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Reviewed by James H. Lee, Founder, StratFI
Capitalism has long defined Western society, but what happens when its foundations begin to crack? Can we imagine a better system for managing the global economy—and what it might look like?
Futurist Andy Hines tackles these questions head-on in his new book Imagining After Capitalism, using the tools of foresight to chart possible paths beyond today’s market-driven paradigm.
While investors tend to think in quarters and cycles, Hines and other futurists think in horizons—phases of transformation that can stretch across decades.
At the heart of his analysis lies the Three Horizons Model, originally developed by Bill Sharpe of the International Futures Forum. The model helps us visualize how dominant systems decline and give way to new ones.
According to Hines, the core assumptions of capitalism—endless growth, consumption as identity, and shareholder dominance—are colliding with powerful headwinds: widening inequality, job displacement from automation, ecological strain, slowing productivity, eroding institutional trust, and shifting cultural values. These forces don’t end capitalism overnight, but they are pushing society into Horizon 2, a phase of creative adaptation.
From this transition, Hines outlines three possible futures “after capitalism,” each shaped by a different organizing principle:
Circular Commons (Environment-First)
In this scenario, the organizing principle of the global economy shifts from extraction to regeneration. The Circular Commons world is built around the idea that prosperity depends not on how much we consume, but on how intelligently we reuse, share, and restore.
Economic value becomes inseparable from ecological stewardship.
Instead of linear supply chains—take, make, waste—resources circulate in closed loops. Products are designed for disassembly; materials retain ownership tags that trace their origin, composition, and lifecycle. Waste becomes feedstock for the next process. Cities evolve into ecosystems that manage water, energy, and data as shared commons rather than privatized assets.
Governance also changes. National policies give way to localized networks of accountability, where cooperatives, regional alliances, and community-owned utilities coordinate production and resource management. Data is treated as a public good. Intellectual property, once a moat, increasingly becomes a shared infrastructure for collective innovation.
The triggers for this transition are already in motion: binding climate agreements, carbon pricing regimes, and the rising cost of resource extraction. Supply-chain disruptions and environmental shocks accelerate the push toward circular design. As sustainability becomes not just moral but financial necessity, corporations are forced to internalize environmental costs that were once externalized to society.
Non-Workers’ Paradise (Society-First)
In this future, the defining feature of capitalism—work as the gateway to income—begins to dissolve. Automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics steadily erode the link between human labor and economic production. As machines perform more of what people once did, societies are forced to rethink the purpose of work, the distribution of income, and the meaning of productivity itself.
This transition doesn’t arrive all at once. It begins with sectors where automation reaches critical mass—logistics, retail, transportation, and even professional services. Displaced workers pressure governments to act, prompting experiments in universal basic income, portable benefits, and shorter workweeks. As these pilots expand and succeed, the old social contract—“you work, therefore you earn”—is replaced by a new logic: every citizen participates in economic life through consumption, caregiving, creativity, and civic contribution, not merely employment.
The Non-Workers’ Paradise is not about idleness, but re-valuation—a shift from economic activity defined by wage labor to one centered on human flourishing. Learning, caregiving, mentoring, and artistic creation become recognized as productive work. National well-being is measured less by GDP and more by health, education, community cohesion, and psychological resilience.
Tech-Led Abundance (Technology-First)
In this scenario, technology doesn’t just improve capitalism—it renders many of its old constraints obsolete. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, and clean energy drive marginal costs for production and distribution toward zero. Manufacturing becomes hyper-efficient, digital networks automate resource allocation, and synthetic biology blurs the line between information and matter.
As these forces converge, platforms that once competed for profit begin to operate more like public utilities, providing near-universal access to information, energy, and materials at minimal cost. Ownership gives way to access; scarcity gives way to coordination. In this world, value no longer flows primarily from capital accumulation but from the architecture of trust—the systems that verify authenticity, govern shared infrastructure, and maintain social legitimacy amid abundance.
