by 
I teased the global question a few years ago. I reframed the work to be more globally representative. But I might be accused — or I am accusing myself, of avoiding the big global question: namely, can After Capitalism happen in one place or does it have to be global to be successful? In my defense, I have been thinking about it. The graphic suggests the US as the “one” country, but this reflects that the book emphasizes the US as poster child of neoliberal capitalism. It is very fair to argue that the US will not go first!
I net out that it’s better to get started in one city, state, region, country than wait for a global approach for three reasons:
- Waiting for global may mean waiting a very, very long time. There are pockets around the world, but they are small and disparate.
- Waiting may also lead to impatience and strengthen those who might be inclined to violent revolution. As the decline of capitalism worsens and quality-of-life with it, the argument for revolution becomes more appealing.
- Most of all, I’m influenced by some work I’ve been doing around “activating the future.” In client work, we’re being asked to get deeper and deeper into helping implementation. I posted a while back on being aligned and in motion, and more recently I updated that by adding in ready for action. It starts with the premise that if we are aligned around a vision, in this case the three After Capitalism guiding images, then we will kick in most of the action in the Horizon 2 transition; but right now in the H1 present, we get In motion by doing little things like pilots and experiments that start to build momentum.
It’s about “learning our way into the future.” It reminds me of innovation work where many clients took literally years to get all aspects of a new offering perfect. By the time they finally launched, the context had already shifted, or they would find they’d missed some key aspect of the context and it was either back to the drawing board, or the end of it. I sure hope we avoid that trap! That said, it does not mean giving up on bringing After Capitalism to the globe, but rather working toward it on a parallel path while we are already in motion. – Andy Hines
what do you mean by “waiting”? capitalism has been in constant flux since its inception. it will always be in flux. between US regulations, EU regulations, Asian regulations, Islamic regulations, and organized crime, when was “capitalism” ever a singularly accepted concept, and when did it ever have a common global implementation and operation?
also, why would “capitalism” change globally overnight when no other significant global change has ever happened overnight? I mean, for example, democracies dumped monarchies in the west in the 1800’s, yet they still prevail in much of the world, as do military juntas. meanwhile, several nations experimented with socialism and communism.
what am i missing Andy?
maybe one day i can make my way to Houston and we can have a long lunch to synchronize… i know several people that think you hung the moon. i’d like to get on the same wavelength…