social change types | Hinesight....for Foresight

by Andy Hines on October 17, 2018 Leave a Comment

Evolution of Framework Foresight Part 5 Archetypes

Let me begin with proper credit to Professor Jim Dator for the concept [Jim Dator, Alternative Futures at the Manoa School, Journal of Futures Studies, November 2009, 14(2): 1 – 18. ] and Wendy Schultz’s scenario archetype elaborations and former futurist colleague at the former Social Technologies and [not surprisingly a Hawaii program grad] Mark Justman as my key influences, and probably others that I’ve forgotten.

The principal tweak that we’ve made is to genericize the archetype stories into underlying patterns of change that can be used to explore the future of any topic. A key assumption is that we view the topic (“domain” in our lingo) as a system. We use a loose operational definition of system as “the way things are done or the established rules of the game.” That domain/system is likely to follow one of the four archetypes, which are essentially common patterns of change.

The table explains the patterns for each archetype, and includes a “made-up” example using automated vehicles.

The archetypes provide the framework or structure for developing the scenario stories. You take the set of drivers developed in the previous step, and interpret their outcomes in each of the four archetypes. That provides you with a set of ingredients or plot elements upon which you can build the scenario story. Simple, right? A great technique to use with groups new to scenarios and foresight, and from our experience, they provide a robust set of scenarios to work with. See our Future of Work for NASA example

What is going to be key, I think, is that once we’ve set the drivers in each archetype, how can we be sure to include the interesting non-driver information we gathered (scan hits for instance may not be connected to drivers) into our scenarios. – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on October 17, 2014 3 Comments

Fun with scenario archetypes

I have been messing around with and shared some actual work on using scenario archetypes. Let me begin with proper credit to Professor Jim Dator for the concept [Jim Dator, Alternative Futures at the Manoa School, Journal of Futures Studies, November 2009, 14(2): 1 – 18. ] and Wendy Schultz’s scenario archetype elaborations and former futurist colleague at the former Social Technologies and [not surprisingly a Hawaii program grad] Mark Justman as my key influences, and probably others that I’ve forgotten.

With this post, I will lay out some basic background and note some key similarities and differences.

A brief summary Dator’s archetypes

Continued growth is the “official” view of the future of all modern governments, educational systems, and organizations. The purpose of government, education, and all aspects of life in the present and recent past, is to build a vibrant economy, and to develop the people, institutions, and technologies to keep the economy growing and changing, forever.
Collapse: The economy cannot–possibly should not–keep growing in our finite world (and especially not on a set of finite and fragile islands), they maintain. It should be emphasized here that the “collapse” future is not and should not be portrayed as a “worse case scenario”.
Discipline: or a “Disciplined Society” often arises when people feel that “continued economic growth” is either undesirable or unsustainable. In response to this challenge, people may also say that we should orient our lives around a set of fundamental values – natural, spiritual, religious, political, or cultural – and find a deeper purpose in life than the pursuit of endless wealth and consumerism. Life should be “disciplined” around these fundamental values.
Transformation focuses on the powerfully transforming power of technology – especially robotics and artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, teleportation, space settlement, and the emergence of a “dream society” as the successor to the “information society”. It anticipates and welcomes the transformation of all life, including humanity from its present form into a new “posthuman” form, on an entirely artificial Earth, as part of the extension of intelligent life from Earth into the solar system and eventually beyond.

My “tweaks”

Perhaps influenced by taking and later teaching a systems course, I emphasize that the archetypes are applied to the description of the potential future behaviors of that topic as a system, defining system broadly as “the way things are done.” I am using the generic patterns and applying them to different systems/problems.

