1. Everything is Different

ESD.WORLD is an anti-capitalist media company.

Together, we provide a heterotopic countersite to commodity-based social relations.

This mission is informed by discursive collaboration, intercultural exchange, interdisciplinary scholarship, and historical inspiration from fields including Philosophy, Political Economy, Economic History, Network Theory, Syndicalism, Guilds, Mutual Aid, and much more.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE:

Primary functions:

  1. Making Art and Culture (Production & Publishing)

  2. Supporting Artists (Free Services)

  3. Restoring Fans’ Freedoms of Choice & of Association

Secondary functions:

  1. Interceding in the Public Discourse

  2. Developing Socialist Business Model(s)

  3. Modeling their Efficacy

  4. Decommodifying Art

  5. Re-Humanizing Social Relations

ECONOMIC STRUCTURE:

Problems to Address:

  1. The majority of what gets called “culture” is merely a consumable corporate product, not the meaning of the word culture which refers to the product of a people.  

  2. The art market is not an art market but an asset market. 

  3. The music industry was not democratized, it experienced a coup. 

  4. The music streaming business funds war and bankers instead of music and musicians. 

  5. Social media platforms can be good for connecting with people and associating with fragmented communities - but they are terrible places to spend time as a consumer. 

  6. Social media platforms impose undue burden on artists - rather than just being a place to exhibit art, social media imposes competition onto its users. Algorithms transform their respective platforms into advertising websites where the “posting” people do on their accounts is what drives traffic to the ads hosted on the site, but in turn, the sites users are led to advertise themselves on the platform as well. This competition for attention - marketing - takes focus, time, and energy away from the artist’s actual occupation: making art. 

  7. It feels ethically dubious to me personally, to take an artists money in order to provide them a service, when they look at that transaction as an investment - because the music industry is setup to deprive them of the return on that investment they are making by hiring me. 

  8. I want a way to be creative and work with artists that doesn’t feel like exploiting a dream, and that is genuinely helping them and their art.