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Here is the third of the quarterly check-ins for 2025 on what the signals are saying regarding After Capitalism. (See Q2 2025 here.) Drum roll please!
Some on the right are now making the same arguments against capitalism that we’ve heard from the left: “capitalism has made everything about the dollar. Everything’s about [gross domestic product] …you lose everything that really matters, like kinship and nation and identity ,,,the objections center around government-managed trade, protection for politically connected industries, state promotion of Christianity, speech restrictions, morality laws, state-owned industry, cronyism these are bad ideas, no matter which side sells them.”
AH Comment: I have been pushing harder on the idea that the Left has got to find common ground with the Right … and that there actually is some. Apparently, I’m not the only one who believes there is common ground. I think this is good news, provided we are willing to pursue the opening.
Having Too Much: Philosophical Essays on Limitarianism
“Having Too Much” is a new academic volume devoted to limitarianism, which is the idea that the use of economic or ecosystem resources should not exceed certain limits. This piece suggests it is “ necessary reading for scholars and students of political theory and philosophy, as well as anyone interested in questions of distributive justice.”
AH Comment: One of my “favorite” values-shift related trends over the years has been Enoughness, which manifests in After Capitalism in degrowth. Typically, academic journals follow rather than lead in developing new ideas, and with limitarianism perhaps they are finally catching. Better late than never, and it is indeed a signal of movement of the idea.
“Seasteading” is a utopian, libertarian-inflected vision of creating floating communities at sea beyond the tentacles of the state. The movement’s most prominent organization is the Seasteading Institute, which aims to “reimagin[e] civilization with floating communities” and was founded by none other than economist and free market evangelist Milton Friedman’s grandson, Patri Friedman.
AH Comment: The super rich are planning their escape in case the shift to After Capitalism explodes and there is a serious collapse. We are seeing all kinds of schemes emerge, from bunkers to space escapes, and now seasteading. The poor man’s version of course is preppers. Not a happy signal, but one we must pay attention to. — Andy Hines
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