The Support Economy

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Q: What is the main message of The Support Economy? A: Our book addresses the growing chasm between individuals and the organizations upon which they must depend for consumption and employment. The last fifty years have seen the rise of a new society of individuals, but corporations continue to operate according to the logic of managerial capitalism, invented a century ago for different people, different markets, and different needs. The chasm that now separates individuals and organizations is marked by frustration, mistrust, disappointment, and even rage. But that chasm also harbors the possibility of a new era of wealth creation and a new episode of capitalism.Q: Why the chasm now? A: In the last fifty years, a new society of individuals has emerged. There has been a psychological reformation as powerful and decisive as the religious reformation of the sixteenth century. Today's individuals seek psychological self-determination. They are the origins of their own meanings, not a passive mass audience. This new phenomenon is expressed in myriad ways, from the success of the Vietnam Memorial Wall to the proliferation of laws extending human rights in every domain. The new individuals have plenty of things. As consumers, they now yearn for the kind of support that will enable them to live the lives they choose. People's desires, needs and wants have radically changed, but corporations have remained distant and indifferent to the true nature of this change. As a result, we have a business environment in which people are chronically disappointed and frustrated by their experiences as consumers and employees. We no longer trust large organizations to serve our needs. On every level, we are experiencing a divisive "us vs. them" mentality. Now, after decades of being forced to put up with the consequences of corporate indifference, individual end consumers are striking out on their own to blaze new trails in a new approach to consumption that we call the individuation of consumption. They are pointing us toward the next leap forward in wealth creation that we call the support economy. Q: Does this mean that managerial capitalism is at the end of its useful life? A: Yes. A century ago mass consumption was on the rise. People wanted more things. The answer was to produce more goods at an ever lower cost-mass production. Corporations were organized around a managerial hierarchy invented to provide a tight inward focus on the increasingly complex processes of production and distribution. This was a massive innovation over the older model of a single owner who tried to oversee everything. Under managerial capitalism, ownership became dispersed, but control remained concentrated in the management group. Management's inward focus allowed it to succeed beyond anyone's dreams. But that success further insulated managers from the society they were supposed to serve. The elite hierarchy and the self-interested male culture of management became a central focus.

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