About the People's Library
A World Beyond Scarcity
Vision Statement
The People’s Library envisions a world where everyone has access to what they need to live a thriving life—where resources flow freely, not as commodities to be bought and sold, but as shared abundance accessible to all.
In this world, no one is forced to work just to survive, and people contribute to their communities in ways that are meaningful, fulfilling, and aligned with their unique talents. Cooperation replaces competition, access replaces ownership, and well-being replaces profit as the driving force of society.
The People’s Library is a parallel system of local, community-driven economies that exists alongside market economies, offering a new way to organize human life around care, connection, and collective flourishing.
The future is not something humanity must inherit—it is something that can be created together. By reclaiming the commons and shifting from scarcity to sufficiency, The People’s Library seeks to inspire a world where no one is left behind, where abundance is shared by all, and where local communities take the lead in shaping their own futures.
Building Local, Resilient Economies to Solve Humanity’s Biggest Challenges
Mission Statement
The People’s Library exists to create an alternative to market-based survival, where people can access what they need to thrive—without financial barriers, competition, or profit motives.
Its mission is to restore the commons by organizing resources into local, parallel, non-market economies based on access, cooperation, and sustainability. Just as public libraries provide books to all, The People’s Library seeks to expand this model to include housing, transportation, tools, food, clothing, and any other resource necessary for a thriving life—all managed at the LOCAL level by communities themselves.
Beyond meeting individual needs, The People’s Library is designed to tackle the major crises facing humanity:
- Social – Reducing poverty, homelessness, and economic inequality by ensuring that basic needs are met outside of the market system.
- Economic – Creating local resilience by offering an alternative to wage dependency, financial insecurity, and the boom-bust cycles of capitalism.
- Environmental – Encouraging sustainability by reducing waste, shifting from private consumption to shared access, and allowing people to contribute through ecological restoration and other meaningful work that traditional markets neglect.
- Psychological & Community Well-being – Fostering deeper human connection by replacing consumerism and competition with cooperation and mutual aid, while giving people a way to contribute their time, care, and expertise to something larger than themselves, creating a shared sense of purpose and belonging.
By operating alongside market economies rather than replacing them, The People’s Library provides individuals and communities with a real choice: to meet their needs by participating in an economic system designed not around scarcity and exploitation, but around abundance, care, and shared well-being.
Through education, advocacy, and real-world implementation, The People’s Library is laying the foundation for a world where access replaces ownership, well-being replaces profit, and cooperation replaces competition—so that no one is left behind, and humanity thrives together.
How the idea OF THE PEOPLE's LIBRARY came to be
The Story
The Journey to the People's Library: A Logical Evolution
For the past 20 years, I’ve been obsessed with understanding the root causes of the major social, economic, and environmental crises that seem to be getting worse no matter what we do to address them.
Through over 150 video stories, I’ve explored these issues from every angle—political, cultural, psychological, ecological—and what I kept finding was that no matter how much we fought to alleviate these crises, they kept intensifying.
At first, I thought we just weren’t implementing the right policies. Maybe we needed better leadership, stronger regulations, or more progressive reforms. But over time, I came to a difficult realization:
Our problems weren’t just side effects of our economic system.
They were features—baked into the very structure of how markets function.
And it didn’t matter whether the system was capitalist, socialist, or communist—at their core, all market economies operate on the same three fundamental principles:
- Competition
- Ownership
- Profit
These principles drive the entire market system—and once you see how they work, it becomes clear why market economies cannot solve the very crises they create.
Part 1: How Market Principles Fuel Our Crises
Competition: The Engine of Inequality and Social Breakdown
From the moment we enter the world, we are placed into a system that demands we compete—for jobs, for wages, for customers, for survival itself. We’re taught that hard work and determination are the keys to success, but the reality is far more complicated.
Everywhere we look, competition shapes our lives. In school, we’re conditioned to believe that competition drives excellence, that it makes us stronger, more efficient, and more successful. We’re told that competing is essential for growth and progress—that without it, people would become lazy and unmotivated. But is that really true?
In reality, competition often destroys human connection and community well-being. It pits people against each other, fostering a sense of isolation and distrust. Instead of bringing out the best in us, it frequently brings out the worst—encouraging self-interest, rivalry, and exploitation. Ask yourself:
- Why does poverty exist in wealthy nations? Because competition demands that some people fail in order for others to succeed. There are never enough jobs, wages, or opportunities for everyone to “win.”
- Why are mental health issues skyrocketing? Because competition fosters isolation, stress, and chronic insecurity. It forces people into constant self-comparison, measuring their worth by external success
- Why do businesses cut corners and exploit workers? Because competition means that if they don’t, their rivals will—and they’ll be driven out of business.
And the worst part? Competition ensures that there will always be losers. No matter how much wealth is created, competition guarantees that it will never be enough for everyone to thrive. Someone must always be left behind. This is why poverty, inequality, and social fragmentation are not temporary problems to be solved within markets—they are structural necessities of competitive economies.
Ownership: The Great Resource Inefficiency
We’re often taught that ownership is the foundation of stability—that owning property, or goods is the key to security. Ownership is framed as a cornerstone of freedom and independence.
But in reality, ownership often leads to massive inefficiencies. Instead of organizing resources for maximum use, ownership traps them in the hands of individuals and corporations, often leaving them unused. Resources are treated as commodities to be accumulated, rather than essentials to be shared.
Ask yourself:
- Why is there a housing crisis despite millions of vacant homes? Because homes are owned as commodities, not as shelter. Investors hoard properties, driving up costs and restricting access.