Continuation – present trends within the system without any major disturbances, what we call the baseline future in the Houston Foresight program, with the joke being that it’s the most unlikely future in suggesting no major surprises. The current system continues to grow in the sense that its present trends continue.
Collapse – a key point is that this doesn’t not suggest the apocalypse (as Jim suggests) but the system regresses or dips into a level of dysfunction, e.g., economic stagnation or recession as the norm
New Equilibrium – This is the principal difference. I try to incorporate here the notion of challenge and response. The system is challenged and responds in a way to save itself. It’s based on the notion that systems are stable and will tend to — and want to — return to base after being disturbed. They will actively seek this return to stability and be willing to make some compromises in order to preserve the essence of the system, e.g., bailing out the banks at the onset of the Great Recession. Dator’s “Discipline” archetype fits here in that it is a response to a challenge. In my view, his description sounds more like a transformation than a new equilibrium. That said, one could come up with a version of “Discipline” that responds in a new equilibrium fashion that preserves the essence of the system under consideration.
Transformation – This archetype entails fundamental change to the system. Dator expresses it in terms of technologically-driven transformation. I have genericized it to say that transformation could be driven by any number of factors. For instance, the discipline archetype of values-driven change could drive a transformative future.

So, three of the four major archetypes or patterns of change maintain at least the essence of the current system, and one fundamentally changes it.

I’ll post more on related topics, such as different types of new equilibrium responses, whether there are any patterns within the archetypes, examples in public scenarios, and other writings on archetypal approaches, such as Clem Bezold’s “Aspirational Futures.” Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on September 1, 2012 Leave a Comment

Values Changes Following a Developmental Model of Social Change

I’m teaching a class on Social Change this semester in the Houston Futures program. The class was developed by Peter Bishop and is a great favorite of the students (and me, too). In the class, we explore ten different theories of social change, that is, how do societies change, or how does one form of society succeed another? I’ll leave a discussion of the ten types for another post, and focus on the connection to the values changes we’ve been discussing as part of ConsumerShift.

The social change theory best describing the values changes is called “development.” Development Theory states that there is a consistent direction to change in societies over time. Bishop notes that it is related to another set of familiar changes—the cycle of life from birth, through growth and maturity. Newborns of all species develop into adults using generally the same process as all other members of the species. Thus the adults of the species are larger than infants and are significantly more capable of doing whatever that species does—running, climbing, vocalizing, defending, and, of course, procreating.

It suggests that social change is analogous to how an organism develops new capabilities over time — they change in a consistent direction toward becoming more complex, not necessarily better. We don’t say that adults are better than the infants, but they are clearly more developed and possess capabilities and a level of complexity that infants do not. They are just at a different point of development.

The same point holds true for values. ConsumerShift suggests that the development pattern the societies follow — if they are willing and able — is from traditional to modern to postmodern and finally integral values. It is not saying that one type is better than another, but further along in development. A key difference from the life-cycle of an organism, however, is that societies can choose whether to develop or not, whereas organisms cannot. A society may find itself quite comfortable with traditional values and choose to stay there, or with modern values, or with postmodern.

As noted in previous posts, the pattern is that as societies develop economically, their values tend to develop in a similar fashion. Traditional societies, for instance, tend to be rather less developed economically, but as they begin to achieve economic growth, they begin to embrace modern values (which “favor” growth and achievement). This is going on in a big way in China, for instance, as it has grown rapidly in recent years. Similarly, as modern societies develop into affluent societies, they embrace postmodern values. This is especially evident in Northern Europe, where these affluent countries are the most postmodern in the world.
Thus, the development theory of social change underpins the values changes in ConsumerShift—suggesting change in a consistent direction over time, and, as suggested in previous posts, this pattern has been validated by the data in the World Values Survey. Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on August 30, 2012 6 Comments

Introducing Four Types of Values for the Future

Having defined values in my last post, now is the time to describe the types of values shaping the future. I will cover some of the previous systems for categorizing values I came across in doing the research for ConsumerShift, but right upfront it is important to acknowledge the most influential sources: Ron Inglehart and colleague’s World Values Survey and Don Beck and colleagues’ Spiral Dynamics. Building on their work, my work and the work of my many colleagues doing foresight consulting work over the last several years, four types (or categories) of values will be prevalent in the future:

Traditional: Focused on following the rules and fulfilling one’s predetermined role, with priorities such as respect for authority, religious faith, national pride, obedience, work ethic, large families with strong family ties, and strict definition of good and evil

Modern: Focused on achievement, growth and progress, with priorities such as high trust in science and technology (as the engines of progress), faith in the state (bureaucratization), rejection of out-groups, an appreciation of hard work and money, and determination to improve one’s social and economic status.

