Economics for the Imagination Age
Building a new kind of society that harnesses the creative skills of every citizen
Democratic Capitalism has failed. We’re overworked, underemployed and more powerless than ever [1]. Yet tinkering at the edges of our corrupt democracy will not bring about the changes we need. To do this, we need to ditch the failed capitalist model of the Information Age, and build a new kind of society that harnesses the creative skills of every citizen living in the Imagination Age.
Welcome to the Imaginomics Revolution.
Imagine creating a social housing project without the need to spend money on materials or energy to build a single home? Or creating a decentralized public renewable energy network so everyone has access to virtually free energy? Or deciding on government policies you really care about and getting financially rewarded for doing so? Or participating in a new kind of self-care to ensure you and your family stay happy, healthy and fit for life?
Not since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago have we had such an opportunity to improve our consumption and production habits [2]. Smart cyber-physical systems of our present Imagination Age offer everyone the ability to create and share goods at near-zero marginal cost. This post-capital shift towards what some people call the “the sharing economy”[3] or “zero marginal cost society” [4] is estimated to be worth $4.5 trillion by 2030 [5]. Advocates argue that our ability to make transactions more personable and peer-to-peer will radically change the system.
Technology alone never caused a revolution. People do.
Changing manufacturing alone won’t change the system. It’s not enough to make capitalism more technologically efficient and economically sound. We need to make it more human. We need to deploy a new kind of economics for the Imagination Age (an Imaginomics). A model that cultivates the creative imagination and potential of every citizen. This is vital because evidence shows that fostering creative skills increases people’s ability to reproduce, survive and grow [6]–[8]. Fostering these skills will also help us solve the increasingly complex problems we face in the 21st century [9].
To fully realise opportunities, we need to build environments that support and fuel creativity, so levels of innovation (the implementation of creative ideas) can flourish and prosper. Efforts are already underway. Britain’s Innovation Party are currently co-developing a digital voting platform Inov8 to foster radical democratic and social change. This is because the Innovation Party recognises there are always more smart people outside organisations than inside them. Tools such as Inov8 will not only help British voters express and gain support for their own policy ideas but also allow people to trade votes with each other, so key policies get the attention they deserve.
In other words, people decide policy, not politicians.
Why creativity matters
To realise the potential of Imaginomics, we need to update our understanding of creativity. Creativity is not some fuzzy artistic trait we typically reserve for those working in the arts. We all use creative problem-solving techniques to cope with life’s challenges. This much broader definition of creativity as “any original idea that provides some value” helps us understand that everyone is creative to some degree [10]. Indeed, evidence supports this more general view, showing that creativity matters at every level of society — from the factory floor to the executive boardroom.
Research by Adobe found that nurturing creativity makes us better leaders, parents and students [11]. Creativity helps leaders solve complex problems in novel ways to stay ahead of change [12], which ensures future profitability and success [13], [14]. Creativity also helps employees construct a more positive self-image, which helps them lead happier and more fulfilling lives [11], [15]. Despite these benefits, most companies have a significant creativity gap [11]. This is not surprising. Change is very difficult and presents us with multiple challenges. When faced with change, most of us retreat to our comfort zones rather than deal with the unknown [16].
Imaginomics: closing the creativity gap
Despite clear evidence linking creativity to increased productivity and profitability, investing in creativity isn’t high on the agenda for enough of today’s leaders. We still have a creativity gap. Most of today’s companies are simply not built to capitalise on the creative opportunities presented to them [11]. Most operations are still built on linear capitalist models (take, make, waste) rather than circular ones (take, make, take, make) [5].
These concerns should provide a wake-up call to business and government that they need to think differently. In the coming decades, society will face more challenges than ever, and we will need to run our institutions differently. People may not be familiar with how politics works, but they nonetheless possess huge resources of creative expertise. Policy-makers need to provide new social tools to harness such expertise so innovation and social change can thrive. Investment in creative citizen participation is not just good for business — it ensures government is fit for purpose long term.
To close the creativity gap and elicit the democratic and social changes humanity needs to survive, research by FXR has identified five successful and scalable models (aka the 5 C’s). Adoption of these models may help guide future efforts to establish the kind of climate fit for the Imagination Age — what we call Imaginomics (Figure 1).
The Five C’s
Circular Models: Ever since the Industrial Revolution sparked modern industrial production practices, manufacturing has been dominated by a linear model. In the linear production model, raw materials are extracted from resource countries, transported to manufacturing powerhouses, and processed into various products. The finalized products then get shipped to any number of global destinations, where they are used, discarded and eventually replaced by newer versions. Due to resource depletion and commodity price hikes, companies are moving to circular “regenerative” manufacturing models where products are reused multiple times.
For example, French automaker Renault recently adopted this circular approach to produce its engines, which has helped the company reap immense economic benefits:
- Renault’s Choisy-le-Roi plant near Paris reduced its energy use by 80% and its water use by 90% by adopting remanufacturing practices.
