Redefining Economic Taxonomy in Accordance with Real Human Need.

Introduction

The PIES Economy is a vision of a solar-punk economic ecosystem — a system of organizing labor and resources in harmony with human well-being and planetary limits.

The purpose of an economy is simple: to produce a way of life worth living.

To evaluate whether an economy succeeds at this task, we must understand what constitutes a good life.  Psychology, systems thinking, and lived human experience all point toward fundamental needs: survival, health, belonging, growth, stability, and coordination.

Traditional economic taxonomies categorize businesses by what they produce.  The PIES Taxonomy categorizes them by why they exist, how they contribute, and how they fit into the larger ecosystem.

This framework allows workers, investors, and communities to see clearly how economic activity supports human flourishing.

Perspective shapes action. 

The PIES Economy Industry Taxonomy shapes action that is thoughtful, sustainable, and deeply rooted in genuine human needs.

Table of Contents

• Introducing the Taxonomy
• Layer 1: Mission
• Layer 2: Method
• Layer 3: Impact
• Why This Matters
• Economies as Ecosystems
• Our Vision
• Hypothetical Businesses
• How this Taxonomy is Used in the PIES Economy
• Conclusion

Introducing a New Economic Taxonomy

A taxonomy is a way of categorizing something.  When talking about the economy, people usually categorize by industry.  Industries are usually broken down into things like agriculture, manufacturing, etc.  This is a good way of describing what a business is doing, but it leaves implicit all the reasons why to do it.

Ideally, economic activity should be categorized in a way that reveals its importance and purpose.  Our categorizations should also be timeless and flexible enough to adapt as civilization evolves.  To that end, PIES presents a new taxonomy for economic activity, broken down into three distinct layers.

Layer 1: Domains of Fundamental Human Needs (Mission)

This layer distinguishes the purpose for conducting business.  It relates economic activity to fundamental human needs, broken down into the following 8 domains:

1. Planetary Life Support
2. Nourishment & Physical Survival
3. Health & Human Support
4. Culture, Community, & Civic Flourishing
5. Learning, Mastery, & Human Development
6. Mobility & Access
7. Stability, Security, & Justice
8. Coordination of Value & Resources

Layer 2: Universal Labor Types (Method)

This layer speaks to the type of labor that primarily supports the Mission being served.  This category distinguishes the skills, resources, and effort that goes into conducting business.  There are 5 universal labor types:

• Core Production
• System Construction
• Direct Service
• System Stewardship
• Research & Advancement

Layer 3: System Roles (Impact)

This layer completes the loop by distinguishing the timelines and relational importance of organizations.  These 5 Impact categories help illustrate the interdependencies of organizations across missions and methods:

• Foundational
• Enabling
• Direct-Outcome
• Stabilizing
• Transformational

Layer 1: Domains of Fundamental Human Needs (Mission)

When determining what to do with our time and our resources and our effort, it can be easy to get distracted by the practical details of what to do.  “What to do” needs to remain anchored in “why” we need to do anything in the first place.

Human needs are complex, varied, and tiered.  Yet, we can draw distinctions between them, grouping them into domains.  Here, we identify 8 domains of human need that are met through economic activity.

Domains:

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Layer 2: Universal Labor Types (Method)

The five labor types classify how a business contributes to its Layer 1 mission.  This categorization adds clarity to some of the gaps left by the 1^st layer.  This helps us understand the relative importance of different uses of resources and effort.

Many businesses include labor across the universal types, but this only further illustrates the dependence on and importance of certain activities.  It also highlights the interdependence of different skills and professions.

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Universal Labor Types:

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Layer 3: Impact (System Roles)

This layer identifies the structural role an organization plays in the broader economic ecosystem.  It helps illuminate dependencies and symbioses between businesses.

By understanding dependencies, we can better appreciate various organizations.  However, it’s also useful for understanding footprints and the true costs of specific economic activity.

To complete the loop of mission → method → impact, this layer employs 5 system roles to characterize how the organization impacts the Mission and beyond.

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System Roles:

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Why This Matters

Redefining terminology is a task not to be taken lightly.  It must be done with purpose and intention or else it’s just semantics.  Our intention is to reframe how we evaluate economic activity.

Classical Economic Taxonomy

Traditional economic classification systems categorize businesses by what they produce — agriculture, manufacturing, retail, technology.  These systems are useful for accounting and regulation, but they do not tell us whether our economy is structured to meet human needs.

