The Main Principles of Biological Economics

I. Cells Seek Connection.

• Cells are drawn toward and connect to energy resources (through taxis) to communicate their existence, which demonstrates life (will to exist), liberty (binary choice to connect or disconnect), and the pursuit of happiness (or pursuit of connection, which serves as the source of all value creation).
• Cells are drawn toward and connect to each other, to communicate through the products of their labor; the universal language of (biochemical) energy (ATP) that cells share demonstrates they are born to connect and communicate with each other (evidence shows that multicellular organizations developed many times in Earth’s history—this phenomenon is not an accident, but a probable outcome; given the cell’s tenacious will to exist through connection, life becomes inevitable).
• Cells are drawn toward and connect to the future, to communicate themselves across the medium of Time through the transfer of cellular blueprints which are continually updated; thus, evolution is a process of biological ‘economic growth.’
• Importantly, Time and evolution inextricably connect biological economics from its foundation in the single cell (microeconomics) up through the multicellular organism (macroeconomics) to the global (social / relational or societal) level of human interaction, and back down again; this establishes a causal relationship between the disconnection (and subsequent imbalance) that hierarchal economics perpetrates at the societal level, and the negative physical, mental, and emotional health outcomes seen at the multicellular and cellular level (cells are not born to be cancerous, for instance, just as children are not born to do violence to one another; these behaviors are ‘nurtured’ through disconnection). Studies already confirm the communication of transgenerational trauma through time, so connection—and thus causation—can already be scientifically established.

II. Cells Perform Labor.

• The single eukaryotic cell is a self-contained micro-economicunit fullyequipped with transportation, communication, self-defense, reproduction, energy production, and waste management infrastructure. Connection alone does not sustain existence; only through labor can life be sustained, to convert resources into usable energy products; thus, Labor represents the only true source of positive value.

III. Cells Maintain Balance.

• In exchange for existence, cells make an economic deal with the universe: for the use of the power grid, each cell must pay something forward; the miracle of biological economics is that cells can produce more than they need to power their own existence, and through the cellular mandate to maintain homeostatic balance, the excess products of labor must be dispensed (communicated), creating a natural supply chain of production, distribution, and consumption.
• Cells connect themselves to other cells because they are born to connect and distribute (communicate) the products of their labor; through this connection, various relationships are formed. Cells prefer mutual relationships but will accept commensal ones; they even seem to tolerate parasitic (hierarchal) relationships but will defend themselves vigorously against predatory ones.
• The mandate to achieve constant homeostatic balance infers that inequality is an unnatural arrangement. Importantly, inequality becomes an impossible arrangement once mutual connection has been established, meaning that inequality is evidence of parasitic (or predatory) connection—a one-way connection where positive value is drained, not dispersed.

IV. Cells Exercise Choice.

• Taxis—a cell’s binary choice to either gravitate toward sources of positive value (positive response), or away from sources of negative value (negative response)— forms the biological basis for the “self-evident” truths of life (will to exist), liberty (binary choice to connect or disconnect), and the pursuit of happiness (the positive value that only connection-plus-labor can provide).
  • The choice of connection is a proactive, long-term strategy that serves as the only path toward sustainable existence; it alone represents a positive value.
  • Disconnection is a reactive, short-term, unsustainable strategy to avoid perceived danger; it represents a negative (unwanted) value.
    • Disconnection creates a fictitious source of value within hierarchal economics, where the parasitic or predatory extraction of positive value is masked by the guise that debt somehow holds or stores some positive ‘monetary’ worth, when in fact, debt money is only a tool to coerce ownership of the natural process of positive value creation (aka connection plus labor). Thus, hierarchal economics ‘capitalizes’ on the violence caused by disconnection, rather than recognizing the violence as a negative value or impediment to biological ‘economic growth’ (evolution), where obvious solutions would be proposed to reestablish connection and restore balance.

