by Dan Robles: The
Adaptive Cycle: Holling, C. S. 1986. Resilience of ecosystems; Social
capitalism is an old idea taking on an new form in the age of social
media where social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital
are deployed outside the construct of the prevailing corporations or
governments.
Throughout human history, societies have reorganized themselves in
response to tyranny, innovation, environment, new wisdom, etc. I
believe this to be the root of what Social Capitalism is, and
therefore, how it should be defined.
In The Shadows:
The dominant definition of “Social Capitalism” from Wikipedia
reflects a social cause cast against the backdrop of market capitalism.
This definition acknowledges that economies work better when everyone
participates; specifically, the so-called tier 1 and tier 2 people. Tier
1 individuals have steady financial incomes that allow them to
function without private or government support. Tier 2 individuals
cannot meet the prevailing standard of living and rely on private or
government support. Therefore the prevailing definition of Social
Capitalism often refers to efforts to bolster tier 2 persons as a means
of reinforcing the economy for everyone.
Conflict:
There is an inherent conflict where tier 1 is held responsible to
support tier 2 as a means of protecting their tier 1 status.
Traditionally tier 2 included poor families dependent on food stamps;
children who depend on public education; elderly people who are no
longer able to work, and low-income criminals who require police
intervention, etc.
Ideally, getting more people from tier 2 into tier 1 is the
desirable objective. Indeed political division is marked by the
theories and practices on how exactly that objective would best be
accomplished.
A worst case:
What happens when tier 2 is simply forgotten; they are simply
allowed to fail in the mainstream economy? What if the government
becomes too weak to bolster their economic prospects? What happens
when a critical mass of tier 1 people involuntarily enter the tier 2
environment bringing along their substantial knowledge inventory. They
are otherwise very productive people that had been laid-off,
outsourced, underemployed, or otherwise marginalized.
The Special Case:
What happens when Tier 2 deploy new technologies that responding to
their priorities, not necessarily Wall Street priorities. What happens
when tier 2 people trade a social “currency” among themselves? What
happens when tier 2 swells to a size and scope that they are able to
bear broad political and economic influence. Many great human
struggles emerged from under the hand of a Tier 1 constraint using
their own manner to store and exchange value (currency) represented by
their own knowledge inventory and productivity. Why would that not
happen internally in American Society?
Structural Capitalism:
Social Capitalism is where factors of production in an economy are
purely human and technological and less structural:. Specifically,
social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital deployed
outside the construct of the prevailing corporations or governments.
Maybe it should be called “structural capitalism”
because that is what is actually changing. We are at an extraordinary
time in history where an extraordinary structural reorganization is
taking place.
That’s Social Capitalism as it’s always been.