The Fifth Epoch: Socio-Economic Approach to Sustainable Capitalism

Abstract

The purpose of this conceptual essay is to challenge the inevitability of living with the destructive beast of speculative market economics in the 4 th epoch of global capitalism. We are facing an existential socioecological threat from the short-term excesses of financial capitalism, a socially irresponsible form that consumes without producing value and without bearing entrepreneurial risk, benefitting only the few. The fate of roughly 90% of humanity hangs in the balance. The primary contribution of this paper proposes a 5 th epoch of capitalism, inspired by Savall and Zardet's socio-economic and sustainable approach that restores human potential and value creation to spacetimemattering. Applying their conceptual innovation moves capitalism to a Bernácer-Perroux economic universe, with a different curvature capable of reconfiguring organizational story spacetime and resituating the antenarrative of global capitalism.

Is a New Epoch Possible?

“…We, as the editors of MGDR, cannot give an unambiguous answer as to whether a new epoch is possible, but we certainly believe that a new epoch is necessary -and scholarly and practical efforts towards a new epoch are indispensable. The myriad problems associated with the current system will certainly not get solved by the tools and concepts of what Boje and Hillon (2017) label as the 4 th epoch. MGDR would welcome scholarly efforts to illustrate or craft paths towards a new epoch.…”

“…Boje and Hillon (2017), after giving a brief account of previous epochs, lay out the challenges of living in the fourth epoch of global capitalism dominated by speculative market economics that threatens the socio-ecological environment and benefits only a few. The paper proposes a fifth epoch of capitalism, inspired by Savall et al's (2015) socioeconomic sustainable capitalism (SESC) that places human potential at the center of sustainable value creation.…”