The New Capitalist Manifesto

“Through the act of exchange, AN ORGANIZATION CANNOT, by action or inaction, ALLOW people, communities, society, the natural world, or future generations to come to ECONOMIC HARM.”

“the fundamental challenge of 21^st century economics is creating more value of higher QUALITY, NOT just low quality value in greater QUANTITY.”

 

“Creating 21st century advantage demands a quantum leap: NEXT-LEVEL ADVANTAGE IS CONSTRUCTIVE, NOT JUST COMPETITIVE. Competitive advantage means: to the creator of the most value go the spoils of competition. But that value might be vanishingly thin – as it was for Wall St, Detroit, the Gap, big food, big pharma, or big media. Constructive advantage means: to the creator of the thickest, goopiest, highest-quality value, go the spoils of construction.”

“CONSTRUCTIVE advantage IS deeply, sharply, lethally DISRUPTIVE. When the two go head-to-head, industrial age sources of competitive advantage—cost advantage, brand, market share, scale and scope, and differentiation—are almost always pulverized by the new sources of constructive advantage: loss advantage, responsiveness, resilience, creativity, and difference.” 

“20^th century capitalists built value chains. 21^st century capitalists are building value cycles instead – because value cycles let them renew resources for TOMORROW, instead of merely exploiting them for TODAY. By utilizing value cycles, Constructive Capitalists are learning to achieve not merely an industrial age cost advantage, but are leaping past it, to attain a loss advantage.”

 

“20^th century capitalists build value propositions. 21^st century capitalists hold value conversations instead. Conversations are had with, by, and for PEOPLE, NOT inert, mass-made “PRODUCT”. Conversations are had with people, communities, and society – and they are the key to replacing brands with responsiveness.”

 

“20^th century capitalists build strategies. 21^st century capitalists begin, instead, with philosophies. Philosophies express the “first PRINCIPLES” of authentic, enduring value creation, NOT just near-term PLANS to capture or extract value. They are the key to shifting past scale—to resilience.

“Constructive Capitalists focus on achieving the IMPOSSIBLE—NOT just settling for the humdrum, workaday POSSIBLE. Instead of competing for market share, they are masters of economic creativity: the art of popping new markets, segments, and industries into existence that rivals have long since written off as undoable, unattainable, or simple impractical”. 

“20^th century capitalists seek income first, last, and always. 21^st century capitalist know that the work they do, the stuff they sell, and the words they say are all economically meaningless unless it has resulted in tangible, positive OUTCOMES that enhance the will-being of people, communities, society, and future generations—NOT just if it earns near-term INCOME. Meaning is the key to breaking through the glass ceiling of superficial, skin-deep “differentiation”, and instead making a difference. Think of it as the cherry on the double fudge triple chocolate sundae of thick value.”

“20^th century capitalism results in dumb growth: growth that is locally, globally, and economically self-destructive. It’s built on consumption instead of investment, the poor subsidizing the rich, and the rusting iron law of diminishing returns. It’s a growth model left over from the industrial revolution – and in the 21^st century, it is failing to produce an authentically shared prosperity, prone to more and more frequent and violent bubbles, crashes, and crises. SMART growth BEATS DUMB: it’s built on investment in increasing returns assets and resources, whose real, uncertainty-adjusted returns are positive sum.”

 

“In the 20^th century, worse was often better. What was better for the bottom line was usually worse for people, communities, and society. In the 21^st century, the tables are turning. BETTER IS BETTER. Constructive capitalists earn higher quality profits by creating value that accrues to people, communities, society, the natural world, and future generations alike – instead of harming them by shifting costs to them or borrowing benefits from them. In turn, they’re beginning to render industrial age rivals who can only create thin value uncompetitive, unconstructive, and just plain irrelevant.

“Most businesses still conceive of superiority as being “better than” a cohort of immediate, familiar competitors. Prepare for disruption: the bar of success has just been knocked into the next galaxy. Constructive Capitalist aren’t merely seeking to be just a tiny, incremental bit “BETTER THAN” rivals in yesterday’s terms—because it ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH to create a constructive advantage. They are fundamentally redefining what success means, to encompass mattering most to people, communities, society, and future generations. When a Constructive Capitalist comes to town, good enough isn’t good enough – and often being “better than” in yesterday’s terms is a downright disadvantage.”

 

 

“Here’s the competitive logic of the next decade: revolutionize—or get revolutionized. So the only question left is this: where’s your revolution?”