A sector can grow rapidly while degrading ecological systems.  An industry can be profitable while eroding social cohesion.  Classical taxonomies describe activity, but they do not evaluate purpose.

Human Needs in Today’s Economy

Modern economies often obscure the connection between labor and life.  Workers may not know which fundamental need their effort supports.  Investors may not know which human systems their capital strengthens.  Consumers may not understand the broader effects of their purchases.

When the relationship between economic activity and human need is unclear, misalignment grows.  The PIES Taxonomy restores that visibility.  It allows us to ask:

• Are we investing enough in planetary stability?
• Are we over-investing in short-term consumption?
• Are foundational systems resilient?

Building the Economy of the Future

If we want an economy that produces a thriving way of life, we must intentionally cultivate it.  By categorizing economic activity through Mission, Method, and Impact, we can:

• Align capital with long-term well-being.
• Elevate essential labor.
• Identify system fragility.
• Encourage responsible innovation.

This is not about forcing outcomes.  It is about creating transparency so that informed choice can shape the future.

Economies as Ecosystems

Why Ecosystems are a Good Lens

Ecosystems are not defined by humans, they are observed.  The biggest thing that we see when viewing ecosystems is interdependence.

The edges of ecosystems are not always clear, and the connections between different organisms and populations are numerous and layered.  Plants depend on bugs, which depend on animals.  Animals depend on bugs, which depend on plants.  The web of life extends into micro-biology and macro-biology.

This structure is very analogous to human civilization and human activity.  Each action by each person impacts all the other people, directly and indirectly.  This is why careful organization of human activity is so important, because our activity impacts every one of us.

The Gardening Approach to Economies

One thing you absolutely cannot do with ecosystems is force them.  The more that humanity tries to force nature into compliance, the more it fights back.  There’s no way to completely control an ecosystem, nor can you completely control an economy.

Gardeners don’t try to control ecosystems.  Advanced gardening practices, like permaculture, emphasize working with ecosystems.  This shift allows for greater efficiency, effectiveness, and ease.

By viewing our economies as ecosystems, we can more easily understand how to work with our economies.  This allows us to shape economic activity without harming it.  By viewing ourselves as gardeners of the economy, we can identify how to make the economy produce efficiently, effectively, and easily.  We can choose what crops nourish us.  We can make the garden beautiful, peaceful, satisfying.

This is where we make interdependence work for us.  Once we understand how each part of our way of life depends on other activities across our economy, we can pair functions, institute redundancies, and compound effectiveness.

All that’s left is the gardening.  Building soil, planting seeds, watering, tending, and harvesting.  In other words, we can choose which businesses to support.  We can choose where we want to work.  We can choose who to invest in.  We can choose what services and goods we buy.  Over time, we’ll find ourselves surrounded by a paradise of our own making.

Our Vision

The PIES Economy will look like a balanced ecosystem:

• Foundational systems are reliable and resilient.
• Direct human needs are fulfilled with dignity.
• Transformational innovation builds on stability, not chaos.
• Care and stewardship are visible and valued.
• Capital flows reflect long-term alignment rather than short-term extraction.

In this system:

• Workers understand their contribution.
• Investors understand their impact.
• Citizens understand their economy.

The Industries of the Future

They industries of the future will not be categorized by narrow production labels, but by the human needs they fulfill.

What needs are being tended to?  Will these needs continue to be met in the future?

The industries of the future will not depend on extraction, they’ll sustain themselves through stewardship.

We will see:

• Energy systems that regenerate ecosystems rather than deplete them.
• Food systems that nourish both people and soil.
• Health systems that prioritize prevention and lifelong vitality.
• Civic institutions strengthened by transparent digital tools.
• Mobility systems that reduce friction while preserving planetary stability.
• Financial systems that reward long-term alignment over short-term volatility.

Industry will become legible through purpose.

Raising Standards of Living

Raising standards of living does not mean increasing consumption indefinitely.  It means:

• Reliable access to foundational systems
• Reduced systemic fragility
• Greater alignment between work and meaning
• Increased capacity for leisure and retirement
• Lower stress from economic insecurity

A higher standard of living is achieved when foundational systems are stable, direct human needs are fulfilled, and resource flows reinforce long-term flourishing.

