Mohammed Al-Murtadha
The most inspiring alternatives are not found in rigid ideologies or centralised plans, but in the adaptive, decentralised and plural pathways emerging from lived experience that make room for care, experimentation, and slow transformation. Mohammed Al-Murthadha writes that these alternatves signals of a different kind of logic — the logic of “organized randomness”, a generative field shaped by complexity, feedback, diversity, and local agency. How might we reimagine and rethink systems through this new lens?
In times of ecological collapse, economic inequality, and democratic fatigue, the old binaries of capitalism and socialism often return to center stage. Yet neither system, in its conventional form, seems capable of fully addressing the layered crises we now face. This is not due to a lack of ideas or intent—but perhaps because both rely too heavily on linear thinking and centralized control, missing the deeper, hidden logic of how human progress actually unfolds.
In my recent book, Organized Randomness: The Hidden Logic of Human Progress, I argue that complexity, imitation, feedback, and failure are not disruptions to be eliminated—they are the very conditions that make learning and transformation possible. If we apply this lens to our political and economic debates, we may begin to see that the most promising alternatives are not found in rigid ideologies, but in the decentralized, adaptive, and plural pathways emerging from lived experience.
The Limits of Centralized Order
Capitalism, for all its celebration of innovation and individual agency, often suppresses organic experimentation through monopolies, financialization, and the extraction of value from the margins. Innovation becomes instrumental—driven by market imperatives rather than collective flourishing.
Socialism, in many of its historical forms, has rightly critiqued these inequalities, but has too often substituted one form of control for another. The planned economy seeks to eliminate uncertainty by design but in doing so, can suppress diversity, feedback, and local autonomy—the very ingredients of resilient systems.
Both systems, in different ways, treat uncertainty as a threat to be managed, not a space for emergence. But what if the key to transformation lies not in control but in organized chaos?
Organized chaos—or what I call organized randomness—refers to systems that balance flexibility with coherence. It’s the structured allowance of unpredictability: a state where no single authority controls outcomes, yet some form of collective intelligence or direction still emerges. In practice, this means creating environments where people can respond to change, learn from mistakes, and adapt in real-time—without waiting for top-down instructions. It is the opposite of rigid planning, yet not pure disorder. Instead, it is a generative field shaped by feedback, diversity, and local agency.
Progress as Emergence, Not Design
Throughout history, some of the most significant breakthroughs—scientific, social, and political—have come not from centralized plans, but from loosely connected experiments, mistakes, and reimaginings. Consider the development of the internet—what started as a decentralized military project evolved into a global communication system through open-source contributions and user-driven innovation. The Mondragón cooperatives in Spain emerged from post-war poverty, built through trial, solidarity, and mutual learning. Similarly, Brazil’s participatory budgeting and Kerala’s public health model in India were not outcomes of grand ideological plans, but of sustained, local experimentation rooted in community feedback and accountability. The cooperative movement, community currencies, mutual aid, agroecology, and indigenous governance systems all demonstrate that another logic is possible: one where change is emergent, relational, and deeply contextual.
In Yemen, where I write from, decades of conflict have destroyed formal institutions. Yet in the ruins, informal networks, tribal customs, and spontaneous collaborations often provide more stability than official structures ever did. The breakdown of state institutions in Yemen has revealed the surprising resilience of informal systems. For instance, in Taiz, local youth collectives have formed water-sharing networks that allocate scarce resources fairly across neighborhoods. In the north, tribal councils often manage ceasefire agreements and humanitarian access more effectively than formal negotiations. In many villages, women-led savings groups continue to finance healthcare and education when banks are inaccessible—trust, memory, and shared need replacing formal contracts.
This is not to romanticize collapse, but to acknowledge the capacity of people to generate order without instruction—to learn through feedback and to adapt through imitation.
This is organized randomness in action.
Beyond the Capital–Socialism Binary
Rather than choosing between capital and socialism, we might ask: What kind of systems allow people to experiment, adapt, and organize from the ground up? What economic models invite feedback, tolerate failure, and foster diverse values—not just diverse goods?
This is where Radical Ecological Democracy (RED) offers a compelling alternative. It recognizes that democracy must be not only political but also ecological and epistemic. It honors knowledge from the margins, supports polycentric governance, and prioritizes care over growth.
RED doesn’t aim to replace global capitalism with a new blueprint. Instead, it nurtures the conditions under which plural alternatives can take root—emerging from communities, ecosystems, and histories, rather than being imposed from above. Alongside RED, several other frameworks have deeply influenced my thinking. The Pluriverse project curates alternatives such as Buen Vivir from the Andes, which emphasizes living well in harmony with nature, and Ubuntu from southern Africa, which centers interdependence and human dignity. The Zapatista movement in Mexico models decentralized governance rooted in indigenous cosmologies, while degrowth theory challenges the economic obsession with expansion, advocating for ecological balance and shared sufficiency. These frameworks, though diverse, share a commitment to plurality, care, and bottom-up transformation.
Capital as a Tool, Not a God
In this vision, capital is not inherently evil—it is a tool. But when capital becomes a god, when everything is turned into profit, we lose the ability to see value beyond markets. Similarly, socialism, when detached from lived feedback and local agency, can become a sterile form of managerialism.
What’s needed is not a new ideology, but a new humility—one that accepts that human systems are messy, adaptive, and irreducible to formulas. We need economics that listens, policies that learn, and institutions that evolve—not because they are perfect, but because they are open to being wrong.
This is not utopia. It is uncertainty with integrity. To navigate uncertainty with integrity means accepting that we won’t always have clear answers—but choosing to act responsibly anyway. In the face of climate collapse, this might involve building adaptive infrastructure that evolves with local feedback rather than relying on fixed masterplans. It might look like transparent policymaking that acknowledges trade-offs, listens to frontline communities, and adapts quickly when conditions shift. Integrity, in this context, is not about having a flawless strategy—but about cultivating honesty, resilience, and openness in the face of the unknown.
Toward Emergent Economies of Care
In a world of climate breakdown and systemic fatigue, the most hopeful movements are not necessarily the loudest ones, but the ones that make room for care, experimentation, and slow transformation. Community-owned energy, open-source knowledge, feminist economics, and indigenous land stewardship are not just “alternatives”—they are signals of a different logic. The logic of organized randomness.
It is time to move beyond rigid “isms” and recognize the deeper patterns of how transformation really happens: not through the dominance of markets or the commands of planners, but through the creativity of people who dare to act without certainty—and in doing so, bring new worlds into being.
You can also purchase a copy of Mohammed’s book here: https://a.co/d/b27gntH
Mohammed Al-Murtadha is an independent writer based in Sana’a, Yemen. His book, Organized Randomness: The Hidden Logic of Human Progress, explores how failure, feedback, and complexity shape creativity and systemic change. He writes at the intersection of ecology, knowledge, and alternative futures.