This Could Be Our Future

What if the pursuit of money isn’t the best compass for guiding our lives? What if there’s a broader map we’ve been ignoring?

1. The Overlooked Power of Invisible Ideas

Our world runs on invisible ideas, often taken as absolute truths. Yancey Strickler points out that financial maximization—putting profits above all else—has dominated our systems, leading to decisions that prioritize money over humanity. This idea isn’t universal or unchangeable; it’s a concept we’ve collectively invented and reinforced.

Financial maximization took strong root in the 1970s when economist Milton Friedman argued that a company’s only responsibility was to increase shareholder profits. Businesses embraced this idea, shedding responsibility for societal well-being. This mindset spread into how we treat education, health care, entertainment, and even our personal lives.

Kickstarter, however, represents a challenge to this invisible norm. Strickler and his co-founders created it to empower creators, not maximize profits. Their work shows that rejecting financial maximization in favor of community-driven values can lead to powerful innovation.

Examples

• Milton Friedman famously claimed that profit was the sole responsibility of businesses.
• Companies avoid taxes and reduce quality for profit gains, echoing this maximization obsession.
• Kickstarter’s success—facilitating over 100,000 projects—demonstrates alternatives to profit-driven systems.

2. Greed and Distrust: The Fallout from Financial Priorities

The emphasis on financial gain has fostered a climate of greed and mistrust. Strickler explains how humanity has adopted an overly "rational" framework, one that prioritizes short-term wins over ethical values like loyalty or honor, thanks in part to game theory.

The prisoner’s dilemma, developed by the RAND Corporation during the Cold War, exemplifies this mindset. It suggests betrayal for personal gain is smarter than mutual trust. This way of thinking has migrated from Cold War games to everyday business, where maximizing profit outweighs all other considerations.

Once this logic became dominant, businesses used it to justify a lack of ethics. Workers were seen as expendable costs, consumers were seen as targets, and environmental consequences were sidestepped—all under the guise of "rational decision-making."

Examples

• The prisoner’s dilemma shows how mistrust is often framed as "rational."
• Businesses routinely cut wages and lay off workers, prioritizing shareholder profits.
• The skyrocketing executive pay, as workers’ wages stagnate, reflects this mindset's effects.

3. Creativity Suffers When Money Is the Only Goal

Financial maximization has homogenized our culture. Strickler argues that chasing money reduces diversity, creativity, and originality because businesses recycle ideas that already ensure financial returns.

Changes in radio ownership laws, starting in 1943, provide evidence of this. Large corporations took over radio stations, erasing local uniqueness and promoting repetitive playlists. The same trend affects movies, with 61% of today’s films being sequels, prequels, or adaptations, as these are financial "sure things."

The same pattern plays out in our neighborhoods, where small businesses are replaced by profitable chains that lack originality. When profit drives every decision, we lose opportunities for creativity and innovation.

Examples

• "Body Like a Back Road" dominated radio due to corporate control over airwaves, not artistic merit.
• Today’s film industry depends heavily on blockbuster franchises for safe financial bets.
• Chain retailers ousting unique local businesses uproots cultural identity for profit.

4. Financial Maximization Worsens Inequality

The pursuit of financial gain disproportionately benefits the "Maximizing Class"—bankers, executives, and consultants—while the majority of people lose out. Strickler shows how this cycle exacerbates income inequality.

From 1948 to 1973, American worker wages grew by 91%. But between 1973 and 2013, this slowed to just 9.2%, with middle-class wages barely moving. By contrast, executive compensation soared by over 1,000% in the same period. The Maximizing Class creates wealth by slashing costs for their own gain, disregarding the impact on workers or communities.

These strategies often result in businesses going bankrupt while their executives still profit. In this system, companies see workers as disposable resources instead of essential partners, further deepening inequality.

Examples

• Between 1973 and 2013, middle-class wage growth lagged far behind inflation and executive pay.
• Large-scale mergers lead to mass layoffs under the guise of "eliminating redundancies."
• Customer service deteriorates, as companies reduce costs by cutting resources like support staff.

5. Wealth Alone Doesn’t Bring Fulfillment

Money provides security but doesn’t guarantee happiness. Strickler highlights the limits of financial metrics for measuring progress, arguing that focusing solely on wealth distracts us from more meaningful pursuits.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can explain this. Money is essential for survival and safety, but people aspire to higher needs like love, creativity, and self-actualization. Financial maximization locks individuals into survival mode, making fulfillment harder to achieve.