Sustaining a Thriving Way of Life

Sustainability is not stagnation, it is resilience with progress.  In a thriving PIES Economy:

• Foundational systems are redundant and protected.
• Transformational innovation builds on stability.
• Stewardship is valued equally with innovation.
• Direct service labor is dignified.
• Capital serves the mission rather than distorting it.

This creates an economy capable of sustaining prosperity across generations.

Hypothetical Businesses

Some examples of businesses that would be welcome additions to the economic ecosystem we hope to build.  These examples should help illustrate not only what kind of economy we’re building, but how it would be classified through this new taxonomy.

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Example 1: Regional Solar Grid Operator

Layer 1: Planetary Life Support Systems

Layer 2: Direct Service

Layer 3: Foundational

This organization operates renewable energy systems that power hospitals, food supply chains, and communications infrastructure.  If it ceases operation, cascading disruption occurs.

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Example 2: Community Childcare Cooperative

Layer 1: Health & Human Support Systems

Layer 2: Direct Service

Layer 3: Direct-Outcome

This organization supports working families and childhood development, directly sustaining vulnerable individuals.

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Example 3: National Fiber Broadband Deployment Firm

Layer 1: Mobility & Access

Layer 2: System Construction

Layer 3: Transformational

This organization expands access to digital opportunity across rural regions, reshaping economic participation.

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Example 4: Cybersecurity Compliance Firm

Layer 1: Stability, Security & Justice

Layer 2: System Stewardship

Layer 3: Stabilizing

This organization protects digital systems from failure and exploitation, maintaining trust in infrastructure.

How this Taxonomy is Used in the PIES Economy

Governance Frameworks

The PIES Economy will use this taxonomy as a listing and governance framework.  Before a company goes public on the PIES Exchange, it must formally declare a mission and codify that mission into its corporate charter.  That declaration is not branding, it’s a legally binding commitment.  The company must also connect its mission to one or more Need Domains (Layer 1), identify one or more Labor Types (Layer 2) that it will use, and one or more System Roles (Layer 3) that it will fulfill to clarify how it contributes to the broader ecosystem.  This creates structural transparency from day one: investors know what needs the company exists to serve, how it creates value, and how the broader economy depends on it.

Evaluation and Accountability

Once listed, the taxonomy becomes a tool for ongoing evaluation and accountability.  Shareholders evaluate company performance relative to its declared mission, not just quarterly earnings.  A firm classified under Health & Human Support, for example, will be judged by whether it genuinely improves well-being, not merely by financial performance.  Because each domain has clear boundaries and defined purpose, companies cannot drift into vague mission statements without scrutiny.  Public reporting, investor voting, and reputational dynamics all operate within this shared framework, aligning capital with long-term human flourishing rather than short-term extraction.

Analysis and Allocation

Finally, the taxonomy enables ecosystem-level analysis and capital allocation.  Investors can assess whether capital is over-concentrated in certain domains and underinvested in others.  Investors can construct portfolios intentionally, choosing to strengthen Foundational systems, support Direct-Outcome services, or back Transformational innovation.  Workers can identify which domains they wish to contribute to, and communities can understand how local businesses fit into larger systemic interdependencies.  In practical terms, the taxonomy becomes the organizing language of the PIES Economy.  It will shape listing standards, investor decisions, public discourse, and long-term economic design.

Conclusion

An economy is not an abstract machine.  It is the sum of our collective labor, our shared resources, and the systems we build to sustain our way of life.  How we categorize economic activity shapes how we understand it, and how we understand it shapes how we guide it.

The PIES Taxonomy does not attempt to control economic activity.  It does not prescribe specific outcomes or dictate moral conclusions.  Instead, it offers clarity.  By organizing economic activity through Mission, Method, and Impact, it makes visible the relationship between human need and human effort.  It allows us to see where our energy is flowing, which systems are foundational, which are fragile, and which are expanding the frontier of possibility.

When businesses legally commit to a mission, when investors evaluate performance in context, and when citizens understand how their work and consumption fit into a broader ecosystem, the economy becomes more legible.  Legibility creates accountability.  Accountability creates alignment.  Alignment makes long-term flourishing possible.

This taxonomy is not an endpoint.  It is a tool, designed to evolve alongside human civilization.  As our understanding of human needs deepens and our systems grow more complex, the framework can adapt.  But its foundation remains constant: an economy exists to support a way of life worth living.

This is one way, one standard, by which to measure how well our efforts are transforming into a life worth living.

We hope you’ll consider it.

Thank you for reading