Postmodern: Focused on the search for meaning in one’s life, with priorities such as self-expression, including an emphasis on individual responsibility as well as choice, imagination, tolerance, life balance and satisfaction, environmentalism, wellness, and leisure.

Integral: Emerging as the leading edge of values change, with a more practical and functional approach to employing values that best fit the particular situation, enabling one to pursue personal growth with an understanding and sensitivity to larger systemic considerations.

More to come……Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on February 25, 2025 2 Comments

Peak Capitalism? Values Shifts and Capitalism

Values shifts are central to the long-term transformation to After Capitalism. A year ago I asked readers to rate which of the seven drivers of After Capitalism would be most important, and values shifts came out on top.

From a values perspective one might say we’re at Peak Capitalism, a concept coined by Professor Richard Wolff, who has been a strong voice against capitalism, way back in 2009. The case for the values version of peak capitalism is that modern values, which fit perfectly with capitalism, are peaking, traditional values which are generally supportive of capitalism are declining, and on the flip side, postmodern values are turning against capitalism and integrals are already moved on from it. [NOTE: I’m talking about late-stage capitalism in affluent countries here.]

Values	View on Capitalism	Peeking ahead
Traditionals (@20-25% of population): The focus is on following the rules and fulfilling one’s predetermined role, with priorities such as respect for authority, religious faith, national pride, obedience, work ethic, large families with strong family ties, and a strict definition of good and evil.	Most likely to be accepting of the current system whatever it is – capitalism in this case – and play their proper role in it. They may have a conflict with another system of importance, say a religion or labor union, but they generally remain loyal to the existing order .. unless that system is seen as violating the rules of the bargain.	Traditional values are generally on the decline in affluent countries. While they might hang on in terms of loyalty to capitalism, there may also be a breaking point where capitalism’s problems become intolerable and lead them to shift their allegiance elsewhere.
Moderns (@40% of population): The focus is on achievement, growth, and progress, with priorities such as high trust in science and technology as the engines of progress, faith in the state (bureaucratization), rejection of out-groups, an appreciation of hard work and money, and a determination to improve one’s social and economic status.	The most avid supporters of capitalism. If you were designing an economic system for modern values, capitalism would be it. Capitalism fits perfectly with the modern priorities of competition, growth, and achievement. Perfectly!!!	Modern values are peaking if not already in decline in the affluent nations. We can expect them to be strong champions for capitalism given the ideas fit, but their influence is likely to slowly decline over time.
Postmoderns (@25-30% of population): The focus is on the search for meaning in one’s life, with priorities such as self-expression, including an emphasis on individual responsibility as well as choice, imagination, tolerance, life balance and satisfaction, environmentalism, wellness, and leisure.	If I had to pick a single word to describe their view of capitalism, I would say skeptical. Capitalism has a major problem with postmoderns in that the issues it struggles with are hot buttons for postmoderns: environmental issues (strike one), equity issues (strike two), and one might say over-infatuation with tech progress (strike three). For many postmoderns, capitalism is out!	The postmoderns emerged in the late 1960s/early 1970s and have been slowly growing since then. They still trail moderns in overall numbers, but they are increasingly influential. I think capitalism could have bought itself some time by making a strong move to something akin to “stakeholder capitalism.” You blunt the worst edges of capitalism and postmoderns might go along. But …
Integrals (@2-5% of population): This leading edge of values change is characterized by a practical and functional approach to drawing upon values that best fit the particular context. The first three value types derive from the World Values Survey, but this one is derived from Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics.	The Integrals may be less ideologically strident in their opposition to any system, but their practicality is such that they are willing and able to admit it’s time and move on to what’s next. They will very quietly start doing it. Taking action now, without a lot of fanfare … leading by example.	This group is still tiny but may well be the vanguard for the transformation to capitalism.