Relying on GDP as a measure of success distorts our goals. High GDP might reflect increased spending on things like cancer treatments or car repairs, which aren’t positive indicators, yet it ignores values like well-being, fairness, and community.

Examples

• Maslow’s pyramid demonstrates that happiness resides beyond financial security.
• Chasing GDP leads to irrational ideas, such as viewing illness or divorce as economic positives.
• People consistently report higher happiness in countries that focus on community well-being over GDP.

6. Bentoism: A Framework for Holistic Decision-Making

Strickler proposes Bentoism, inspired by Japanese bento boxes, as a way to balance multiple values. Each compartment represents part of your decision-making spectrum: present self, future self, present community, and future community.

Bentoism urges people to weigh short-term benefits against long-term goals, as well as how decisions impact others. This approach enables individuals and organizations to act with both self-interest and collective well-being in mind.

For example, Kickstarter’s decision to reject selling out aligned with its values for enriching the creative community. Similarly, individuals might pass up lucrative but misaligned opportunities by considering how they affect not only themselves but also their families and society.

Examples

• Bento boxes organize decisions into Now You, Future You, Now Us, and Future Us.
• Kickstarter deliberately avoided stock market pressures to stick to its values.
• Adele prioritized fairness for fans rather than profit from ticket scalping.

7. Success Beyond Money: Seeing the Bigger Picture

When we choose values beyond profit, the possibilities expand. Operating within a narrow focus often blinds us to opportunities. Considering the long term allows for creativity and fairness to thrive, which can lead to unexpected wins.

The NBA’s experience with three-point shots shows how broadening perspectives can transform an industry. While initially overlooked, data later revealed that more three-point attempts led to higher overall scoring. Similarly, Adele’s effort to block ticket scalpers prioritized fairness and strengthened her connection with loyal fans.

Pursuing broader values ensures sustained success while fostering respect and innovation.

Examples

• Analyzing three-point shots revolutionized basketball strategies.
• Adele prioritized fairness by favoring loyal fans in her ticket sales.
• Companies like Patagonia thrive long-term by prioritizing sustainability over short-term gains.

8. Societal Change Requires Time

Shifting priorities from financial maximization to shared values isn’t immediate. Strickler reflects how major societal changes, like the embrace of exercise or antismoking movements, follow decades of gradual cultural shifts.

He argues that financial systems are deeply entrenched, but dissatisfaction is fueling exploration of alternatives. The problems caused by greed—stagnant wages, vanishing communities, and widespread inequity—reveal the need for change.

As history shows, meaningful transformation often emerges from crises. Strickler calls for community-level experimentation to develop new systems that prioritize values like fairness, creativity, and sustainability.

Examples

• Jogging went from taboo to mainstream over several decades through persistent advocacy.
• Social attitudes toward smoking shifted over 30 years, saving millions of lives.
• Past crises often spur fresh ideas, as seen during the Great Depression's reform-driven recovery.

9. Money Isn’t Enough for a Better Future

Strickler concludes by emphasizing that our future depends on moving beyond the obsession with profits. Financial maximization serves the few, but shared values create widespread prosperity.

By choosing broader perspectives—like sustainability or loyalty over short-term gain—we can enrich our lives in ways money never could. Kickstarter’s steady growth and Adele’s fairness-driven decisions prove that alternatives to financial maximization are both achievable and desirable.

Strickler advocates for a broader value framework that helps people, businesses, and communities thrive together, ensuring a fairer and more sustainable future.

Examples

• Kickstarter has thrived by choosing creators over outside investors.
• Adele rejected profit-driven scalping in favor of rewarding her loyal fan base.
• John Maynard Keynes believed humanity could eventually outgrow greed as an economic motivator.

Takeaways

1. Create your own bento box. Use categories like present self, future self, present community, and future community to weigh decisions holistically.
2. Question narrow financial metrics like GDP. Incorporate measures for well-being, creativity, and equality in evaluating success.
3. Commit to long-term values. Resist short-term profit pressures by prioritizing sustainability, loyalty, and innovation in both personal and professional decisions.