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I recognize the danger of including a reference to Polak’s work in the title. It surely cuts the audience down to those who know of his vital work to foresight … and hopefully a few curious folks who will come to know it (see this post). In short, his work, The Image of the Future, was a key reason for me getting interested and inv
olved in foresight and it is the key inspiration for the After Capitalism work. Hopefully that is enough to persuade you of its importance. The table below identifies eight key aspects of images from Polak’s work and shows how they are addressed in the After Capitalism manuscript.
| Key aspect of Polak’s images | Connection to After Capitalism | |
| 1 | The image of the future reflects and reinforces “ideal” values. | The critical role of the shift to postmodern and integral values is noted as one of seven key drivers. |
| 2 | The images themselves may be thought of as time-bombs that explode somewhere in the future with little control over when, where, and how. | The focus on the images themselves – and not their implementation– makes sense considering this. |
| 3 | Images of the future are always aristocratic in origin. The author of the image invariably belongs to the creative minority of a society. | An interesting contrast in light of today’s emphasis on open, participatory and crowdsourcing approaches. |
| 4 | Images are part rational and intellectual, but a much larger part is emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual. | As futurist Clem Bezold says, scenarios are of the head, and visions [aka images] are of the heart. |
| 5 | Images self-correct, renew, and change in a continuous interplay of challenge and response. | The proposed images are prototypes that will evolve. |
| 6 | The formation of images depends on an awareness of the future that makes possible a voluntary, conscious, and responsible choice between alternatives. | Frankly, we have a problem here. At present there seems to be little general awareness or interest in alternatives. |
| 7 | The images need to be bold, visionary, and transformational — a “high idea” of a future realm. | The images were crafted to meet these criteria. |
| 8 | At its best, the image of the future is universal in character for the growth of all mankind. | The issue of whether After Capitalism can flourish in one country or must be global is an implementation issue not resolved here. |
As you can see, I think we’ve done a pretty good job on 1-7 with #8 on the universal character of the images an open question. I am holding off on drilling down on implementation questions as better saved for follow-up work. FWIW, it is reminiscent of the socialist/communist controversy over whether it had to be international, ultimately resolved by Stalin as “socialism in one country.” Not a great example to follow, but I mention it to suggest how vital it was and ultimately fractured the movement. Not a question to be addressed lightly. Should the proposed images catch on, then the implementation work becomes a priority. – Andy Hines
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