Leveraging stewardship

Since we only interact with the world based on what we know, changing what we 'know' is essential to changing our expectations and motivations.

An open access economy leverages the ethic of stewardship that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources.

If a particular resource is poorly stewarded then it may negatively affect a life supporting environment. Likewise if the resource is well stewarded, it will not or may even improve it in some way.

Examples of good stewardship in an open access economy:

Only giving scarce resources to those with the proven capabilities to manage them effectively

Acting conservatively with time management to prevent the misuse and abuse of scarce resources

Respecting the environment during the production and assembly of manufactured goods

Planning ahead of time to maximise use of resources and reduce shortages

Only using limited amounts of available resources to reduce waste

Reusing existing resources over resource extraction

Reputation accounting

In an open access economy, it would be wisest to choose those with the proven record and ability to manage a particular resource well.

This can be done through services offering reputation accounts such as HonorPay and sites such as Sharebay featuring transaction reviews.

Private ownership becomes stewardship

Just because resources are shared with more access to them in an open access economy, doesn't mean existing private property rights are abandoned. Some critical of an open access economy fear that others will take whatever they want and whatever they can, and abuse an ability to use and misuse property without maintaining some form of property management and ownership rights.

In an open access economy, it can still be possible to retain any title ownership rights you have over that particular resource, land or property you have the title to on record for. As it's acting steward, if something were to go wrong with said property, or cause harm to people or the environment, you will still retain the responsibility for the outcomes of how well the property is maintained.

In the current market system however, information for who is ultimately responsible for the management of private property isn't always easy to define or clear due to a lot of private property being jointly owned, whether that be in shareholdings or in title, leading to decision making problems when shareholders or joint owners have different opinions and visions and want to go in different directions, and so are unable to settle a plan of action regarding what to do with the jointly owned property. And putting things right to the property such as costs of repair isn't always easy either when heavy monetary costs are involved.

To help with this, in an open access economy, alongside resources needed to improve aspects of the property now more readily available with cost no longer a major playing factor, private property can be managed and organised where all property is stewarded solely by individuals as the sole title owners. So only one person has the title ownership rights to the property.

Doing so improves responsible management and decision making capabilities when lack of responsible decision making and maintenance for the use and upkeep of the property for themselves or anyone else using the property, cannot be claimed by anyone else, so it is always known who to contact if needed or if something were to go wrong, such as when the property is in use or on loan and a return needs to be made, if a query regarding the property needs to be asked, or if an improvement has to be made to the property.

Projects and task management

As with private property, projects in an open access economy will also need to be responsibly managed, and the bigger the project, the more areas of the project needs to be managed. This can be done through project founders and property owners assigning roles to their management as leaders forming teams.

Once roles are assigned, tasks can be given to those within the team the role is assigned for to complete. This could be taking care of a particular part of work on property such as cleaning, electrical or garden maintenance, or for parts of a project that needs to be completed.

Role and task assigning helps team leaders and property owners manage who is responsible for what objectives need to be carried out towards their completion.