Capitalism 4.0

I have to admit to having a huge amount of skepticism when Americans talk about capitalism. I don’t believe we have much experience with any other model, so I’m not ready to accept either full bodied acceptance or full bodied critique of capitalism. But here’s an interesting suggestion from Otto Schwarmer about what he labels “capitalism 4.0”:

So here is another view that frames our current situation in the context of four logics and paradigms of economic thought. They all respond to the basic coordination problem of our modern economies, but in a different way.

1.0: Organizing around centralized power: state and central planning giving rise to socialist and mercantilist economies (single sector)

2.0: Organizing around decentralized power: markets and competition giving rise to entrepreneurs and the private sector (two sectors: public, private)

3.0: Organizing around special interest groups: negotiation and dialogue giving rise to the NGO sector (three sectors, conflicting: public, private, civic)

4.0: Organizing around shared awareness and cultivating our commons giving rise to co-creative relationships among the three sectors (government, business, civil society) in order to innovate at the scale of the whole system.