Written by Prisca Braga | Reading Time: 5 mins
The polycrisis and the birth of new ways of existing
The world is currently drifting through what is called a “polycrisis”. While mainstream institutions often treat climate change, economic inequality, and socio-political breakdowns as isolated technical problems to be fixed with better policy, decolonial thinkers view them as symptoms of a deeper civilizational collapse. In that way, the polycrisis refers to the inevitable breaking point of a modern-Western, colonial system that is fundamentally unsustainable, not just ecologically, but psychically and relationally. We are not just facing an external emergency, but the unraveling of a way of life built on forced separation, racial-colonial extraction, and the illusion of infinite growth (Oliveira, 2021, p. 11).
From our perspective at The Adventures of the Valparaíso, this polycrisis means it is time to stop trying to patch the holes of a sinking ship. Instead, we feel a deep sense of purpose in looking to history’s ultimate economic rebels to help us build an alternative, more just way of collectively existing.
Why do we call ourselves Pirates? (The Real History)
When most people think of pirates, they think of Hollywood movies, eyepatches, and black flags with skulls on them. While all of those are cool, the true history of piracy is far more radical.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the merchant ships of empires were brutal, oppressive, and very unequal places to work. Sailors were treated as disposable tools for profit. Merchant ship captains often withheld food and pay from poor sailors while keeping 90% of the profits. In response, some pirates decided to invert this logic. They operated on a "No Prey, No Pay" system, where every man got an equal share of the plunder (the Captain and Quartermaster usually received only 1.5 to 2 shares at most). Furthermore, they had the world’s first collective social security: their written codes explicitly stated exactly how many pieces of eight a pirate would receive from the "common fund" if they lost an eye, a hand, or a leg during a voyage. (Leeson, 2007, p. 1063)
In the early 1700s, the Atlantic slave trade was booming, and European navies were brutal caste systems. Pirate ships became a melting pot for the oppressed. Records show that pirate crews were heavily composed of escaped enslaved African people, displaced indigenous people, and multi-ethnic European mutineers. On a pirate ship, an escaped slave was legally a free person, allowed to carry weapons, and could vote in elections, and received an equal share of the wealth. (Linebaugh & Rediker, 2000, p. 164)
In fact, long before the American or French revolutions, pirate crews operated under strict constitutional democracy. Captains were elected by majority vote and could be instantly voted out if they became abusive, tyrannical, or showed cowardice. Real power actually rested with the Quartermaster, who was elected to protect the crew’s interests against the captain. (Rediker, 2004, p. 62)
Of course, they were not perfect, and we do acknowledge the many ways in which pirates were also violent. But we like that they looked at an exploitative global system, said "no thank you," and created an alternative at the edges of the map.
That is exactly what we are doing today. While our organization started on the water—deeply rooted in Dutch canal boat history—we have brought that pirate spirit ashore to our base in Oostzaan, Netherlands.
The Three Pillars of the New Pirate Economy: Theory and Praxis
To understand how the Adventures of the Valparaíso operates, you have to understand the conceptual map we are navigating.
1. Beyond Growth: Post-Growth and Degrowth
For the last century, global politics has been obsessed with a single metric: Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Modern economic theory assumes that if an economy isn’t growing exponentially, society is failing. However, we live on a finite planet with strict ecological boundaries.
In his groundbreaking book Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World, economic anthropologist Dr. Jason Hickel draws a direct line between nature's balance and our systemic errors:
"All living organisms grow. But in nature, there is a self-limiting logic to growth: organisms grow to a point of maturity, and then maintain a state of healthy equilibrium. When growth fails to stop – when cells keep replicating just for the sake of it – it's because of a coding error, like what happens with cancer. This kind of growth quickly becomes deadly." (Hickel, 2020, p. 19)
Degrowth does not mean austerity or a forced reduction in human well-being. Rather, it demands a planned reduction of excess energy and resource throughput in high-income nations to bring our economy back into balance with the living world. It shifts the societal focus from quantitative growth (producing more cheap commodities) to qualitative thriving (guaranteeing public goods, equity, and free time). On our land base, we practice post-growth by experimenting with sufficiency—redefining "wealth" not by what we own, but by collective wellbeing, the strength of our community bonds, and our shared time.