I am making some huge generalizations here, and speaking primarily about affluent nations in late-stage capitalism. but I think it is useful have a starting point for thinking through where people are at with the existing system in order to have a sense of how long the transformation to After Capitalism might take, which I’ve put at 20-30 years. – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on November 27, 2024 Leave a Comment

Lets Get Loopy

A few months ago I shared some research that explored pathways to transformation and asked y’all to speculate on whether the more common pathway was Collapse and New Equilibrium. I confessed that the study team guessed Collapse and the actual research found that New Equilibrium (NE) was the more common route. Let’s take a closer look at this pathway.

As you may have already deduced from the title, the NE pathway to Transformation is not a straight line. This is hardly news to futurists, as we know that linear change is relatively rare. The loop pattern is interesting. Quick refresher: we examined 78 historical scenario sets fitted to archetypes and mapped on to the three horizons:

Baseline – Horizon 1 current system
Collapse and New Equilibrium – Horizon 2 transitions
Transformation — Horizon 3 new system

There were six (of the 78) scenario sets that followed the Baseline to NE to Transformation [NOTE: some of the scenarios sets were relatively new and hadn’t reached their projected timeframe yet … thus the relatively small numbers making it to Transformation]. Of these six, a preliminary analysis suggested there were starts-and-stops in the NE transition phase. We are investigating this pattern in follow-up research, but it’s fair to say the looping seems to represent “missing” elements in the transformation that sets it back – in effect to try again. For instance, one might say that EVs are running into a missing element of “lack of infrastructure,” and thus may stall out for some time. It could be that a technology is not quite ready? Or social acceptance is not quite there? Something is missing that stalls out the progress.

This looping idea has useful implications as we think about the pathway to After Capitalism. I’ve noted that I fear a Collapse of capitalism potentially being too soon, before we have enough of a sense of a viable alternative. The looping pathway can prepare us in advance to first of all recognize it will be not be a smooth ride, but an iterative one. We can expect progress, stalls, and even occasional backslides. We can know that this isn’t fatal or evidence of failure, but the normal path. It reminds me of innovation work in which we know that a really novel concept never makes it the first time. It has to go back to the drawing board, morph, and try again. If we can accept that from the outset, and have a mindset that sees fails or setbacks as learning opportunities, we can stay patient on the NE pathway. In a nutshell, it’s okay to be loopy. – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on May 30, 2024 1 Comment

A Cost of Short-Term Thinking …

… or , another reason why After Capitalism is going to take longer than it should.

I/T is supposed to be the vanguard of change ushering in a wonderfully convenient future. [I will not rant here that this future seems to consist of laying on the couch, watching one of several dozen streaming services, flipping through social media, and making continuous purchases effortlessly.] I/T and other techs as savior is a dominant logic.

But how many readers in large organizations — or those working with large organizations — have noticed the regularity of said large organization using software (and presumably hardware) that is years if not a decade plus out of date? I am talking about Fortune 500 companies, major universities, large government agencies, global NGO types of organizations, who ought to be at the forefront of technological change, right? It came to my attention twice in the same week – where I used a meeting platform that I thought had gone out of business. In both cases, my client/colleague on the other side apologized for using the platform. You’ve probably been in that situation where you haven’t used it for so long, that it won’t let you on or your settings are off? It made me take a gander at some of the software/hardware services I am using and I found at least a few in there that, shall we say, have passed their expiration date.

What gives? I know in some cases organizations get locked into long-term contracts to save money. And rather than admit the mistake, they force us to use the software until the contract is over. The reward system for short-term thinking is such that the original purchaser is lauded for getting a bargain and saving money in the present. It isn’t too hard to project that there is going to be an issue down the road, but the long-term loses out to the short-term. [If the purchaser is smart, they get out of town before all these short-term purchases start to show their age.] It’s strange that I/T, the vanguard of change and enabler of the future, has evolved into a cost center where the goal is not to provide the best tools, but to cut the most costs. That, my friends, is capitalist logic at its best. After Capitalism waits once again. – Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on January 3, 2024 2 Comments

Shifting values driving towards After Capitalism

Back in November, we did a ranking of the key drivers influencing the move to After Capitalism. We start with the top vote-getter, Shifting Values, which is described as: Values are shifting from traditional (follow the rules) and modern (achieve) to postmodern (search for meaning) and integral (make a difference).