The triggers for this transition are already visible: rapid advances in generative AI, molecular design, autonomous logistics, and decentralized energy. Each innovation pushes a piece of the economy closer to “post-scarcity” conditions. Over time, these technologies intersect to create a self-reinforcing cycle of abundance and democratized production.
Scenarios don’t come with any guarantees, think of them as useful “toys for the mind” to help us learn about possible futures.
Hines’s message is clear: these aren’t utopian dreams—they’re competing trajectories already unfolding. After Capitalism is thoroughly researched and visionary, the most provocative book about understanding “the big picture” that I’ve read this year.
Jim Lee, CFA, CMT, CFP®
Founder, StratFI
Capitalism has long defined Western society, but what happens when its foundations begin to crack? Can we imagine a better system for managing the global economy—and what it might look like?
Futurist Andy Hines tackles these questions head-on in his new book Imagining After Capitalism, using the tools of foresight to chart possible paths beyond today’s market-driven paradigm.
While investors tend to think in quarters and cycles, Hines and other futurists think in horizons—phases of transformation that can stretch across decades.
At the heart of his analysis lies the Three Horizons Model, originally developed by Bill Sharpe of the International Futures Forum. The model helps us visualize how dominant systems decline and give way to new ones.
- Horizon 1 is the prevailing system—in this case, late-stage neoliberal capitalism. Its institutions still set the rules, but internal contradictions are multiplying.
- Horizon 2 enters a turbulent transition zone, where the old order fragments and experimental models begin to emerge.
- Horizon 3 is the next system—the mature successor that reflects the values, technologies, and institutions of a new era.
According to Hines, the core assumptions of capitalism—endless growth, consumption as identity, and shareholder dominance—are colliding with powerful headwinds: widening inequality, job displacement from automation, ecological strain, slowing productivity, eroding institutional trust, and shifting cultural values. These forces don’t end capitalism overnight, but they are pushing society into Horizon 2, a phase of creative adaptation.
From this transition, Hines outlines three possible futures “after capitalism,” each shaped by a different organizing principle:
Circular Commons (Environment-First)
In this scenario, the organizing principle of the global economy shifts from extraction to regeneration. The Circular Commons world is built around the idea that prosperity depends not on how much we consume, but on how intelligently we reuse, share, and restore.
Economic value becomes inseparable from ecological stewardship.
Instead of linear supply chains—take, make, waste—resources circulate in closed loops. Products are designed for disassembly; materials retain ownership tags that trace their origin, composition, and lifecycle. Waste becomes feedstock for the next process. Cities evolve into ecosystems that manage water, energy, and data as shared commons rather than privatized assets.
Governance also changes. National policies give way to localized networks of accountability, where cooperatives, regional alliances, and community-owned utilities coordinate production and resource management. Data is treated as a public good. Intellectual property, once a moat, increasingly becomes a shared infrastructure for collective innovation.
The triggers for this transition are already in motion: binding climate agreements, carbon pricing regimes, and the rising cost of resource extraction. Supply-chain disruptions and environmental shocks accelerate the push toward circular design. As sustainability becomes not just moral but financial necessity, corporations are forced to internalize environmental costs that were once externalized to society.
Non-Workers’ Paradise (Society-First)
In this future, the defining feature of capitalism—work as the gateway to income—begins to dissolve. Automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics steadily erode the link between human labor and economic production. As machines perform more of what people once did, societies are forced to rethink the purpose of work, the distribution of income, and the meaning of productivity itself.
This transition doesn’t arrive all at once. It begins with sectors where automation reaches critical mass—logistics, retail, transportation, and even professional services. Displaced workers pressure governments to act, prompting experiments in universal basic income, portable benefits, and shorter workweeks. As these pilots expand and succeed, the old social contract—“you work, therefore you earn”—is replaced by a new logic: every citizen participates in economic life through consumption, caregiving, creativity, and civic contribution, not merely employment.
The Non-Workers’ Paradise is not about idleness, but re-valuation—a shift from economic activity defined by wage labor to one centered on human flourishing. Learning, caregiving, mentoring, and artistic creation become recognized as productive work. National well-being is measured less by GDP and more by health, education, community cohesion, and psychological resilience.
