Post Capitalistic Protocol: Protocol Hypothesis, June 2026

Post Capitalistic Protocol (PCP) is developed by Jingyi Wang through the Multi-Value Decision-Making Lab at New Value Institute. It evolves from her work Post Capitalistic Auction (PCA), which has run in four cities since 2018. It is published here as research in progress: a public statement of its current position, scope, and invitation for collaboration. Detailed role definitions, procedural specifications, and implementation materials are being developed through selected research and institutional collaborations.

What it is

PCP asks how a situated choice among non-commensurable values might acquire public legitimacy. It does not claim to make an outcome correct. It tests whether legitimacy can arise from visible authority, public deliberation, named responsibility, and consequential commitment.

This distinguishes PCP from mechanisms whose primary purpose is optimisation, aggregation, scoring, or market clearing.

"Post-capitalistic" does not mean anti-money. It means refusing to let money perform a judgment that is essentially moral and political. A conventional auction embeds the act of commensuration within price, allowing the decision to appear as the neutral result of a metric. PCP makes the situated act of choosing explicit and assigns responsibility for it.

Core structure

PCP keeps plural forms of value distinct rather than translating them into a common measure. It locates sovereign judgment in a named human authority, makes that authority publicly accountable, and connects commitment to consequence. AI may inform examination but does not decide.

Constitutive legitimacy is itself part of the institutional question addressed by PCP. It concerns how a decision situation, its authority, roles, and boundaries are established.

The mechanism, in brief

PCP currently proposes four roles: a stake owner, contenders, advisors, and a constitutive arbiter. The stake owner holds the human authority to decide and remains publicly accountable for that decision. Contenders propose commitments across non-commensurable currencies. In PCA, these are money, understanding, opportunity, and exchange. Advisors inform examination without deciding. AI may support this advisory process but does not hold decision authority.

The constitutive arbiter addresses how the decision situation and the legitimacy of its roles are established, but does not choose the outcome.

The protocol follows a five-step procedure: bid, due diligence, decision, binding, and settlement. Binding and settlement express a core proposition of PCP: a selected commitment must carry consequence rather than remain a statement of preference. The contract architecture, verification and enforcement methods, settlement specifications, governance rules, and failure-resolution mechanisms are not part of this public summary.

Where it applies

PCP may be relevant where a scarce stake must be allocated, the values at issue cannot responsibly be reduced to a single metric, and a situated authority can be held accountable for a choice.

Initial research considers cultural, funding, and institutional selection contexts. Any application requires bounded testing and context-specific governance.

Research and implementation

AI and distributed digital infrastructure are being studied as possible support layers for evidence review, commitment records, and limited verification. They do not replace human judgment or institutional accountability. Specific technical architectures and safeguards will be determined through individual pilots.

Open questions

The core open research question is whether a non-monetary value commitment can acquire binding force without being re-monetised. PCP treats this as an unresolved problem rather than presenting a public legal or technical solution.

Related research concerns the conditions under which plural-value commitments can remain meaningful, accountable, and binding across different institutional contexts. This includes questions of legitimacy, verification, and responsibility when participants do not share an existing community.

Detailed research materials and pilot frameworks are available through selected research and institutional collaborations. Readers working in law, mechanism design, governance, or funding practice who want to test PCP against their own terrain are welcome to write to the New Value Institute.

Publication history

June 2026. Protocol hypothesis dated.

13 July 2026. The full bilingual working note was published at this URL as the canonical public record of PCP as it then stood.

24 July 2026. Public page revised as a concise concept note. The full working note was withdrawn from public access and retained in the internal archive.

Public concept note. Originally published June 2026. Public summary revised July 2026. This page presents the research position of PCP and is not an implementation specification.