Almost unnoticed by most –but not by our readers who voted this #1 –values are gradually shifting. Interestingly, values were mentioned rather cursorily, if at all, in most of the After Capitalism book concepts I reviewed. My research, however, puts this shift front and center. The disruptive, radical, transformative change required to reach the three guiding images is very unlikely to be made with the current mindset or worldviews prevailing. They require a new way of thinking. The good news is that the shift is and has been happening. The bad news is that we have been stuck quicksand in recent times [see mean green meme].

The pattern, depicted below, is a shift from left to right: from traditional to modern to postmodern to integral.

Traditional values were once predominant, but eventually gave way to modern values, which are now the most prevalent type. But modern is slowing giving way to postmodern, which will eventually give way to integral. The percentage of the population of that type in the US is in parentheses. Globally, several affluent countries, including Sweden, Finland, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, have with lower percentages of traditional values and higher percentages of postmodern ones, with about a dozen other countries close as well, including Japan and Germany.

The four types are:

Traditional (@20-25%): The focus is on following the rules and fulfilling one’s predetermined role, with priorities such as respect for authority, religious faith, national pride, obedience, work ethic, large families with strong family ties, and a strict definition of good and evil. Traditional values are generally on the decline as economic development has stimulated a shift to modern and then postmodern and integral values.
Modern (@40%): The focus is on achievement, growth, and progress, with priorities such as high trust in science and technology as the engines of progress, faith in the state (bureaucratization), rejection of out-groups, an appreciation of hard work and money, and a determination to improve one’s social and economic status. Rising levels of economic development that accompany modern values enable greater consumption and participation in consumer lifestyles. Modern values are slowing in affluent nations but rising in the emerging markets.
Postmodern (@25-30%): The focus is on the search for meaning in one’s life, with priorities such as self-expression, including an emphasis on individual responsibility as well as choice, imagination, tolerance, life balance and satisfaction, environmentalism, wellness, and leisure. This shift in priorities is enabled by higher degrees of economic security. This type emerged in the late 1960s/early 1970s and has been slowly growing since then to become an influential group shaping preferences in the affluent nations.
Integral (@2-5%): This leading edge of values change is characterized by a practical and functional approach to drawing upon values that best fit the particular context. The first three value types derive from the World Values Survey, but this one is derived from Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics. Integral values are increasing but start from a much smaller base.

The key for After Capitalism is strengthening the shift to postmodern and especially integral values as they align best with the changes needed. The integral shift is key as it is the first values type that does not believe its way is the right way – it brings a much-needed ability to be flexible, practical, and functional. It should also be noted that there are healthy expressions of each values type and we need all those types working together to build the After Capitalism world. — Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on September 6, 2023 1 Comment

More and more varieties of capitalism

A couple of years ago I posted about what seemed to be a flurry of new varieties of capitalism being written about. I listed 38 varieties in June 2021. Little did I know that I was just getting started. Today’s list is at 84. Granted, these are not all technically accurate economic alternatives and some are rants and some are marketing. Nonetheless, this proliferation suggests something is afoot. But what?

I see three major themes or groupings:

Advocacy: proposes a variation with a moral or “good” purpose to improve capitalism, typically expanding the benefits to a larger group of people