V. Cells Enable Communication.

• Cells utilize their labor to communicate with other cells, who are drawn to connect and communicate further. As multicellular conglomerations formed, cells engineered (among other things) a chemical communication grid, to relay messages from individual cells outward (to ensure the cellular ‘community’ acted with a single purpose). Cells also engineered a second electrical communication grid, complete with external sensory mechanisms (sense organs) that do what cells do best: convert energy (heat, light, sound, and chemical) into communication from the outside to the inside; again, this demonstrates A) the important role communication plays in cellular existence, and B) the inseparable connection between the single cell and its external environment through space and time, such that the effects at any one level (or time period) will surely resonate (be communicated) throughout all levels. 
• The cell only needs to communicate one of two messages: connect or disconnect. Thus, the chemical language necessary for taxis at the unicellular level evolved into the universal (multicellular) language of emotion that multicellular organizations like humans feel and express at the social / relational (societal) level.
  • The emotional language of connection translates into feelings of belongingness, which communicates the positive value created by connection and comes with some addictive positive chemical reinforcement attached.
  • The emotional language of disconnection is equally potent, with not-so-pleasant chemical reinforcement meant to protect the entire multicellular community from perceived harm.
  • Importantly, violence at the societal level stems from emotional disconnection (certainly exacerbated by physical and mental considerations). Meanwhile, the fear of violence—that often escalates into further violence—is the cell’s emotional warning signal that disconnection exists; like dogs barking, multicellular organisms emotionally mimic (or repeat) the message of disconnection, triggering a positive feedback loop meant to communicate this emotional message to the entire community.
    • During invasion by a foreign agent (cellular or acellular microorganism), the invader is detected because it has no established connection—and therefore is not ‘in communication’—with the cellular community. If a ‘connected’ cell suddenly becomes disconnected (‘cancerous’), it is similarly perceived as a foreign agent by its own cellular community, which reinforces the notion that both connection and communication of connection (belongingness) must be present to dispel uncertainty.
    • Connection can utilize a negative feedback loop to dissipate perceived uncertainty; disconnection cannot help but create a positive feedback loop that will escalate perceived uncertainty.
• Hierarchal economics is designed to disconnect people from a) each other, b) resources, c) individual liberty, d) the value of their labor, and e) the value of their beliefs (which drive their will to exist). Once disconnected, ‘stressed’ caregivers may recommunicate this message to their children (through adverse childhood experiences), who will likely pass this communication on through violent behavior—mild to severe—because the environment of hierarchal disconnection has no avenue available to dissipate it. Recipients of violent communication will either internalize the violence (which will manifest in accumulative health records) or externalize the violence (which will manifest in accumulative police records), but whatever is communicated must by recommunicated to further homeostatic balance.
  • Hierarchal economics induces a constant low level of these toxic chemicals, through feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, stress, etc. (disconnection) that in the long-term develop into serious health issues.
  • The combination of A) the cell working to maintain homeostatic balance in B) a toxic environment (like hierarchal economics), where it cannot help but C) recommunicate emotional, genetic, and epigenetic information on to the next generation, helps explain why “the oppressed…tend themselves to become oppressors”; again, only proactive effort to alter the environment of oppression can shift the cellular organism back onto the more productive path of connection and balance.
    • As humans were forced to adapt to an environment of hierarchal violence, natural survival tactics such as mimicry—coupled with the positive feedback loops generated by disconnection—escalated violence into an overblown role in current economics; its natural role—as a reactive defense mechanism—is not designed to be a sustained strategy; the external and internal toll hierarchal violence has taken on the people and the planet serves as clear evidence of its unsustainability.