Tech-Led Abundance (Technology-First)
In this scenario, technology doesn’t just improve capitalism—it renders many of its old constraints obsolete. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, and clean energy drive marginal costs for production and distribution toward zero. Manufacturing becomes hyper-efficient, digital networks automate resource allocation, and synthetic biology blurs the line between information and matter.
As these forces converge, platforms that once competed for profit begin to operate more like public utilities, providing near-universal access to information, energy, and materials at minimal cost. Ownership gives way to access; scarcity gives way to coordination. In this world, value no longer flows primarily from capital accumulation but from the architecture of trust—the systems that verify authenticity, govern shared infrastructure, and maintain social legitimacy amid abundance.
The triggers for this transition are already visible: rapid advances in generative AI, molecular design, autonomous logistics, and decentralized energy. Each innovation pushes a piece of the economy closer to “post-scarcity” conditions. Over time, these technologies intersect to create a self-reinforcing cycle of abundance and democratized production.
Scenarios don’t come with any guarantees, think of them as useful “toys for the mind” to help us learn about possible futures.
Hines’s message is clear: these aren’t utopian dreams—they’re competing trajectories already unfolding. After Capitalism is thoroughly researched and visionary, the most provocative book about understanding “the big picture” that I’ve read this year.
Jim Lee, CFA, CMT, CFP®
Founder, StratFI
Reviewed by Nathan M. Moore:
"Andy Hines’ Imagining After Capitalism (2025) presents a bold, speculative intervention in contemporary critical thought, offering a framework to envision economic, social, and cultural structures beyond the entrenched capitalist paradigm. By engaging with utopian imaginaries and theoretical extrapolations, Hines attempts to chart a course toward alternative modes of existence where human flourishing is no longer subordinated to market imperatives.
...Imagining After Capitalism then presents a bold, provocative engagement with the necessity of envisioning alternative socio-economic structures in a world deeply entrenched in neoliberal ideology, a crossroads for classical liberalism. As an extension of utopian and speculative thought, Hines’ work resonates with contemporary debates on post-capitalist futures, where imagination is not simply an intellectual exercise but a political imperative to building New Worlds. His core argument—that we have been living in an Economy rather than a Society—captures the ideological shift that has undergirded late-stage capitalism’s reification of economic logic over collective well-being. This review situates Imagining After Capitalism into non-normative bounds as Hines suggests and into the broader intellectual traditions also transitioning to Cultural Studies.
Hines’ project ultimately follows in the tradition of utopian theorists, offering a clear rejection of the fatalism that often accompanies discussions of capitalism’s dominance. His work challenges us to rethink the frameworks of production, exchange, and labor, engaging with traditions that range from Marxist critiques of alienation to contemporary posthumanist interventions. However, a critical question emerges when examining Hines’ vision through the lens of classical liberalism: Can we construct an emancipatory economic future while still preserving the fundamental principles of individual liberty, voluntary exchange, and limited government?
... Imagining After Capitalism revitalizes the utopian impulse that is often dismissed within mainstream discourse by foregrounding imagination as a political tool. "
Nathan Moore in COSMOS + TAXIS | Volume 13 Issue 5+6 2025 - read the full review here
Reviewed by John M. Smart:
"This is a fantastic book on social, political, and economic change ... After Capitalism appreciates the progress and bounty that industrial capitalism has provided, yet recognizes its many flaws, and the growing recognition that humanity needs a political and economic system that serves the interests of all humans, without ravaging our environment. A wide number of solutions have been proposed. This book covers all the ones I was aware of and several more that I had not heard of.
It beautifully outlines three visions for advances that will be critical to the next economic system to come: An environmental stewardship vision, a human-welfare and agency vision, and a technological progress and abundance vision. As the book describes, many names have been proposed for an economic system that we’d like to see evolve out of modern industrial capitalism. It doesn’t pick any one of these as most likely contenders. Instead, it leaves it to the reader to make their own choice among the many that are summarized."