2. Post-Development and the Pluriverse
Mainstream "development" theory often perpetuates a colonial hierarchy, implying that Western, industrial capitalism is the universal destination for all cultures. To counter this, we embrace Post-Development and the concept of the Pluriverse: the understanding that there is no single path to human progress. As the radical Colombian-American anthropologist Arturo Escobar writes in Designs for the Pluriverse:
"The Pluriverse is a tool for visualizing and enacting a world where many worlds fit. It is a call to move away from the single-world story of globalized capitalism, which destroys alternative ways of being, and instead honor the interconnectedness of all life." (Escobar, 2018, p. xvi)
This sentiment is echoed by Indian environmentalist Ashish Kothari, a pioneer of the Radical Ecological Democracy framework, who notes that true transformation comes from grassroots alternatives that respect both cultural diversity and ecological limits. (Kothari et al., 2019, p. xxviii) We see this philosophy in its most revolutionary form through the Zapatistas (EZLN) of Chiapas, Mexico, who have spent decades defending indigenous autonomy with the beautiful maxim:
"Un Mundo Donde Quepan Muchos Mundos" (A World Where Many Worlds Fit) - (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional [EZLN], 1996)
Post-development means recognizing that the Western, corporate way of thinking is not the only valid way to live. It is about "unlearning" the competitive, individualistic mindsets drilled into us by global capitalism and reviving localized, ancestral forms of community care and mutual aid.
Original 18th-century pirate crews were inherently multicultural, pluriversal outposts of resistance. Escaped slaves, displaced indigenous people, and European mutineers threw off the laws of empires to co-create their own blended cultures and egalitarian codes. Through our non-formal education projects, we provide a space to actively decolonize our minds and become part of a global web of interdependent, interconnected communities experimenting with alternative and regenerative ways of living.
3. Socio-Economic and Ecological Regeneration
For years, the environmental buzzword (or empty signifier) has been "sustainability." But if an ecosystem or a society is already severely degraded, merely sustaining it in its broken state is not enough. In his seminal book Designing Regenerative Cultures, Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl pushes us past the passive goal of doing "less harm" and challenges us to think systemically:
"Regeneration is not just about restoring ecosystems; it is about transforming how we live within them. It requires a shift from a mindset of exploitation and separation to one of participation and care. We must ask: How can human activity become a force that actively heals and enriches the web of life?" (Wahl, 2016, p. 43)
True regeneration seamlessly weaves together the social, economic, and ecological. It means designing human systems that actively restore biodiversity, rebuild topsoil, and clean local waterways, while simultaneously building local economies based on solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid.
Pirates survived by possessing an acute, intimate understanding of the rhythms of the environment they depended on. At the Adventures of the Valparaíso, our transition from the open waters of Dutch canals to our terrestrial site in Oostzaan allows us to put socio-economic and ecological regeneration into practice literally. We look at our physical space not as a commodity to exploit, but as a living ecosystem to restore alongside our local community through shared labor, regenerative design, and non-formal education.
Learning by Doing: Non-formal Education
A bit more about us: we are a registered foundation (stichting). Our mission is to act as an incubator for these radical ideas through non-formal education. We bring together changemakers, activists, artists, and thinkers from all over the world to co-create alternative ways of living and working.
Through trainings, gatherings, international youth exchanges, hands-on workshops, in-person and online learning journeys, and community building, we practice what we preach. Whether we are exploring ecological restoration or studying alternative economic models, our goal is to equip a new generation of "pirates" with the practical tools they need to navigate the crises of our century.
Step Aboard the Movement
A pirate ship is nothing without its crew. The Adventures of the Valparaíso is an open, evolving ecosystem, and we need your unique skills to help us navigate the polycrisis waters.
If you are ready to move beyond the status quo and explore what a regenerative future actually looks like, here is how you can join us:
- Explore Our Work: Take a look at our current and past projects and community initiatives!
Join the Crew: We are regularly looking for passionate volunteers, interns, and co-creators to join us on the ground. Check out our latest openings!
Partner With Us: Are you an organization or educator aligned with our vision? Let’s collaborate. Learn more about our foundation on our partners page.
The old socio-economic paradigm is a sinking ship. Let’s build something better, together.
References:
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. (1996, January). Fourth declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. Zapatista Army of National Liberation. https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press.
Hickel, J. (2020). Less is more: How degrowth will save the world. Heinemann.
Leeson, P. T. (2007). An-arrgh-chy: The law and economics of pirate organization. Journal of Political Economy, 115(6), 1049-1094.
Linebaugh, P., & Rediker, M. (2000). The many-headed hydra: Sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic. Beacon Press.
Oliveira, V. M. de. (2021). Hospicing modernity: Facing humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism. North Atlantic Books.
Rediker, M. (2004). Villains of all nations: Atlantic pirates in the golden age. Beacon Press.
Wahl, D. C. (2016). Designing regenerative cultures. Triarchy Press.
About the Author: Prisca Braga is a non-formal educator, researcher, project coordinator, and member of the Anchor Team at The Adventures of the Valparaíso, where she shapes the association’s educational strategy and vision. Currently pursuing a Master’s in Global Political Economy and Development at the University of Kassel, her work spans network weaving, systems thinking, and systemic transition. Guided by political ecology, degrowth, post-development, and decolonial approaches, Prisca is dedicated to building regenerative learning spaces and cooperative communities designed to move us beyond extractive economic models and towards regenerative futures.