The Future Of Capitalism Comes Down to Three Things

by Nathaniel Whittemore

categories: Society, Trends

Published July 30, 2009 @ 09:42AM PT

Since the crisis hit, an incredible array of commentators have taken the chance to proclaim either the peril, the end, or the rebirth of capitalism. In the social entrepreneurship world, there is a huge push to proclaim a self-fulfilling prophecy of a capitalist rebirth that puts social and environmental value back into the heart of the equation.

Yesterday, frogdesign champion Tim Leberecht wrote a phenomenal overview of some of these pontifications, and the history major in me can't help trying to summarize. I think that what comes next will largely come down to the way we make decisions about our careers, the way we make decisions about what we consume, and what sense of obligation we have to people we will never meet.

Our decisions about careers strike at the heart about how we define meaning. Some people look for meaning in having a high powered job that constantly challenges them and provides them prestiege. Some people look for meaning through their ability to purchase things or experiences. Other people look for meaning in the balance between a job they enjoy and what happens outside the workplace. Some people look for meaning by taking on work that embodies their values and enables them to tackle social ills.

More and more, I see an instinct towards integration. People are looking for jobs that employ their skills, that challenge them, and in which their values are manifest day to day. If that's not particularly new, I think that the sense of the value of compensation might be shifting just slightly. People still want and are animated by money; people are still willing to sacrifice money to be a part of social justice causes. But on each side of the coin there is a tension at the extremes.

People who want to work for nonprofits are willing to take less money, but they're not willing to struggle for as long or as dramatically undermine their own needs. On the flip side, people recognize that professions like the law have huge financial rewards, but they're increasingly less willing to take on the burden of heart attacks, divorces, and estranged relationships with their children to move from mid six figures to high six figures. How this all plays out is yet to be seen, but I think there are major implications for how society and work are structured.

And that, of course, has implications for how we approach consumption. There is obviously more consciousness around from where the things we buy - be it food, cleaning products, or clothes - come from, and how they're made. Increasingly, there are "good" options for just about everything we can buy. Yet there are still major hurdles. Price is and remains a very serious differentiating factor. Convenience is just as big an issue. It's hard to buy the fair trade alternative if it doesn't exist right next to the normal coffee, and for many, time is money.

Consumption is more than just about specific products though. It's also about how we define happiness, success, and meaning, and if there are specific product questions, there are also the larger meta questions of the underpinnings and sustainability of consumer culture in general.

Finally, there is the question of our relationship with people and places we've never and maybe will never meet. The theme of this year's TEDGlobal was "The Substance of Things Not Seen." When I first heard the title, I thought about faith. But the more I considered it, the more I thought it meant a recognition of how unseen the trails of our impact on this world really are.

Our decisions fundamentally impact these people - whether it's factory workers in China or our very own great-grandchildren - but it's hard to keep them in mind when were bullied by the pressure of the day to day. How we - as individuals and as societies - find ways to define and understand our sense of obligation to those unseen. This, more than anything else, I think, will determine what the next stage of capitalism looks like.