John M. Smart - read the full review here
"Andy Hines’ Imagining After Capitalism (2025) presents a bold, speculative intervention in contemporary critical thought, offering a framework to envision economic, social, and cultural structures beyond the entrenched capitalist paradigm. By engaging with utopian imaginaries and theoretical extrapolations, Hines attempts to chart a course toward alternative modes of existence where human flourishing is no longer subordinated to market imperatives.
...Imagining After Capitalism then presents a bold, provocative engagement with the necessity of envisioning alternative socio-economic structures in a world deeply entrenched in neoliberal ideology, a crossroads for classical liberalism. As an extension of utopian and speculative thought, Hines’ work resonates with contemporary debates on post-capitalist futures, where imagination is not simply an intellectual exercise but a political imperative to building New Worlds. His core argument—that we have been living in an Economy rather than a Society—captures the ideological shift that has undergirded late-stage capitalism’s reification of economic logic over collective well-being. This review situates Imagining After Capitalism into non-normative bounds as Hines suggests and into the broader intellectual traditions also transitioning to Cultural Studies.
Hines’ project ultimately follows in the tradition of utopian theorists, offering a clear rejection of the fatalism that often accompanies discussions of capitalism’s dominance. His work challenges us to rethink the frameworks of production, exchange, and labor, engaging with traditions that range from Marxist critiques of alienation to contemporary posthumanist interventions. However, a critical question emerges when examining Hines’ vision through the lens of classical liberalism: Can we construct an emancipatory economic future while still preserving the fundamental principles of individual liberty, voluntary exchange, and limited government?
... Imagining After Capitalism revitalizes the utopian impulse that is often dismissed within mainstream discourse by foregrounding imagination as a political tool. "
Nathan Moore in COSMOS + TAXIS | Volume 13 Issue 5+6 2025 - read the full review here
Reviewed by John M. Smart:
"This is a fantastic book on social, political, and economic change ... After Capitalism appreciates the progress and bounty that industrial capitalism has provided, yet recognizes its many flaws, and the growing recognition that humanity needs a political and economic system that serves the interests of all humans, without ravaging our environment. A wide number of solutions have been proposed. This book covers all the ones I was aware of and several more that I had not heard of.
It beautifully outlines three visions for advances that will be critical to the next economic system to come: An environmental stewardship vision, a human-welfare and agency vision, and a technological progress and abundance vision. As the book describes, many names have been proposed for an economic system that we’d like to see evolve out of modern industrial capitalism. It doesn’t pick any one of these as most likely contenders. Instead, it leaves it to the reader to make their own choice among the many that are summarized."
John M. Smart - read the full review here
Reviewed in AFP Compass
"...Lavonne: I also found Imagining After Capitalism to be surprisingly dense with foresight tools and information. ... the book uses so many foresight tools. It's an accessible masterclass in how these tools can work together.
Abdulrahman: Absolutely. It was like the whole [Houston] master's degree in a book. He walks you through the whole process every step of the way. He uses practical wisdom, humor, and these little anecdotes that keep you going. He's not trying to persuade you toward one outcome or the other; he's just stating the facts.
Hauson: I think the way he structured these three scenarios [which comprise the second half of the book] was beautiful. He centers each one around a central problem or issue with capitalism. If we're going to have a system afterwards, then these issues need to be addressed. So, the first scenario is Circular Commons, all about addressing climate change and carrying capacity. The second is Non-Workers Paradise, focusing on social and political elements, like the role of work, imagining moving the goal from full employment to full unemployment. That one blew my mind as well. The third transformative scenario image is Tech-Led Abundance, where technology will create abundance for all. This one is where I think a lot of people will gravitate towards generally, outside of the foresight community.
Read the full review here
"...Lavonne: I also found Imagining After Capitalism to be surprisingly dense with foresight tools and information. ... the book uses so many foresight tools. It's an accessible masterclass in how these tools can work together.
Abdulrahman: Absolutely. It was like the whole [Houston] master's degree in a book. He walks you through the whole process every step of the way. He uses practical wisdom, humor, and these little anecdotes that keep you going. He's not trying to persuade you toward one outcome or the other; he's just stating the facts.
