentionality. Corrective justice is the by-product of the late-stage capitalism we went over last week, where it only seeks equality in exchange.
3/ The lust for the government intervention
The distributists are accused of leaving the economic decision to the government, putting fascism as the alternative form of controlling the economy, instead of the laissez-faire free market. However, in modern times, the intervention can still be delegated to the market participants, in organisations such as DAOs.
Before distributism, Keynesianism had taken precedence where it enlarged the power of the state by the income distribution, over taxes and other policies. The outdated view of distributism, hence, emphasises the distribution of property and less on the income intervention by the government.
4/ Distributism can be obtained with free will alone, in the free market
The opponents of distributism argue that even without the so-called form of distributism, the market actors have a choice on how to conduct their businesses, such as opting for more locally sourced products to support the local farmers and reduce greenhouse gases. This alone is not a strong opinion to dispute distributism.
5/ The self-autarky symptom
This critique underpins the idea that distributism is not favoured by the masses today as people prefer the division of labour, or the specialisation of expertise, in which every worker can contribute to the firms they work at, enjoying more security and stable payment.
The unsustainability of the recent job market refutes this.
6/ Deprivation of poverty is a fallacy in distributism
This critique refers to the fact that when one ventures into entrepreneurship, one must be able to exercise delayed gratification in terms of a stable income in advance. This is because the start of a business requires a period where the revenues are uncertain and payment is not always obtained, unlike salaried work.
However, with the UBI as proposed last week, the income support for the starting business owners could be made possible.
It’s also important to highlight that instead of land being distributed, it’s now about wages and time, or as the survey mentioned: it’s inherently about one’s freedom, about control.
The Challenges of Solopreneurship
The journey to the top can feel lonely. Not every entrepreneur will make it to the top, or even the VC funding to start. As for micro/solopreneurs, the challenges are even on a personal level. Highlighting the numbers from a similar survey,
1/ Capital Issue
As highlighted in the critique of distributism above, the solopreneurship path might encourage people to engage in delayed gratification with less stable revenues at first.
2/ Loneliness
The statistics about loneliness are staggering [13]. In 2022, 25.99 million adults in the UK, comprising 49.63% of the population, acknowledged experiencing occasional, frequent, or persistent feelings of loneliness. Approximately 7.1% of the population in Great Britain, endure chronic loneliness, characterised by feeling lonely “often or always”. This is an increase from 6% in 2020, underscoring the persistence of elevated levels of loneliness compared to pre-pandemic times.
Combined with the stats of the solopreneurship where 13% of solopreneurs feel lonely and isolated in their work [14], this is not a small matter. Burnout can result from prolonged living in loneliness despite initially working on their passion projects. This is an irony to the cause of the solopreneurs working for themselves, as the stat shows that over 60% of employees in the US with high burn-out levels believe companies don’t care about their well-being.
Furthermore, social isolation and loneliness have a strong association with an increased risk of all-cause mortality, based on this meta-analysis research [15]. With the solopreneurs, especially those who chiefly work with screens, feeling isolated due to the nature of their work, the risks are greater than financial, as their health could be compromised, too.
3/ Self-doubt
As embarking on entrepreneurship warrants one’s greater exposure to risks and uncertainty, mind resilience matters.
Self-doubt starts creeping in, and the allure of the stable income that comes with salaried work is sometimes deceptive. It doesn’t help that being a solopreneur comes with navigating the challenges of how we want to direct the course of our business. Referring to the problem of having freedom as discussed above, uncharted territory can feel daunting as there are macro- and micro-decisions an entrepreneur must make.
4/ Siloed skills
Everybody speaks about siloed skills these days, such as targeting your niche on social media platforms. Despite the best intentions, siloed skills that do not branch out towards the growth the entrepreneurs are looking to see are suboptimal. For instance, person A might be a good coach and public speaker, but not much trained in social media marketing skills, like SEO optimisation. Another person who is skilled at that is required to help person A.
While person A relies on the internet or social media browsing to find the specialist that might help them, the result can sometimes be overwhelming. Besides, there is little way for them to know whether they will be enjoyable to work with, a human factor that is not covered in the social proof of the specialist in question.
A good way to form an opinion for this is by starting in a community first, so everyone is gathered together in a close-knit community of entrepreneurs — who are mostly generalists — and specialists. The specialists can offer their service and the generalists can work with the candidates in a more comfortable social setting.
Blockchain to Support Solopreneurs
Blockchain is not merely about cryptocurrencies as I mentioned in the last post. Leveraging its innate property of being community-driven, solopreneurs can grow on or with blockchain-based products.