VI. Cells Dislike Uncertainty.

• Uncertainty makes cells ‘irritable,’ which causes them to utilize the only strategy they understand, which is further connection. Cells connect to each other and—through their labor—engineer solutions that mitigate uncertainty. (Connection—to mitigate uncertainty—defines evolution; full stop.)
• Unless the fight / flight protocol alarm is sounded and reactive disconnection becomes necessary, cells show a stubborn belief in the power of connection to solve any problem. Disconnection—the only other option—never alleviates uncertainty; it only creates a positive feedback loop that generally escalates the violence, which consequently increases the uncertainty. For this reason, existence has towed this singular line of connection to avoid the uncertainty of nonexistence.
• The uncertainty of disconnection drove A) the engineering of more sophisticated sensory mechanisms, B) the mimicry of weapons such as claws, fangs, and tusks, and C) the development of verbal language to communicate more effectively; all were meant to gain further connection, and all required more and more cerebral ‘processing capacity.’ At some point—perhaps five million years ago— increased awareness of and interaction with the external environment created the illusion of conscious awareness; thus began the next stage of human existence, where the human brain began believing that it was in command of the multicellular organism that housed it, and not the other way around.
• Because the external gap between human organisms at the societal level was much larger than what cells experienced internally, feelings of disconnection had a better chance of taking hold before the gravity of connection could draw people closer. Shared beliefs became the wireless cellular hub through which people could exercise their liberty (choice) to connect.
  • Personal beliefs are the tenuous psychological footholds we fashion to keep ourselves climbing upward, out of the pit of uncertainty below our feet; understandably, the strength of these beliefs grows arithmetically when they are shared with others (often indirectly accomplished through storytelling). Beliefs are not the source of the power; they are merely the communication hub through which the power of human connection is channeled toward some singular purpose; this consequently inspires labor—the only true source of positive value. (Connection to a Belief, Labor to Communicate that Belief.)
  • Beliefs are the catalyst that ignites the chemical reaction we know as life. Like any catalyst, beliefs are not consumed in the reaction; they rest outside the dimension of Time, and therefore Time cannot erode them. Because of the interconnectedness of life from single cell to entire civilization, interpretive theory would posit that the genesis of human belief must be housed within the single cell; through this interpretative hypothesis, the cell’s stubborn will to exist—through connection—could be redefined as the cell’s undaunted belief that it can—through its labor—somehow produce certainty out of uncertainty.
  • Because one cannot help but extend the theory of connection / communication to the limit, it makes sense that the transduction conduit we know as the single cell is simply transmitting the message of the universe: to produce order out of chaos.

Stone Age peoples shared stories of how the universe was held together by a pantheon of gods that lived among them; these beliefs became a powerful salve to mitigate uncertainty. The attempt to explain the uncertainty of the universe—through shared observations and theories—became the basis for the scientific method we practice today; meanwhile, the original stories rigidly remained as well, forming the basis for the religions we practice today.

This split between science and religion began around 3,000 BCE. The shared beliefs in gods brought the comfort of connectedness; the people likely gave the credit to their gods for the resulting ‘peace of mind.’ The power of these first beliefs were so valuable, a market was created for them: religious temples became the first marketplace for selling this ‘peace of mind.’ Through the institutionalization of religion, early priests were able to claim a third of the land for the gods and establish the first hierarchal property rights; ‘offerings’ soon morphed into duties, tithes, and levies.

People not laboring on the god’s property also began bringing their excess goods to the temple to trade; the ‘marketplace’ grew. The priests traded these goods abroad, often in exchange for shiny trinkets such as silver, which undoubtedly began to accumulate, as there was no practical use for them. Meanwhile, the people had little use for their excess crops, which would spoil if not utilized in a timely manner (labor can produce more than is needed to power the laborer). The priests began exchanging their metal for these excess crops, to grow the marketplace and thus increase their wealth; cleverly, the priests allowed the people to give the metals back through offerings, tithes, levies, or tribute to the gods (i.e., taxes), and thus the tradition of the people giving away their labor for nothing was established.

The final blow came when thuggish types with armies claimed to be the true mouthpiece for the gods and took over this turnkey marketplace operation started by the priests. Even before the hostile takeover, the priests had already established the concept of hierarchal communication, where communication only flowed one way (down from on high); the gods spoke only through the priests, while the people were left to worship privately (the people still brought ‘offerings’ to the priests, because the people believed in connection; the priests took the offerings for themselves, but claimed no ability to personally influence the gods). 

When the business of the temple changed ownership, the gods were moved high above, out of the temple and out of the reach of the people, where they soon became violent and hierarchal, to match the next 5,000 years of conquerors. It was not until the United States of America was formally constituted that an attempt was made to break away from hierarchal institutions, apparently ignorant of the fact that while hierarchal oppression was legitimized by government, it was established through the economics originally conceived by religious institutions.