As economists, bankers and others warn us, we must grow the global economy at 3% a year to avoid stagnation and/or recession. This doesn’t sound like much, but it requires a doubling of the economy every twenty years. We have already crossed four of the nine planetary boundaries and are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction. We are at a crossroads and our choice is clear: growth or life?
There's a growing community of practitioners building and coalescing around life-centric economic models. For example, many movements in the global South use the concept of post-capitalism, from La Via Campesina to the Word Social Forum. And a few funder activist circles are starting to adopt such language. While we don't want to overly focus on or prioritize the systems we're stepping out of, we do recognize the importance of incorporating a historical lens and critique of modernity, capitalism, rationalism, etc. which post-capitalism helps to facilitate.
Post-capitalism is an umbrella concept for us to better understand what we want to invest out of and invest into — ideas that transcend the traditional structures of private ownership, racialized hierarchy, patriarchy, extractive growth and accumulation by dispossession. Post-capitalism is not simply another ‘ism’ to replace previous ideologies. It is not a euphemism for socialism or anarchism or Nordic capitalism, although it may contain some contextually relevant elements of each. Rather, it is a conceptual container of pluralities based on shared values that stem from a critique of the existing system and the lived experience of capitalist alternatives. These shared values include altruism, cooperation, equity consciousness, community-led governance, empathy, non-violence, anti-racism, interbeing and solidarity with all Life. In short, we endeavor to find approaches, practices and models that usher in systems rooted in interconnected relationships and an honoring of Life.
We invite all relevant stakeholders into shared sense-making and inquiry of what possible adjacent futures could look like and what supports our transition towards them. We use post-capitalism as both a shorthand and also a signal that we don't exactly know what these realities could be.
Some of our shared inquiries include:
First PRInciples
What are our first principles and carried-over assumptions to the global challenges in the Anthropocene?
post-capitalist Horizons
What would post-capitalist realities look like across different geographies, cultural impulses, histories, etc.?
THE ROLE OF philanthropy
What needs to change within the philanthropic sector for it to be a driver in creating post-capitalist futures? What practices and beliefs would philanthropy need to shed to get there?
pathways to transition
What are the most interesting developments in building pathways to transition?
funding the transition
What potential shared strategies exist to best fund the transition?
Inner/outer mirroring
How does what is going on “out there” affect each of us directly?
praxis
What practices are we learning and implementing in our lives, our work, our organization, our ways of thinking & behaving, that prepare us for post-capitalist realities?
recalibration
How are we being called to re-conceive and re-imagine our ways of thinking, seeing, and acting?