Hauson: I think the way he structured these three scenarios [which comprise the second half of the book] was beautiful. He centers each one around a central problem or issue with capitalism. If we're going to have a system afterwards, then these issues need to be addressed. So, the first scenario is Circular Commons, all about addressing climate change and carrying capacity. The second is Non-Workers Paradise, focusing on social and political elements, like the role of work, imagining moving the goal from full employment to full unemployment. That one blew my mind as well. The third transformative scenario image is Tech-Led Abundance, where technology will create abundance for all. This one is where I think a lot of people will gravitate towards generally, outside of the foresight community.
Read the full review here
Reviewed by Jim Golembeski
"25 years ago, as Director of the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, I experienced, along with my colleagues, the shockwave of local plant closings and worker dislocation as new technology and economic globalization drove overwhelming economic changes we hadn’t seen coming. Companies closed and workers lost jobs. We weren’t looking for the signals back then; we didn’t know how. ..
In 2025, though, we don’t have to keep going through life blindfolded. We have resources like Andy Hines, head of graduate studies in Foresight at the University of Houston, and his brand new book, Imagining After Capitalism. It’s an excellent primer on applying the process of Strategic Foresight to an issue as global as what a future economy might look like post-capitalism – in a new economic order!
...Imagining After Capitalism is an excellent guide to working through the details of identifying and reading the signals and then planning to create a preferred future instead of letting history unfold on its own terms. Particularly noteworthy is Hines’ thorough attention to the scanning and researching step. This is the phase of the Foresight process that identifies ideas, trends, pilot projects, and insights (“signals”) that indicate future opportunities for our regional economy. Applying Strategic Foresight to as large a topic as our current capitalist system makes the book all the more intriguing.
One important trend that Hines notes is that the top 0.1% wealthiest individuals continue to amass a greater percentage of national assets each year. Such events are signals that capitalism as we have known it is in trouble...
Hines’ purpose is not to denigrate capitalism. In his view, it has been an eAective economic system that has created wealth and has been vital to human development. At the same time, it is showing signs of significant stress and even decline that cannot be ignored. His book provides a structured way of thinking past the current reality toward a future of our own choosing that is stable and of benefit to all citizens, I highly recommend Imagining After Capitalism."
Jim Golembeski - read the full review here
"25 years ago, as Director of the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, I experienced, along with my colleagues, the shockwave of local plant closings and worker dislocation as new technology and economic globalization drove overwhelming economic changes we hadn’t seen coming. Companies closed and workers lost jobs. We weren’t looking for the signals back then; we didn’t know how. ..
In 2025, though, we don’t have to keep going through life blindfolded. We have resources like Andy Hines, head of graduate studies in Foresight at the University of Houston, and his brand new book, Imagining After Capitalism. It’s an excellent primer on applying the process of Strategic Foresight to an issue as global as what a future economy might look like post-capitalism – in a new economic order!
...Imagining After Capitalism is an excellent guide to working through the details of identifying and reading the signals and then planning to create a preferred future instead of letting history unfold on its own terms. Particularly noteworthy is Hines’ thorough attention to the scanning and researching step. This is the phase of the Foresight process that identifies ideas, trends, pilot projects, and insights (“signals”) that indicate future opportunities for our regional economy. Applying Strategic Foresight to as large a topic as our current capitalist system makes the book all the more intriguing.
One important trend that Hines notes is that the top 0.1% wealthiest individuals continue to amass a greater percentage of national assets each year. Such events are signals that capitalism as we have known it is in trouble...
Hines’ purpose is not to denigrate capitalism. In his view, it has been an eAective economic system that has created wealth and has been vital to human development. At the same time, it is showing signs of significant stress and even decline that cannot be ignored. His book provides a structured way of thinking past the current reality toward a future of our own choosing that is stable and of benefit to all citizens, I highly recommend Imagining After Capitalism."
Jim Golembeski - read the full review here
