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Post-capitalism is in part a hypothetical state in which theeconomic systems of the world can no longer be described as forms ofcapitalism. Various individuals and political ideologies have speculated on what would define such a world. According toclassical Marxist andsocial evolutionary theories, post-capitalist societies may come about as a result ofspontaneous evolution as capitalism becomes obsolete. Others propose models to intentionally replace capitalism, most notablysocialism,communism,anarchism,nationalism anddegrowth.
In 1993,Peter Drucker outlined a possible evolution of capitalistic society in his bookPost-Capitalist Society.[1] This states that knowledge, rather thancapital, land, or labor, is the new basis of wealth. The classes of a fully post-capitalist society are expected to be divided into knowledge workers or service workers, in contrast to thecapitalists andproletarians of a capitalist society. Drucker estimated the transformation to post-capitalism would be completed in 2010–2020. Drucker also argued for rethinking the concept ofintellectual property by creating a universal licensing system.[2]
In 2015, according toPaul Mason, several factors — the rise ofincome inequality, repeating cycles of boom and bust, and capitalism's contributions toclimate change — led economists, political thinkers and philosophers to start seriously considering how a post-capitalistic society would look and function. Post-capitalism is expected to be made possible with further advances inautomation andinformation technology – both of which are effectively causing production costs to trend toward zero.[3]
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams identify a crisis in capitalism's ability and willingness to employ all members of society, arguing that: "there is a growing population of people that are situated outside formal, waged work, with minimal welfare benefits, informal subsistence work, or by illegal means".[4]
Heritage check system is a socioeconomic plan that retains a market economy but removesfractional reserve lending power from banks and limits government printing of money to offset deflation. Money printed is used to buy materials to back the currency and pay for government programs in lieu of taxes, with the remainder to be split evenly among all citizens to stimulate the economy (termed a "heritage check", for which the system is named). The original author of the idea,Robert Heinlein, stated in his bookFor Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, that the system would be self-reinforcing and would eventually result in regular heritage checks able to provide a modest living for most citizens.[5]
Economic democracy is asocioeconomicphilosophy that establishes democratic control of firms by their workers and social control of investment by a network of public banks.[6]
In his bookOf the People, By the People: The Case for a Participatory Economy,Robin Hahnel describes a post-capitalist economy called the participatory economy.[7]
Hahnel argues that a participatory economy will return empathy to our purchasing choices. Capitalism removes the knowledge of how and by whom a product was made: "When we eat a salad the market systematically deletes information about the migrant workers who picked it".[8]
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Socialism often implies common ownership of companies and a planned economy, though as an inherently pluralistic ideology, it is argued whether either are essential features.[9] In his bookPostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future,Paul Mason argues that centralized planning, even with the advanced technology of today, is unachievable.[3]
In UK politics, strands ofCorbynism and theLabour party have adopted this 'post-capitalist' tendency.[10][11]
Permaculture is defined by its co-originatorBill Mollison as: "The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems".[12]
Progressive utilization theory (PROUT) is a socioeconomic and political philosophy created by the Indian philosopher and spiritual leaderPrabhat Ranjan Sarkar in 1959. PROUT includes the decentralization of the economy; economic democracy; development of cooperatives; provision of all working members of society with five basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care; and systematic solution of environmental problems through technological development and limitation of consumption.[13]
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Agrowth("agnostic or atheistic about growth") is a concept ineconomic policy according to which it is preferable to be indifferent to thegrowth of gross domestic product (GDP growth) when devising policies to further economic and societalprogress.[14][15] The reasoning behind agrowth is that GDP growth does notcorrelate closely with such progress.[16][17]
The concept has been particularly discussed in the context of environmental policy, where it is opposed to bothgreen growth anddegrowth.[17] Agrowth is supported by many scientists.[15][18][19]
For example environmental economistJeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh argues for an agnostic attitude toward economic growth. According to him,environmental policy should not be aimed at pursuing or avoiding growth in the hope of reducing environmental damage, but at direct deployment of effective instruments such as pricingexternalities (for example, viaenvironmental taxes oremission rights). Whether the economy grows, stagnates or shrinks as a result is of secondary importance.[18]
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Post-growth is an umbrella term that refers to a broad family of economic, ecological, and political perspectives responding to the limits-to-growth dilemma[20]—the recognition that infinite economic growth is biophysically unsustainable on a finite planet.[21][22][23][24][25][26] Central to post-growth thinking is the shift of the focus out of GDP growth as the main goal of the economy. Instead, well-being becomes the main objective. Post-growth puts emphasis on decoupling societal well-being from economic growth, advocating for the possibility of prosperity beyond growth.[27]
Scholars define post-growth in different ways. Some describe it as comprising two main categories:degrowth (a stance advocating for a deliberate and equitable reduction in material consumption and economic activity) andagrowth (an agnostic stance towards economic growth, holding that policymakers should remain neutral about GDP growth because it may have either positive or negative effects on environmental or social objectives).[28] According to others it serves as an umbrella term encompassing research inDoughnut andwellbeing economics,steady-state economics, anddegrowth.[29]
