Generative Capitalism Incubator

Generative Capitalism (GC) is a network of entrepreneurs, artists, business coaches and consultants who are convening to “incubate” entrepreneurial projects that are inspired by a new meta narrative for Capitalism and business.

 

This new meta narrative is more generative in nature designed to distribute the value that is being created in our economic networks to a larger portion of the population. This effort is fully supported by the world changing innovations emerging across all fields of human endeavor. This wave suggests that the old models of top down control and leadership are not the future. Instead some sort of deliberate developmental organizations seem to be the basis of achieving a more generative culture while still being handsomely rewarded for our creativity.  

 

Capitalism has been at the heart of creating more wealth for more people in certain parts of the world than any other economic system in history. Even with all its flaws, Capitalism has spawned more innovation to date that any of its competitors. However, as it has matured, it has begun to show signs of very unhealthy tendencies. The seemingly unending resources that Capitalism has depended on for its unlimited growth are actually finite. Nowhere is the inequity this causes more apparent than when you look at the statistics of how much wealth is controlled by what percentage of the population. At the moment, about half of the world’s household wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population. If you are a student of history, you know this is a situation that eventually will not work out well for anybody. Violent revolutions result when the populace gets desperate enough to light the torches and storm the castles of the rich.

 

At the same time we are witnessing this consolidation of wealth in fewer hands, the stories we are telling about the near future in our films, television, social media and video games are mostly dystopian in nature. We see a world which looks a lot like ours, but has continued to descend into a kind of corporate feudal system. A world of have’s and have not’s. We sense the world is transitioning to a global governance system to deal with the wicked challenges we face like climate change, immigration and poverty, but the question of who leads that global governance is very much in play. We already have corporations that are so big, that they conduct their business and wield their influence without regard for the old boundaries or interests of individual nation states.

 

As all this is unfolding, the interesting paradox is that despite our dystopian views of our economic future, world changing innovations across all fields of human endeavor are everywhere. Some of it disrupting existing ways of doing things, others transitioning from old ways of measurement to a 2.0 version of re-imaging success. The question that is being asked is what does success really look like considering these new planetary and cultural developments? Is it simply based on the gross national product numbers of old or is it evolving to include concepts like the triple bottom line and the collective commons.

 

The GC incubator will convene conversations about this transition and network the energy it generates into ventures that will contribute to this new generative Capitalism future.

​

To lead us off, Doug Rushkoff questions the way we are looking at the future of economics, technology and the marketplace. Agree or disagree, Doug will get you thinking. That is a good thing. And I have posted a piece I did at the What NOW conference on defining what I mean by the terms "generative" and "extractive." Hope it informs your own reflections.

​