Your market extracts more than it creates
You built a market or platform to create value, but it's become extractive. The incentives have drifted. Participants game the system instead of contributing to it. This isn't a failure of ethics—it's a failure of market constitution.
The outcome we're working toward:
A market where contribution beats extraction—by design, not enforcement.
You're experiencing this if:
These aren't failures of regulation or ethics—they're symptoms of missing market constitution.
The Diagnosis
Markets lack constitutional constraints on what exchange may optimise.
Democracies have constitutions. Corporations have articles of incorporation. But markets? Markets optimise whatever the current rules allow, and the rules can always be gamed.
Regulation tries to constrain markets from outside—but external constraints create arbitrage. Ethics training tries to change individual behaviour—but individual virtue can't overcome structural incentives.
The Framework
What we've developed and want to test.
Market Exchange Constitution (MEC)
A constitutional framework that embeds regenerative constraints into market structure. It defines what the market may not optimise—the boundaries that make extraction structurally difficult rather than merely illegal or immoral.
Status: Framework developed. Seeking pilot implementations to test and refine.
What piloting involves
- Mapping your market structure and value flows
- Identifying where extraction emerges and why
- Drafting a Market Exchange Constitution for your context
- Testing the framework with market participants
What we need from you
- A market or platform experiencing extractive dynamics
- Authority to experiment with market structure
- Willingness to share learnings (anonymized if needed)
- Honest feedback on what works and what doesn't
Good pilot candidates
The Research Behind This
Working papers that develop these ideas in depth.
Interested in piloting?
If you're running a market or platform that's become extractive and willing to test our framework, we'd like to talk. No fees for pilots—just commitment and honest feedback.
Explore a Pilot Partnership