A systematic review of academic literature found that the distinction between degrowth and post-growth is often unclear, with many authors using post-growth as a catch-all term to avoid the strong connotations associated with degrowth.[30]
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Humanity's economic system viewed as a subsystem of the global environment |
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Asteady-state economy is an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time.[31]: 366–369 [32]: 545 [33][34] The term usually refers to thenational economy of a particular country, but it is also applicable to the economic system of a city, a region, or theentire world. Early in thehistory of economic thought, classical economistAdam Smith of the 18th century developed the concept of astationary state of an economy: Smith believed that any national economy in the world would sooner or later settle in a final state ofstationarity.[35]: 78
Since the 1970s, the concept of a steady-state economy has been associated mainly with the work of leading ecological economistHerman Daly.[36]: 303 [37]: 32f [38]: 85 As Daly's concept of asteady-state includes the ecological analysis of natural resource flows through the economy, his concept differs from the original classical concept of astationary state. One other difference is that Daly recommends immediate political action to establish the steady-state economy by imposing permanent government restrictions on all resource use, whereas economists of the classical period believed that the final stationary state of any economy would evolve by itself without any government intervention.[39]: 295f [40]: 55f
Critics of the steady-state economy usually object to it by arguing thatresource decoupling,technological development, and theoperation of market mechanisms are capable of overcoming resource scarcity, pollution, orpopulation overshoot. On the other hand, proponents of the steady-state economy maintain that these objections remain insubstantial and mistaken, and that the need for a steady-state economy is becoming more compelling every day.[41][42][43][38]: 148–155
Degrowth aims to bring about a post-capitalist world through what Anitra Nelson describes as the reframing and recreation of economies so that they "respect the Earth's limits in order to achieve socio-political equity and ecological sustainability.' They note that degrowth is "distinctive within sustainability and justice movements due to a unique emphasis on growth as a driver of unsustainabilities and inequities." As such "Degrowth argues for a radical reduction in production and consumption, greater citizen participation in politics, and more diversity, especially within ecological systems and landscapes, along with a flourishing of creativity, care, and commoning — using renewable energy and materials.[44]
Modern monetary theory (MMT) could enhance thedegrowth movement in transitioning to a "post-growth, post-capitalist economy", according toeconomic anthropologistJason Hickel. Towards this end, he suggests that the power of "the government's role as the issuer of currency" could be utilized to bring the economy back into balance with the natural world while at the same time reducingeconomic inequality by providing high qualityuniversal basic services, implementing the rapid development of renewable energy infrastructure to completely phase out fossil fuels in a shorter period of time, and establishing a publicjob guarantee for 30 hours a week at a living wage doing decommodified, socially useful work in the public services sector, and also useful work inrenewable energy development andecosystem restoration. Hickel notes that providing a living wage at 30 hours a week also has the added benefit of shifting income from capital to labor. Furthermore, he adds that taxation can be used to "reduce demandin order to bring resource and energy use down to target levels," and specifically to reduce the purchasing power of the wealthy.[45][46]
Technological change that has driven unemployment has historically been due to 'mechanical-muscle' machines, which have reduced the need for human labor. Just as the use of horses for transport and other work was gradually made obsolete by the invention of the automobile, humans' jobs have also been affected throughout history. A modern example of thistechnological unemployment is the replacement of retail cashiers by self-service checkouts. The invention and development of 'mechanical-mind' processes or 'brain labor' is thought to threaten jobs at an unprecedented scale, with Oxford ProfessorsCarl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimating that 47% of US jobs are at risk of automation.[47]
Post-capitalism is said to be possible due to major changes brought about by information technology in recent years. These changes have blurred the boundaries between work and free time[48] and loosened the relationship between work and wages. Significantly, information is corroding the market's ability to form prices correctly. Information is abundant and information goods are freely replicable. Goods such as music, software or databases do have a production cost, but once made can be copied infinitely. If the normal price mechanism of capitalism prevails, then the price of any good which has essentially no cost of reproduction will fall towards zero.[49] This lack of scarcity of those things is a problem in those models, which try to counter by developing monopolies in the form of giant tech companies to keep information scarce and commercial. But many significant commodities in the digital economy are now free and open-source, such asLinux,Firefox,Wikipedia andOpen-source hardware.[50][51]
In 2025, early theoretical frameworks such asCognitarism proposed socio-economic systems where artificial cognition itself, rather than human labour, was positioned as the primary driver of value creation.[52]
MMT proposals align elegantly with one of degrowth's key observations, namely, that if growthism depends on the perpetual creation of artificial scarcity, then by reversing artificial scarcity – by providing public abundance – we can dismantle the growth imperative. AsGiorgos Kallis has put it, "capitalism cannot survive under conditions of abundance". MMT provides an opportunity for us to create a post-growth, post-capitalist economy.
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