Life in three different economic futures: Resilience Economics, Just-in-Time Socialism, and Robonomics. Where do you want to live?

It may be hard to believe, but there once was a time when Neoliberal Globalized Corporate Capitalism (NGCC) wasn’t the only economic model around—and even a time when NGCC didn’t even exist! Our current era may seem like the “end of history” to some observers, but the fact of the matter is that economics isn’t an end in and of itself, but a means to the end of material comfort and prosperity. When the social, technological, and environmental rules change, economic models change, too, taking advantage of new ways to achieve this goal.

The three possible economic models I suggested last week, and explore in a bit more detail below, should be considered speculations on what the world will look like in the coming decades as the emerging changes to environment, society, and technology take hold. As before, I look forward to hearing your suggestions and alternatives.

One note before I start: if you’ve read my stuff over the years, you might be surprised that none of the three future economic models are explicitly sustainability-focused. That’s because they all are—that is, environmental sustainability is intrinsic to all three of these models, as it will be intrinsic to whatever economic structures function successfully this century. As the next few decades unfold, any economic behavior that doesn’t take sustainability into account will fail.

These items are written in scenario form: call it the “anticipatory future.”

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