Excerpt from The Participatory Society
Chapter 1: Introduction
Towards the participatory society
For many people in the world today, life seems to be continuing as normal. We wake up, go to work, see our family, see our friends, treat ourselves occasionally with a meal or a holiday. Everything seems to fit into a neat, linear context. But bubbling beneath the surface, something radical and groundbreaking is slowly stretching its limbs, getting ready to take shape. Our neat, compartmentalised reality is about to give way to something new, and we need to be ready for when it does.
The contemporary world has been radically altered by the effects of COVID-19, which has fundamentally reshaped the ways in which we work, interact, and prioritise social needs. Our era was already defined by disintegration and fragmentation, but the pandemic accelerated this tendency to its apex. In the previous decade, it seemed as if the collective optimism of the early 21st century was gradually coming to a close, as the world became beset by institutional crises and economic stagnation. After the pandemic, it feels as if shared narratives of social progress have been forgotten about entirely. Instead, what we have is a society which has become comfortable with its individualisation, as long periods of lockdown demonstrated social order without personal contact.
While this radically compartmentalised social order may work for a while, it is likely to be pushed beyond breaking point in the coming years. This is due to the emergence of artificial intelligence, which has the potential to change the world as we know it. AI disrupts the careful distinction between public and private life by rendering a large proportion of human labour worthless to our processes of socioeconomic organisation. Any task that requires following standardised rules will have the potential to be automated. This means that the value of human work will be determined according to its unique contribution. Rather than following rules which are detached from our lived experience, the value of labour will be directly tied to spontaneous responses in the environment. Therefore, the strict distinction between private and public life that characterises our age will cease to be workable. To prepare for this shift, our institutions must begin to adapt.
Although there has been some disparate discussion on the potential impacts of AI, what we are lacking is a cohesive, practical framework that is able to conceptualise this shift as a whole. All too often, discussion about the future reflects the compartmentalisation of our own times. For example, we might look at how AI is likely to affect a single dimension of the economy. Or, we might stop short at imagining what life would be like in an automated world, seeing it as so removed from our current experience that it is not possible to conceptualise. The participatory society aims to fill this gap in the discourse, uniting thought across disciplines to imagine and guide the AI transition for the benefit of all.
Two years following OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT to the general public, large language models are already reshaping the way work is carried out. ChatGPT is now one of the most visited websites in the world, with 300 million weekly users. Many people in white-collar jobs are already regularly relying on the assistance of AI to conduct their daily work. With recent advancements, such as the “o” series, these LLMs are now able to do so much more than simple language generation tasks. The next generation of AI models are able to deliberate on their own reasoning, allowing them to achieve levels of accuracy in their responses that often surpass human experts in specialised fields.
Not only are these models already more accurate than highly-trained experts, they are able to complete tasks at a speed that would be inconceivable to the human mind. A cognitive task that might take a skilled worker a full working day could be achieved by an artificial intelligence model in a matter of minutes. Our society is yet to fully comprehend what this gain in efficiency means for everyday human experience. As we move through 2025 and 2026, it is highly likely that we will begin to see a shift towards adopting artificial intelligence into existing economic practices. This transition will challenge our understanding of human roles, forcing us to rethink expertise and participation in a rapidly transforming economy.
The conceptual framework of the participatory society is more important now than ever. The goal is to fill the gap in our current artificial intelligence discourse by focusing on the holistic social impact of AI. In particular, this involves looking at how society will continue to organise itself in a world that transcends traditional institutional structures. This is a world which has moved beyond the conventional distinction between public and private life, instead operating entirely through the spontaneous participation of individuals. The proposal of this book is that a society with widespread integration of artificial intelligence is best understood as a participatory society, where institutions are continuously shaped through individual innovation and engagement. In a participatory society, the open-ended sense-making practices of individuals are no longer secondary to the social order, but central to the way that it organises itself.
As the distinction between public and private is already beginning to break down, with society being governed via the mediation between individuals, the participatory society is the only viable alternative to the status quo. Any proposed alternative that fails to take into account the radical heterogeneity of interests in our contemporary world simply adds to the noise. Without taking into account the empirical fact of radical individuality, it will be impossible to galvanise the necessary energy to create substantial change. Therefore, we should see the participatory society not only as an abstract possibility, but as a likely successor to our current mode of social organisation.