Critique: points out a major flaw or flaws within capitalism

Neutral: sticks closest to an economics classroom type discussion

Accountable capitalism	Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to require corporations with annual revenues of $1 billion or more to obtain a “federal charter.”
Adventure capitalism	A few thousand VC investors have funded enterprising ideas that have gone on to transform global business and the world economy.
American capitalism	The emergence of corporate behemoths like Amazon and the simultaneous shrinkage of organized labor has led to inequalities, corruption, and abandonment of the working class.
Anarcho-capitalism	Ideology of an absolutely free market and the abolishment of the state.
Asset-manager capitalism	Thanks to their mammoth scale and fondness for index-tracking investment strategies, they own a hefty chunk of virtually everything.
Aspirational capitalism	A new twist on cutthroat capitalism that is a different way to think about business success and obligation by setting out to create something truly great and lasting.
Authoritarian capitalism	China’s strong authoritarian state with wild capitalist dynamics can also be seen as an efficient form of a socialist state.
Behavioral capitalism	Human behavior, which used to serve primarily as a complementary raw material, has moved to be a production factor at the core of new business models and markets.
Black capitalism	An effort to create companies owned, staffed and managed largely by Black people that could lift up the broader community.
Cannibal capitalism	Invades all spheres of life, but might destroy itself and our own conditions for survival.
Can-do capitalism	Works by providing large taxpayer-funded government subsidies to industries that would otherwise not exist in an open market.
Capitalism without capital	Explores the extent to which value has become detached from the tangible, and the corresponding social and economic consequences.
Caring capitalism	Advocates basing the economy on a more rounded view of human nature than that one that just considers individuals as selfish calculators of utility.
Casino capitalism	When money is out of control, exchange rates and interest rates fluctuate widely and wildly and sheer luck begins to take over and to determine more and more of what happens to people.
Chokepoint capitalism	Exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others.
Cloud capitalism	Probing emotions deeply to tailor-make experiences that exploit our biases to produce market responses.
Common good capitalism	The method of achieving certain moral goods is the animating question.
Compassionate capitalism	Advocates for a contradictory machinery to run underneath the current global capitalism so that there could be some mitigating factors over the consequences for people in the world.
Connected capitalism	When companies connect the bottom line of their businesses with a social conscience.
Community capitalism	An effort to create companies that lift up the broader community.
Conscious capitalism	Believes consumers will do good if given the opportunity to do so.
Consumer capitalism	Consumer demand is manipulated in a deliberate and coordinated way on a very large scale through mass-marketing techniques.
Contra capitalism	Practices that go counter to or against capitalism.
Control capitalism	Increase in private ownership, in which owners control the enterprise and only answer to themselves, compared to public company’s owner/leaders beholden to investors.
Corporate capitalism	Disregard for the needs of workers, families, and communities; along with its contempt for regulatory and ecological boundaries.
Counterfeit capitalism	Businesses that compete solely on access to capital, which they use to create products that are worth less than the sum of their parts.
Crack-up capitalism	Holds that the world economy is a lot more fragmented and disunited than is realized, with many political actors keen on actually accelerating it.
Crony capitalism	Businesses thrive not as a result of risk, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between business and politics.
Data capitalism	Aka surveillance capitalism, it is the unrestricted use of private human experience as a source of free data on human behavior and is used as a source of profit.
Destitution capitalism	The state should not regulate economic activity for the greater good but is ever more intrusive in its surveillance of the lives.
Disaster capitalism	Politicians and the private sector exploit disaster to grow richer from it.
Distributed capitalism	Decentralized systems that aim to create permissionless usage by avoiding centralized gatekeepers.
Emotional capitalism	Dual process by which emotional and economic relationships come to define and shape each other.
End-stage capitalism	Suggests the need to begin asking if civilization is going to survive capitalism in this form.
Extractive capitalism	A small elite securing an excessive slice of the economic pie.
Extreme capitalism	The rich raise too much money and leave too little for the rest of society leading to a decline in consumption and stagnation.
Fake capitalism	The result when government policies channel economic activity into small numbers of large, powerful companies.
Financial capitalism	Economic surplus is claimed by passively extracting interest or economic rents broadly rather than contributing to production.
Free-market capitalism	The laws of supply and demand, rather than a central government, regulates production, labor, and the marketplace.
Gangster capitalism	Derived from a true crime podcast that is focused on the dark side of the American dream.
Global capitalism	Suggests real transformation can only happen if those in the global north join forces with migrants and exploited workers in the global south.
Gonzo capitalism	Explores outside-the-box methods for earning money.
Green capitalism	Market-based approaches to solving the climate crisis that has come under attack from some environmentalists for greenwashing.