Two aspects here can support solopreneurs, mainly the blockchain's unique property that allows distributism, and indirect support of blockchain when it is the tech stack to build something that increases efficiency and reduces the pain points of a solopreneur.
1/ Blockchain’s Unique Property
Blockchain provides the content-sharing platforms
Brave browser is a good example of utilising blockchain in the attention economy. Its native token, BAT (Basic Attention Token) allows the creators to garner income from the passive browsing, while the supporters or fans can support their favourites. Farcaster, another decentralised social media, also reaps the internet attention from the web3 communities.
This is a good sign for a more decentralised economy that opens the opportunities for more distributive justice.
Since the decentralised platforms grow from communities, DAO is the suitable place where the creators, as one of the stakeholders of the ecosystem, have their say by voting on the matters concerning them, such as the fees and distribution model.
A DAO that acts as a community of solopreneurs where knowledge and financial exchanges happen
A community of solopreneurs may address psychological issues such as the feeling of loneliness and self-doubt, as the community members support each other in a healthy environment, promoting a medium of knowledge sharing. Moreover, with the growing number of members of the community, the DAO can provide an attractive offer to the micro-investors to boost financial activity.
It’s not impossible to imagine the UBI or financial support for the solopreneurs to start. Another interesting financial path is the P2P lending occurring among the members of the DAO. As an organisation, there are plenty of business models open to the solopreneurs and investors in said DAO.
2/ Indirect Support from Blockchain-based Products
The use cases are endless, ranging from the payment method that supports international remittance (I’m going to discuss this in the coming post) to tracking methods, publication, data dashboards, and various other tools built on blockchain that the solopreneurs can utilise in parts of their business.
Final Thought
Solopreneurship is not a fad trend and is expected to grow. The critique towards distributism might be valid in the past, but with the help of decentralised organisations and technological innovations, solopreneurship emerges as the ideal image of how distributism runs in the modern economy. Blockchain’s unique property and products built on it support solopreneurs to tackle the challenges and expand their businesses.
Thank you for reading till the end.
If this article sparks your interest and you want to discuss it further with me, leave comments below, or reach out to me on the following:
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Until then,
References
[1] How Money Works: The Facts Visually Explained, First. Dorling Kindersley Limited, 2017.
[2] R. Tillman, ‘Council Post: The Rise Of The Solopreneur: Why Big Tech Should Be On Notice’, Forbes. Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/10/02/the-rise-of-the-solopreneur-why-big-tech-should-be-on-notice/
[3] M. Shepherd, ’13 Social Media Statistics to Level Up Your Business Profiles — Fundera Ledger’. Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.fundera.com/resources/social-media-statistics
[4] B. Russell, In Praise of Idleness: And Other Essays (Routledge Classics), 2nd ed. Routledge, 2004.
[5] A. Gheaus and L. Herzog, ‘The Goods of Work (Other Than Money!)’, Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 70–89, 2016.
[6] J. Danaher, ‘Will Life Be Worth Living in a World Without Work? Technological Unemployment and the Meaning of Life’, Sci Eng Ethics, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 41–64, Feb. 2017, doi: 10.1007/s11948–016–9770–5.
[7] T. Metz, ‘The Good, the True, and the Beautiful: Toward a Unified Account of Great Meaning in Life’, Religious Studies, vol. 47, pp. 389–409, Dec. 2011, doi: 10.1017/S0034412510000569.
[8] D. J. Chalmers, ‘The singularity: A philosophical analysis.’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol. 17, no. 9–10, pp. 7–65, 2010.
[9] E. Brynjolfsson and A. Mcafee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. W. W. Norton & Company, 2014.
[10] fad-admin, ‘What’s Wrong with Distributism’, Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/whats-wrong-with-distributism/
[11] T. E. W. Jr, ‘The Fallacies of Distributism | Thomas E. Woods Jr.’ Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://fee.org/articles/the-fallacies-of-distributism/
[12] ‘An Introduction to Distributism’, The Distributist Review. Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://distributistreview.com/archive/an-introduction-to-distributism
[13] ‘Facts and Statistics’, Campaign to End Loneliness. Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/facts-and-statistics/
[14] ‘Solopreneur Statistics: Uncovering the Surprising Truths’. Accessed: Feb. 24, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://leapmesh.com/solopreneur-statistics/
[15] F. Wang et al., ‘A systematic review and meta-analysis of 90 cohort studies of social isolation, loneliness and mortality’, Nat Hum Behav, vol. 7, no. 8, Art. no. 8, Aug. 2023, doi: 10.1038/s41562–023–01617–6.
