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Here is the final installment of the quarterly check-in for 2024 on what the signals are saying regarding After Capitalism. (See Q3 2024 here.) Drum roll please!
Frustrated with their small city’s government, residents voted to end it
Some of the city’s roughly 260 residents spearheaded a petition last spring to dissolve the government over concern that the relatively meager taxes they paid to the city weren’t providing much benefit. On Election Day, 67 residents voted to remove the government, beating the 60 who voted to keep it. The decision came amid the area’s slow decline, which some residents said was too drastic to recover from with city taxes. By Dec. 8, the city must transfer its properties to Hart County. A related issue is the growing trend of abandoned homes in Japan,
AH Comment: Reminds me of Cory Doctorow’s excellent Walkaway, in which the major impetus for After Capitalism is people literally dropping out of the established system. Abandoned small towns is already a thing in the US. It’s on a larger scale in Japan, as their rapidly aging population makes this situation more acute. What I think could get really interesting is the rise of areas that are largely abandoned for insurance reasons, where you could see squatters coming back because they don’t have options, alongside the super-rich who don’t care about the insurance issues. Hmm.
Iceland embraced a shorter work week. Here’s how it turned out
Iceland’s economy is outperforming most European peers after the nationwide introduction of a shorter working week with no loss in pay, according to research released Friday.
Between 2020 and 2022, 51% of workers in the country had accepted the offer of shorter working hours, including a four-day week, two think tanks found, saying the figure is likely to be even higher today.
Last year, Iceland logged faster economic growth than most European countries and its unemployment rate is one of the lowest in Europe,
AH comment: The results of experiments and pilots that fit with After Capitalism continue to be positive. My heart says “why isn’t this a major story,” but my head says the world isn’t ready yet and it’s a good thing to keep building up the evidence and case studies for the right moment. After Capitalism really needs to be patient. Too soon is almost as much of a risk as too late. Changes that come too soon can go dormant for a long time.
Pope Francis denounces a world ‘losing its heart’ in fourth encyclical of his papacy
The pope warned that consumer-driven societies “dominated by the hectic pace and bombarded by technology” risked losing access to an “interior life,” the nature of which requires patience.
AH comment: Speaking of patience … A virtue indeed, that is increasingly rare in our instant gratification world. I am not a Catholic but I find myself in 100% agreement with Pope Francis here. We know that consumption is at the heart of capitalism and all the forces that line up to keep us happily consuming away. It’s the second sentence about “access t interior life” and “patience.” that really struck home for me. Early in my career, I recall tracking the trends toward wellness, holism, spiritual etc. At the time it was not exactly fringe, but not mainstream either. If it tracked, by now it should be mainstream. But it isn’t!
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