It's time to redefine capitalism in the 21st century
With capitalism in crisis, unprecedented political gridlock and global populism on the rise, there is clearly a dearth of solutions to the global and local problems faced by people around the world. With each passing day it seems less likely we will find a grand, elegant solution to these problems. Yuval Noah Harari’s new book Homo Deus: A brief History of Tomorrow offers an interesting explanation of what is going on.
“Centuries ago human knowledge increased slowly, so politics and economics changed at a leisurely pace too. Today our knowledge is increasing a breakneck speed, and theoretically we should understand the world better and better. But the very opposite happening. Our new-found knowledge leads to faster economic, social and political changes; in an attempt to understand what is happening, we accelerate the accumulation of knowledge, which leads to faster and greater upheavals. Consequently we are less and less able to make sense of the present or forecast the future.”
Even the Federal Reserve Bank, the central bank in the United States, with access to the best economic data is unable to make sense of the current global economy. Federal Reserve policymakers have a mandate to guide the economy, over time, toward growth while maintaining price stability and maximum employment. But in recent meeting minutes, it was admitted that the committee is searching for a new framework but hasn’t found one yet. In other words, the Fed is now questioning whether it should embrace an alternative approach. It’s time for a new guiding vision, not just the Federal Reserve, but for capitalism in the 21st century.
Prosperity Isn’t Money, It’s Solutions
In an article from late 2014, Eric Beinhocker argues we should view prosperity in a society as the accumulation of solutions to human problems. Instead of measuring growth through GDP, rather, growth should be measured by the rate at which new solutions to human problems become available and the degree to which we make those solutions broadly accessible.
Social entrepreneurs offer us inspiring examples of this in action. Social entrepreneurs demonstrate how innovative new models can address our most pressing challenges while creating jobs and sustainable growth. By taking action now, they spur incremental progress. They solve human problems and make the solutions more broadly accessible. And around the world the social enterprise movement is growing.
FutureLearn Social Enterprise Program
Over the last several months we have worked to create a series of free MOOCs to introduce more people to the opportunities in the world of social enterprise. So far over 4,000 people have joined us. The FutureLearn Social Enterprise Program will help you learn how to design your own social enterprise model and bring it to market, and explore how to scale or sustain your social enterprise over the long term.
Take action and sign up today: https://www.futurelearn.com/programs/social-enterprisehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_333j3KPZeM
Originally published on LinkedIn.