Inclusive capitalism	Investment that delivers positive economic and positive social outcomes is the best way to achieve progress at scale by enabling more people to benefit.
Industrial capitalism	Capitalism based on production of goods in contrast to financial capitalism based on finance.
Intangible capitalism	Corporate returns, productivity, and economic growth will increasingly be tied to a dematerialized, digitized, knowledge-driven world.
Intellectual monopoly capitalism	Knowledge, which should be a (non-rival, non-exclusive) public good, has been privately appropriated by top companies as capital.
Internalized capitalism	Idea that our self-worth is directly linked to our productivity.
Late capitalism	A catchall phrase for the indignities and absurdities of our contemporary economy, with its inequality and super-powered corporations and shrinking middle class.
Low-road capitalism	Wages are depressed as businesses compete over the price, not the quality, of goods; so-called unskilled workers are typically incentivized through punishments, not promotions; and inequality reigns and poverty spreads.
Modern capitalism	Skeptics say too many businesses extract value from the economy rather than add it by using monopoly power, or favorable treatment from conflicted or ideologically friendly regulators.
Money-centered capitalism	Critics say more weight should be placed on the value of cashless exchange, including self-sufficiency, barter, and gifting,
Monocapitalism	Aka financial capitalism, which focuses strictly on the financial aspect and decapitalizes the entire system.
Multicapitalism	Proposes a move to a system value view where six different types of capital are created and maintained within systemic interconnections.
Neoliberal capitalism	The current capitalist Baseline, which is defined by privatization, deregulation, free trade, commodification of public goods, and managed by international institutions, and using other decentralized institutions like NGOs and think thanks to influence public opinion.
Naked capitalism	Capitalism’s tattered and moth-eaten clothes have fallen off, revealing a naked body that serves only the privileged few.
Nationalist capitalism	A new recipe in which a large sector of private enterprises co-exists with a large sector of state-owned enterprises.
Network capitalism	Emphasizes multi-stakeholder networks, and the ability to engage in meaningful stakeholder partnerships.
New capitalism	Japan’s program of driving growth via an economic strategy focused on investment in human resources, science and technology, innovation, and start-ups, as well as green and digital transformation.
Participatory capitalism	A system where power and economic rewards are distributed between participants.
Patriotic capitalism	Notion of putting the best interests of the country at the top of the pecking order.
Perfect capitalism	Michio Kaku’s concept that the wealth of society comes from physics and will eventually produce infinite knowledge of supply and demand.
Platform capitalism	A system where power and economic rewards are distributed between networked participants.
Post-Covid capitalism	Regression playing out in India with the contraction of the economy, massive job losses and ruinous medical expenditures.
Predatory capitalism	Characterized by businesses that prey on each other, people, and the environment and that destroy or absorb their competition.
Psychedelic capitalism	People making money off medicines that, in the case of some psychedelics at least, have existed for millennia.
Racial capitalism	Process of deriving value from the racial identity of others, harms the individuals affected and society as a whole.
Rainbow capitalism	Economic involvement in the appropriating and profiting from the LGBT movement.
Ransom capitalism	The process of capital (e.g., IMF, World Bank and multinational corporations) holding the public for ransom during financial, energy and even public health crises
Regenerative capitalism	Looks beyond net-zero emissions and setting eyes on leaving a net-positive impact on the planet.
Rentier capitalism	Having and owning – thereby controlling access – is enormously more profitable than making or serving.
Responsible capitalism	Operates at the intersection of commercial, social and sustainable development.
Satoyama capitalism	Japanese concept that fills the gap of truly money-centered capitalism by putting more weight on the value of cashless exchange, including self-sufficiency, bartering and gifting,
Savage capitalism	Capitalism is at a decision point where it will be decided whether the human experiment on Earth will continue in any recognizable form.
Spiderweb capitalism	The shadowy, international web of political and economic elites and the secretive and corrupt practices they use to make and protect their money.
Stakeholder capitalism	The idea that businesses have a responsibility that extends beyond their shareholders.
State capitalism	Originally conceived as a transitional stage en route to a socialism different from and beyond state capitalism that has come to define socialism.
Surveillance capitalism	Unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data for economic use.
Sustainable capitalism	Integrates sustainability into the traditional capitalist model to maximize profits while minimizing negative environmental and social impacts.
Twenty-first century capitalism	Capitalists are not by and large reinvesting their profits to develop new capacities to expand output or increase labor productivity.
Values-based capitalism	Advocates changing the dynamics of politics, towards a system where businesses are active participants in shaping a better society.
Vulture capitalism	Nurtured in US, focuses wholly on corporate survival and success for shareholders at the expense of workers, managers, communities, and country.
White capitalism	Black activist term for the economic system and the racial structures that are connected with policing that literally kills black people.
Woke capitalism	A form of marketing, advertising and corporate structures related to sociopolitical standpoints tied to social justice and activist causes.

