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Shifting values are a key part of the “after capitalism” story. It’s not just about economics, it’s really about our way of life. I did a piece fairly recently for the wonder MISC magazine about “consumers.” [Disclosure: The Houston Foresight program is one of four co-publishers, but I would like the pub anyway!]
Some long-time blog readers might remember several years back that ironic finding of the ConsumerShift book that one of the key shifts was anti-consumer. [Note to self: do a better job titling your books]. The basic concept is about understanding and treating “consumers” as people, not just as statistics that makes purchases. This change lies in the way the unit of the “consumer” is used as the basis for analysis in consumer research and insights: Put simply, an increasing number of consumers are rebelling against the notion of being labelled “consumers.” This rebellion does not have its roots in some notion of extreme simplicity, in which want to walk around in paper sacks and recycle their underwear. They still want to buy things, but they are being much more thoughtful about their purchases. This is especially significant as we move into an era of advanced analytics. It will be tempting, one again, to think of people as statistics, data points in aggregations, or components of algorithms. In this coming era of AI and automation, it is important to keep the human element front-and-center….one could argue.
One step further. These anti-consumers are unhappy with the relationship between buyer and seller; they want to reconfigure or rebalance it. They don’t want things they don’t need and are asking hard questions about what they really do need. They don’t want people spinning and hard-selling them. They see a difference between transactions and relationships, and they want authentic connections and their viewpoints to be acknowledged. The beliefs of anti-consumers are, in part, a reaction against the materialism they embraced earlier in their lives. These individuals are not only abandoning this materialism: They are developing a distaste for it. The now have a low regard for the importance of consuming and find the notion of a consumer economy to be wrong-headed, seeing it as a confusion of means and ends. The data is very clear: Consuming or accumulating more goods and possessions does nothing to increase one’s happiness. This knowledge has fueled a search among anti-consumers for “what really matters,” thus leading them to embark on a journey to postmodern values.
I’ll stop there and suggest this is laying a contextual backdrop for “after capitalism.” We’re not there yet – so to speak, but values are moving in a direction that I think will eventually support a move to after capitalism. Anti-consumer is a clue, maybe not a weak signal, but not yet a strong one. If you’ve been following the values conversation here, I think it’s the growth of the integral values (spiral yellow) that will really get things cooking. Only at 2-5% of the population today…but a generation (20ish years from now), might they be an influential 25%??? – Andy Hines
Meaningful.
We need to have some integral worldview, especially in foresight and futures studies.
Well I knew that you wrote some articles on integral theory and futures studies. But I can’t catch what you wanna mean in the words ‘integral’ in above graph, because the explantions on integral in the graph seems not to be integra from my view and knowledge on integral theory.
Hope that you would share your insight with me.
Thank you.
Excellent point! It’s a bit tricky. Integral values are not directly derived from the Integral Theory of Wilber and friends (though of course I am a huge fan). Spiral Dynamics’ yellow value meme/worldview was called Integral “independently.” I used integral in my ConsumerShift book as well. And to make it more complicated, ken wilber has used integral values/worldview in his work (theory of everything), borrowing from Spiral Dynamics. This post might help clear it up: https://www.andyhinesight.com/values/the-emergence-of-integral-values/ Nice job on raising that point!
Hi Andy,
Grateful for the piece here. Both in my home, and our social circles, I see the first hints of anti-consumerism.
I would point you over to Marco Blankenburgh at Knowledgeworks (Dubai-based consultancy). I recently completed his Inter-Cultural Intelligence Certification, and I’ve come to the opinion that his work on 3 Colors of Worldview and 12 Dimensions of Culture have a lot to say about “Integral” Futures. Much of what we call Foresight is rooted in the stereotypical Western mindset: Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, modernism–>postmodernism–>post-normal streams, etc.
But there are older streams of human experience that are still in play in much of the developing world. Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Far East (esp. China) won’t follow our same path as they develop. They won’t end up thinking like us, but there’s a potential future where they are shaping the social systems and driving innovation from different starting points: power-empowerment structures, honor-shame systems, etc. These differing structures have a lot to add to our current foresight practices.
Thanks again for your thoughtful post.