What the next economy wants

Having explored what the old economy wants yesterday, two issues have been raised: what the next economy wants and how any economy could "want" something at all. Objective science objects when we assign intentionality to inanimate objects and abstractions. We're supposedly personifying or indulging in animism. Linear models of causality refute the possibility of recursive systems functioning as if they have minds of their own and intentions. However, subjective models of explanation allow for everything to enact processes and interests. We subject things to our perceptions and attributions in ways that are influential, engaging and ruinous to objective detachment. Our interests transform the interests we behold.

With that approach in mind, an economy shows interests in surviving and thriving. These interests are widely distributed through any local, regional, national or global economy. There are ongoing processes of growth, evolution, transformation and dissolution which enact these interests. An economy's interests transforms the interests of everyone participating in it. As I see economies, the next economy is nothing new. We're collectively losing interest in whatever the old economy wants for it to survive and thrive. We are gaining interests in different processes and beginning to enact them. Here are some of those processes which I'm calling "the next economy":

1. The next economy wants us to feel connected to everyone and everything so that we revitalize every place on the planet. That means we will create a sustainable human culture that is compatible with ecological systems, limited resources and the long term consequences of our actions.
2. The next economy wants us to question our conduct, hesitate before acting and interrupt our addictive compulsions. This will curtail our excess consumption and the inadvertent subsidy of any unfettered expansion of multinational corporations.
3. The next economy wants us to become possessed by the meaning of our conduct, the purposes we serve and the intrinsic rewards we find for ourselves. This will bring out more creativity in our lives to replace the passivity we enact as viewers, consumers and hoarders.
4. The next economy wants us to get a good read on everything we read, hear or watch to sense who can be trusted, which motivations are reliable and how inner conflicts can get resolved. This will dismiss unreadable presentations, advertising and journalism which happen to be lacking in transparency, self disclosure and honesty.
5. The next economy wants us to embrace digital freedoms as the model for using technologies, value propositions and delivery systems. That implies that the use of analog models will appear to us as "old clunkers" and "quaint reminders of the bygone era".
6. The next economy wants us to take consumer advocacy up a level so everyone has access to scrutinizing the quality of "customer experiences", "support after the sale" and opportunities to customize our purchases. This will diminish the acquisition of products and services from providers who relate to customers as enemies, zombies, idiots, fools or blobs.
7. The next economy wants us to find our unique voices and to express ourselves through every media form that captures our imagination. This will drown out the deafening silence of those getting spoken for incorrectly or otherwise dehumanized, profiled or categorized as "one of those".
8. The next economy wants us to see the highly paid stars as human, the leaders as equals in stature to us and the powerful as empowered by their followers. This will knock the arrogant off their pedestals and work some of those "first shall be last" reversals.
9. The next economy wants us to experience symmetric relationships will all things living and inanimate. This will transition "ecological awareness" from something to talk about at length into passions to enact as living examples and to go the distance to heal our world.
10. The next economy wants us to share what we have, care about others' interests, serve our common ground and co-create new possibilities. This will mess up property rights and litigation over violations of contracts which make sure no one shares, cares, serves or collaborates with us.

If you already have a foot in this practice of the next economy, you can see how it's no problem. The changes are in progress and getting explored in delightfully diverse ways. We're free to contribute our fair share, participate in collaborative outcomes and benefit from all the other contributions.