Values Shifts the Key to After Capitalism?

I think so! As I get closer to the end and conclusions are dancing around in head, more and more I’m in some sense coming back to where I started. Values shifts are the key. It’s been a while since I’ve shared on them, so let’s quickly review the four types:

• 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

The logic of the shift is the data suggests a slow gradual shift from traditional to modern to postmodern to integral. The “problem” from an After Capitalism perspective is that overall currently modern values are the dominant type globally, and they fit perfectly with capitalism and arguably keep it going. The postmoderns (known as Greens in Spiral Dynamics terms), generally much less sympathetic to capitalism, are gaining ground. However, a significant portion of the postmodern greens have taken a horrible detour – see my post on “the mean green meme” – that has really thrown a monkey wrench in the works. Taking the long view, as futurists ought to do, I think eventually the postmodern greens will sort themselves out. The moderns will gradually decline. And what one might call the “vanguard” of After Capitalism, the Integrals, just a tiny 3-5% of the population today, eventually will gain enough critical mass to make a difference.

That’s the hopeful short story. As a reward for making it this far (ha!), if you comment or send me an email (ahines@uh.edu) with your mailing address, and I will send you a copy of my ConsumerShift book on the values shifts. I feel like this values piece is so important that we need to get this values thinking out there. Help me spread the word – Andy Hines.