A Review of Imagining After Capitalism by Andy Hines

Foresight on our Future Economy

Jim Golembeski, Upward Mobility

Twenty-five years ago, as Director of the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, I
experienced, along with my colleagues, the shockwave of local plant closings and
worker dislocation as new technology and economic globalization drove overwhelming
economic changes we hadn’t seen coming. Companies closed and workers lost jobs.
We weren’t looking for the signals back then; we didn’t know how. Continue reading here

Interview with Social Philosopher Roman Krznaric

Nan Nelson, Economic Transformations

Futurist Andrew Curry is recommending we check out an interview with the social philosopher Roman Krznaric on Five Books about how the lessons of history might help us navigate the present. It’s prompted by Krznaric’s recent book History for Tomorrow.  There’s a long tradition that we can’t learn from history, and there’s another one that says that we tend to draw the wrong conclusions because we use history metaphorically and then choose the wrong metaphors. Krznaric is interested in patterns, which Curry thinks is an underlying principle of futures work: patterns exist.

Krznaric has a chapter in his book on artificial intelligence, which seems essentially modern. “Reading Why History Matters made me think,” Curry says. “Have we ever created large-scale systems which could potentially get out of control, which is one of the potential risks of AI?”

And he answers, “Yes, we have. We invented the instruments of financial capitalism in the Netherlands in the early 17th century: the first stock exchanges, the first public limited companies, marine insurance. It was a human-created system that very quickly got out of control, with the advent of multiple financial crashes.

As the futurist Wendy Schultz says from time to time: to be a good futurist you also need to be a good historian. Deep structures matter.

Tariffs Are Coming

Jim Golembeski, Upward Mobility Signals Team

Tariffs are coming. The aggressive approach to international trade that began in the first Trump administration will get renewed life in the next four years. What will it mean for Americans struggling to get by month to month?  I wanted to better understand this renewed focus on tariffs and what they will mean for our low income citizens. Read my review and what I learned in two recent books on the subject. Continue Reading Here