- Renault joint ventures with steel recyclers, waste management companies, and fluid producers have promoted circular benefits throughout its supply chain, reaping significant cost reductions as a result [17].
Collaborative Models: Historically, production has been developed and controlled by industrial experts. Land and housing developments were often developed by the few for the many. Centralized energy systems have also been typically controlled by a small group of corporations, with scant consumer input. In the last decade, various accommodation sites such as AirBnB have promoted the idea of resource sharing, although these businesses actually reflect traditional rentals rather than sharing. However, genuine collaborative sharing has emerged to great effect in the cohousing model, where people live in sharing communities rather than alienating suburbs.
For example, R50 Baugruppen project in Berlin created an affordable cohousing development, offering maximum capacity for adaptation over its lifecycle. Post occupancy feedback shows the model has great potential:
- Each apartment and additional community spaces were developed via intensive collaborative design processes, creating a building that served individual and collective needs of the inhabitants.
- Effective integration into the urban fabric reduced energy consumption by 30%, according to German Energy Saving Regulations [18].
Customized Models: In previous decades, education systems have been standardized to 19th-century factory models—fostering deep socioeconomic inequalities and failing to prepare people for 21st-century life challenges [10]. As a result, academic standards and productivity in the US and UK are in decline. To build a 21st-century education system personalized to the needs of students rather than schools, companies are adopting radically customized models. This shift has only become a reality due to recent software advances in machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
For example, a Personalized Learning Platform was developed for California’s Summit Public Schools (SPS) in 2013 to enable children to study at their own pace. Feedback from schools has been overwhelmingly positive:
- In contrast to other schools, 45–60% of SPS students exceeded state standards in English literacy and math.
- By 2015, 93% of freshmen graduated, with 10% higher grades than comparable schools. 100% of students experiencing the personalized model for all four years were admitted to four-year colleges [19].
Contributory Models: Increasing aging populations place pressure on governments to adopt means-tested models, to make sure pensions are affordable for future generations and fair for the poor. However, means-tested models aren’t actually fair, with large numbers of needy people missing out. Either because they don’t know about them, don’t realise they’re eligible, or just reluctant to claim them. There is also the added challenge of overcoming the stigma that receiving benefits means being dependent and “not standing on their own two feet” [20]. To counter these challenges, some governments are developing compulsory social credit systems to build trust.
For example, the Chinese government has partnered with Big Data companies WeChat, Sesame Credit and Alibaba to create a Social Credit System (SCS) to rate the trustworthiness of its 1.3 billion citizens. SCS combines data to rate citizens according to five main criteria: credit history, contract fulfilment, personal characteristics, behaviours and interpersonal relationships. For now, participating in China’s Citizen Scores is voluntary. But by 2020 it will be mandatory. The behaviour of all citizens and companies will be ranked whether they like it or not [21].
While this Orwellian “Big data meets Big Brother” model may sound dystopian, contributory SCS platforms have the potential to initiate the transformative health behaviour changes society needs to flourish long term [22]. For example:
- Fitness tracker data could be used to update citizens on their health history, and remind them if they need a medical check-up.
- Improved advances in SCS may provide better credit ratings and background checks that are more inclusive, fair, and transparent — and could even result in a more democratic society [22].
Crowdsourced Models: A common criticism of Millennials and Post-Millennials (aka Gen Y and Gen Z respectively) is that they’re becoming increasingly distracted. Some suggest smart phones have decreased their attention span and ability to absorb/retain information — even when they find information of interest. To compound matters, there’s growing cynicism in the democratic process, with voter turnout dropping dramatically across the free world [1]. However, it would be wrong to suggest younger generations are failing to engage in politics. In fact, increasingly we see instances of how social media is not only boosting our engagement with democracy, but also harnessing citizen expertise in ways that were previously unimaginable [23].
For example, Pol.is is an open-source platform from Seattle that uses realtime machine learning and data visualization so organizations can map how people think. Civinomics in California gathers public feedback about new infrastructure projects so citizens find better solutions to local problems. DemocracyOS in Buenos Aires stimulates critical debate among its citizens so policy is better adapted to their needs. Flux in Sydney uses transparent blockchain technology, so citizens can either vote on every bill that enters parliament, or share their votes with qualified experts (i.e. proxy voting).
Looking to the future
The democratic capitalism of our Information Age has failed and left us overworked, underemployed and more powerless than ever. Despite the doom and gloom, the future is bright. Recent advances in smart cyber-physical systems offer us the ability to harness the creative capacity of all citizens at near-zero marginal cost. These changes suggest a new kind of economics is needed that reflects the unique characteristics of our Imagination Age — an economic shift we call Imaginomics (Figure 2). To maximise the revolutionary potential of this shift, business models will not only need to reward creative collaboration between citizens but also incentivise sustainability. Without embodying this idea of sustainable creative collaboration, we cannot hope to overcome the multifaceted challenges we face going forward. Imaginomics is designed not just to embody this value, but also to enable itself to be adapted and extended over time. So that the power of citizen creativity can enable society to flourish and prosper for years to come.
References
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