Why Protocols Are the Unit of Intervention

New @greenpillnet pod out today! Kevin talks with Akseli Virtanen, co-founder of the Economic Space Agency (ECSA), along with co-authors Dick Bryan and Jorge Lopez, about their groundbreaking book Protocols for Post-Capitalist Expression.

They explore how capital is itself a protocol, how post-capitalism can emerge through new economic grammars, and why distributed finance and programmable accounting could redefine value beyond markets and the state.

If you've ever wondered how economics, coordination, and code might come together to create new forms of collective value, this episode is for you.

🌐 Links https://greenpill.network/ https://economicspace.agency

📘 Protocols for Post-Capitalist Expression (Book) https://postcapitalist.agency/#

🐦 @owocki @greenpillnet @econaut6

🌐 Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: Welcome to the new Greenpill season — exploring tech, coordination & Protopia 00:40 – Introducing guest Akseli Virtanen and co-authors Dick Bryan & Jorge Lopez 02:00 – What is Protocols for Post-Capitalist Expression about? 03:20 – Computational networks as new economic media 04:00 – The problem: today's systems run on outdated economic logic 05:10 – Why we need new economic languages to express ecological and social value 06:20 – Viewing the economy as a networking protocol 07:00 – Capital as a coordination protocol, not a natural law 08:40 – How protocol politics define power and participation 09:40 – Why political change must happen at the level of infrastructure 11:20 – Understanding capital as an accounting protocol 12:10 – The interdisciplinary process of co-authoring the book 13:30 – Why protocols are the new unit of economic intervention 14:50 – How distributed protocols can re-engineer value systems 16:00 – Multiple logics of measurement: beyond price and profit 17:40 – How new metrics of "use value" redefine what counts as surplus 19:20 – Defining post-capitalism: new grammars for value creation 20:00 – Living "in the spread" between capitalism and post-capitalism 21:30 – The shift from exchange value to use value 23:00 – Distributed economic agency: moving power to the network edge 25:30 – Defining the Economic Space Agency — what it means to co-author economies 27:30 – Surplus logic: from profit to utility 29:00 – Designing programmable economic spaces for collective value 30:50 – How post-capitalism can interoperate with existing markets 33:10 – Why public goods need new accounting categories 35:00 – Coordination beyond the state: self-sustaining networks of value 37:00 – The liquidity problem: bootstrapping new economic systems 38:30 – Designing a bridge between capital and post-capital 40:20 – Respecting both systems' internal logics for sustainable coexistence 42:30 – Innovation: the bridge as a design breakthrough 44:00 – Formalizing economics in programmable code 45:40 – How distributed systems expand what's economically possible 47:30 – How to get involved: joining ECSA's newsletter & Economic Media Lab 48:30 – Final reflections: multiple metrics of value and economic imagination 49:10 – Closing remarks: keep building, experimenting, and coordinating