Varieties of Capitalism …A. Hines

The majority of the varieties were critiques (n=49) or 58%. Next were the advocacy proposals (n=20) or 24%, and finally the neutral analytical varieties (n=15) or 18%. In short, there is a large and growing chorus of complaints about capitalism. There is a smaller set of ideas on what to do about it, and fewer yet serious proposals. This absolutely fits with my sense of the state of play today. — Andy Hines

by Andy Hines on August 23, 2023 7 Comments

It’s okay to think big

I may be preaching to the choir, but perhaps I can provide some support for big thinkers … as we become an increasingly endangered species. I’ve been getting some pushback on ideas that include or hint at development, stage theories, or heaven forbid, grand narratives.

Let’s focus on “development” since it guides After Capitalism in its quest to define guiding images for the long-term future. Put simply, a development model suggests there is a long-term direction of change toward greater complexity and choice.

When I share that After Capitalism assumes a development trajectory, especially in academic settings, it is greeted with skepticism if not hostility. [To be fair, the more balanced critics very correctly point out that is an assumption and there are other explanations, which I agree with].

What’s at the root of this skepticism? I’d trace it back to the emergence of postmodern philosophy captured in The Postmodern Condition, Jean-François Lyotard’s influential 1979 work on the postmodern turn, which favors local, contextual, and situation-specific explanations over broad, global, and more generalized ones. This turn, which is particularly prevalent in academia, questions the very idea of grand or meta-narratives. It is thriving in today’s “takedown” and “cancel culture” context, in which there is an army of critics poised to attack any ideas — big ones offer a nice juicy target.

A lot of my work, not just After Capitalism but also the values work published in ConsumerShift, assumes a development model of change. Our University of Houston Foresight program devotes an entire course to Social Change. Among the different types of social change are “shape” theories:

Development: change in a consistent direction over time. A variation, Progress, assumes that the direction is a positive one; Development is neutral.
Cyclical: change does not have a specific direction, but follows a general pattern of birth maturity and death; essentially what goes around, comes around; every change ultimately ages and dies, then the cycle starts over again.
None: there is no directional pattern at all; change may or may not move in a direction, with emergence, complexity, evolution as examples.

A few caveats about the developmental shape of change. First, it specifically avoids taking a position on whether the change is “good” or “bad” — it is simply a consistent direction. Second, it allows for some cyclicality and iteration within that overall direction. There can be steps backward, sideways, and loops, but overall change is forward. Third, it directly confronts the growing proliferation of what might be called collapse, doomer, black pill, or even “end of times” works that are increasingly in vogue today. The After Capitalism work does include versions of a Collapse future but deliberately emphasizes the possibilities from moving past that in developing positive guiding images.

After Capitalism acknowledges the utility of the postmodern turn with its emphasis on the local, contextual, and situation-specific — indeed much of the solution space involves efforts at this scale. At the same time, the work seeks to reinstate the concept of big thinking necessary to developing guiding images. – Andy Hines

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