The Next 5 Principles of the Next Economy: Part 2
In our series of learnings on a post-capitalistic framework
The Next 5 Principles:
In Part 1, we examined the initial shift toward a needs-based economy as guided to us by the LIFT Economy MBA. To complete this transition, we must move beyond the age of resource conflict by adopting five additional principles that transform our physical production, our movements, and our internal consciousness.
6. Open Source and Regionally Replicate
7. Transparent
8. Regenerative Operations
9. Supports Movement Building for Systems Change
10. Supports Personal Growth and Development
The Next 5 Principles: Part 2
6. Open Source and Regionally Replicate
The Context: Property and ownership typically emerge out of a paradigm of scarcity. In the “Business as Usual” model, intellectual property (IP) is used to gatekeep solutions. We must understand why IP can be toxic to beneficial impact outcomes; it creates a tension where ideas are either locked away or hijacked by the exploitation economy.
The Vision: Open Source Economics extends the software model to all goods and services. By opening access to technology, we enable a system based on the integration of natural, social, and industrial ecologies.
The Scaling Question: When progress feels too slow, how do we scale? The Next Economy chooses a federated model—think of one Walmart vs. a federated set of thousands of small-scale general store mercantiles.
Case Studies: Open Source Ecology (OSE) creates the Global Village Construction Set to distribute raw productive power. We see this “scaling via federation” in groups like Transition Towns and Agrarian Trust.
7. Transparent
The Context: Transparency is the foundation of trust. It moves us away from isolated silos toward interdisciplinary, synergistic systems thinking. It is the bridge between the enterprise, its staff, and its customers.
The Vision: This involves Open Book Management and Co-budgeting. When financials are a “commons,” you build a brand community rooted in radical honesty.
Trust as Infrastructure: Transparency leads to engagement. Enterprises like Zingerman’s and Enspiral use openness to prove they are creating collective wealth instead of private extraction.
8. Regenerative Operations
The Context: Our paradigms inform where we sit on the spectrum of “degenerative” to “regenerative.” We must move from “less bad” (sustainability) to “actively beneficial” (regeneration).
The Vision: This means looking at the entire supply chain to see how material goods can actually restore land and people. It is a “Soil to Soil” approach.
Climate Beneficial Models: Fibershed creates “climate beneficial” garments, while firms like New Frameworks design buildings that sequester carbon in their walls.
Closing the Loop: From forest management to SOIL Haiti, these models prove that human needs can be met through methods that replace harmful systems with life-giving ones.
9. Supports Movement Building for Systems Change
The Context: In the current economy, businesses often lobby against regulation. In the Next Economy, enterprises federate to support transformational movements.
The Vision: Organizations must see themselves as part of a larger social movement seeking to remove the structural and political constraints that limit collective liberation.
On January 1, 1804, Haiti became the first Black republic and the first nation in the western hemisphere to permanently abolish slavery. Haiti’s freedom was won, at extraordinary cost, from Napoleon’s France, one of the most powerful colonial empires on earth. The United States gained a tremendous amount of territory due to the Louisiana purchase - a direct consequence of the Haitian Revolution. Other reverberations of this historic event are still evident today. Haiti’s history reminds us that the world can always be made differently than it was found. At SOIL, we are proud to have spent twenty years working alongside Haitian community organizers, public servants, students, and changemakers to realize a brighter future for Haiti, where waste is transformed to resource and human dignity is afforded to all.
Cap-Haitien’s historic Cathedral in the city center, photo taken in September 2025. credit SOIL HAITI
10. Supports Personal Growth and Development
The Context: A workplace can be a “Deliberately Developmental Organization” (DDO)—a place to produce goods and a place for personal transformation.
The Vision: We are human beings, and must be honored as so as we become change agents in their families and communities. The workplace becomes a vessel for healing and evolution.
Case Studies: Organizations like Soul Fire Farm demonstrate how to support people in actualizing roles core to their identity.
Key References & Resources
Open Source: Linux Foundation | Global Village Construction Set
Federated Models: Three Stone Hearth | Evergreen Cooperatives | Agrarian Trust
Transparency & Trust: Zingerman’s Community | Patagonia Transparency | Fairphone
Regenerative Design: New Frameworks | Massey Burke | Ecotrust Forest Management
Systems Change: Savanna Institute
Personal Development: The SOZE Agency