Why is wealth hoarded by the few while billions struggle? Because markets reward accumulation, not circulation. Once resources are owned, they are leveraged for power and control, not for shared benefit.
Why is there so much waste? Because private ownership prevents shared access. Millions of tools, vehicles, and appliances sit unused in garages while others go without, simply because ownership restricts who can use them.
Ownership doesn’t guarantee efficient use of resources—it guarantees that access will be dictated by wealth and power, rather than need. And in a world of finite resources, this inefficiency directly fuels scarcity, environmental destruction, and economic inequality.
Profit: The Great Limiter of Human Potential
When we look around the world, it’s clear that there is so much necessary work to be done—restoring ecosystems, repairing infrastructure, caring for each other. We have the knowledge, the skills, and the people ready to tackle these challenges.
But in a market economy, work only gets done if it generates a profit. This fundamental principle shapes not only what gets done but also what doesn’t. It restricts our ability to address pressing social, environmental, and community needs because if something can’t be monetized, it’s often deemed not worth doing. Ask yourself:
Why do we produce wasteful, low-quality goods? Because durable, repairable products aren’t profitable. Planned obsolescence—where products are intentionally designed to break or become outdated—ensures repeat purchases and sustained profits.
Why do vital social and environmental initiatives struggle for funding? Because the market economy prioritizes profit over need. If an issue can’t be monetized—like restoring wetlands, building community centers, or providing free mental health services—it’s ignored or left to charity.
Why are critical innovations in clean energy and sustainable technology so slow to be adopted? Because markets prioritize short-term profit over long-term well-being. Fossil fuels remain dominant not because they are the best option, but because they are more immediately profitable than transitioning to renewable infrastructure. Even when solutions exist, they are often delayed, suppressed, or underfunded if they threaten existing industries.
Profit doesn’t just guide market economies—it restricts them. It limits the kinds of work people can do, the kinds of goods that get produced, and the solutions we are even allowed to consider. If a solution to our crises doesn’t promise financial returns, it will never be prioritized—no matter how necessary it is.
The Realization: Market Economies Can't Fix What They Create
Once I saw that competition, profit, and ownership were the root drivers of our crises, I realized something profound: Market economies will never solve these problems—because they depend on them to function. At that moment, I understood that no amount of policy reform, no government intervention, and no progressive movement could ever fully fix these issues within the market framework.
If we want to solve the problems caused by market economies, we need something outside of them. Something parallel. Something based on cooperation, access, and well-being instead of competition, ownership, and profit. And the solution had been hiding in plain sight all along—sitting in every modern city since the dawn of civilization.
The Answer Was the Library
A library is one of the only places in our world where you don’t need money to access something valuable.
It doesn’t compete. It doesn’t chase profit. It doesn’t make you prove you “deserve” a book. It simply provides access to knowledge, free and open to all.
Now imagine expanding this model—beyond books—to housing, tools, food, clothing, transportation, and everything else necessary for a thriving life.
Imagine a world where:
- You don’t have to own everything—you simply borrow and return.
- You aren’t forced to compete for jobs and wages just to survive.
- You can contribute your time, skills, and care in ways that are meaningful, whether or not they generate profit.
- Every place you visit has a local People’s Library, ensuring you always have what you need—wherever you go.
This is what the People’s Library aims to build: a parallel, local, non-market economy where resources flow freely based on need rather than profit.
A world where we are free from artificial scarcity and empowered to shape our communities, together.
This is the choice before us.
Do we continue trying to fix a system that is designed to break us? Or do we build something new—something that frees us from the constraints of markets and reclaims the power of shared abundance? This isn’t just an idea. It’s a natural next step in the evolution of how we organize our resources and communities.
We’ve tried market-based economies.
We’ve tried state-controlled economies.
Now it’s time for a post-market economy—one that operates alongside markets, offering a better way to meet our needs.
The People’s Library is that vision.
And it starts right here, right now—with us.
Who Am I?
About Me
Chris Agnos is a storyteller exploring new ways to organize human life beyond market-based survival. His journey has led him to uncover the People’s Library—a simple, powerful idea that anyone can bring to life in their community. With a deep passion for understanding why our world works the way it does, he has spent the past 20 years exploring the root causes of social, economic, and environmental crises.
His journey began with a simple but relentless question: Why do so many of our biggest problems seem to persist—no matter how much we try to fix them? This question led him to create over 150 documentary-style videos, uncovering the hidden forces that drive inequality, ecological destruction, and human disconnection.
But filmmaking was never just about telling stories—it was about finding solutions. Through years of research, Chris came to see that market economies, no matter how they are structured, are fundamentally limited in their ability to solve the crises they create. This realization didn’t lead to despair—it led to discovery.
The answer was something simple, something familiar, something that had been there all along: the library.
Inspired by the way public libraries provide free access to knowledge, Chris began imagining what it would look like to expand this model to include housing, food, tools, transportation, and more—without financial barriers. The People’s Library is not an organization or a centralized system—it is an idea meant to be owned and adapted by local communities themselves, a vision for a parallel, post-market economy that can exist alongside markets, giving people a real choice in how they meet their needs.
Chris is now working to share this idea, connect with like-minded people, and support the emergence of local People’s Libraries around the world. He believes that humanity is capable of something better—a world where access replaces ownership, cooperation replaces competition, and well-being replaces profit. Through education, storytelling, and collaboration, he hopes to help lay the foundation for a future where no one is left behind and communities reclaim the power to shape their own futures.