The shift towards a participatory society has critical economic implications for businesses, which must learn to tailor their services to a world where individual divergence is a key driver of social change. There are also vital implications for policymakers, who must create proactive policy frameworks which foster innovation while ensuring fair social outcomes. The framework of the participatory society tackles these questions holistically, showing how each dimension is interconnected while facilitating forward-thinking approaches in different sectors. Healthcare, education and creative industries are key focuses, as these provide the foundations of human development, equipping individuals with the tools they need to thrive. The aim is not to provide prescriptive systems to be imposed from the top down, but the outline of radical possibilities which can be transformed into innovative action. At every level of the participatory society, the goal is to empower individuals to take part in the shaping of the world around them. By providing practical frameworks for conceiving the next era of social change, the participatory society seeks to accelerate this change while ensuring that it is inclusive and equitable for all.
The purpose of life is for individuals to flourish in the way that is most appropriate for them. If, through the development of artificial intelligence, we develop the means to extend this possibility to everyone, it becomes a deep moral imperative to do so. Historically, only certain privileged classes have had the opportunity to make sovereign decisions on the course of their own development. In our modern era, this has mainly been reserved for the aristocracy, who have had the privilege of education and the right to pursue their personal interests, all the while shaping society according to their aims. In the era of industrial capitalism, this privilege extended to the owners of economic capital, who could dictate the course of economic development. However, due to the inefficiency of these systems, the vast majority have still lived in a state of subordination and squalor, unable to pursue their own development or shape the course of society.
Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, we have the opportunity to democratise this right, allowing everybody the freedom to make sovereign decisions over their own lives. Everybody has the desire to make changes to the world around them, whether those changes are big or small. Equally, everybody also has the desire to develop themselves holistically, as it is through refining our skills that we become better equipped to make the changes that we want to see. By decentralising the opportunity to make sovereign decisions on the course of our lives, we can create a society where every person is able to live at the highest level of human flourishing. If we imagine society as a garden, artificial intelligence is a tool that allows us to distribute light and nourishment to every plant. Not only would this lead to a more equitable and balanced world, it would also maximise our economic productivity, as markets thrive when individuals are free to make decisions that align with their personal needs and aspirations. Extending the right of sovereignty to all means harnessing the full potential of human experience and ingenuity.
In capitalist economies, daily life has long revolved around the institution of the workday, where workers follow the directives of their employers from morning to early evening, with weekends and holidays reserved for personal time. This structure doesn’t only dictate economic organisation, but shapes the way that we conceive human nature. Under the system of the workday, life is divided between “means” and “ends”. Individuals pursue the means - following the directives of their workplace - to attain the ends: personal recognition and material rewards. This system comes at a large cost, because one’s time is greatly taken up by pursuing goals which are external to a direct sense of personal growth, instead deferring this growth as something to be attained in the future. This is not only unfulfilling on a quantitative level, it also casts a shadow on the quality of time allotted towards personal freedom, which is often constrained by the pressures of responsibility. While consumer experiences can be meaningful, true fulfilment derives from a direct expression of individual identity. However, to develop this understanding of the self takes a level of time and effort which is not generally afforded by the workday structure.
Over the next few years, the arrival of automation will begin to challenge this system at its root. Unlike human beings, artificial intelligence does not require fixed working hours, and can perform the same tasks as workers in radically shorter timespans. By freeing human time and energy from the constraints of the workday, we can open the door to a whole new social paradigm - one centred around holistic self-development. This new paradigm will lead to the possibility of deeper, more emotionally fulfilling lives, while at the same time benefitting society as we unlock the creative potential of all.
While some may see this as an impossibly ambitious task, it is important to remember that social life as an outcome of personal development is not a new phenomenon. The only difference is that this focus on holistic development has, historically, been reserved for social elites. When people are given the time and the means to become the best version of themselves, they have a tendency to do so, because this is what is in their direct individual interest. Through the enhanced flexibility offered by AI, we can foster a participatory economy, where everybody has the opportunity to shape the course of public life. More efficient systems will allow institutions to respond dynamically to the needs of individuals, while the uniquely human traits of creativity and empathy take on a more prominent role in determining economic value.
As the capability of AI to perform complex tasks continues to improve, there has been some discussion on what this leaves for human beings, if anything. Among a number of things, tasks that involve creativity and empathy will remain to be uniquely human capabilities. This is not because of a unique cognitive capacity that AI couldn’t replicate, but because these skills thrive specifically through interpersonal relationships. Sometimes, the fact that something is produced by a human adds intrinsic value, because this is what allows it to resonate deeply with others. In many ways, creativity and empathy are two sides of the same coin, because both require responding attentively to an intimate field of shared human experience. Empathy enhances human experience by recognising and legitimising authentic individuality, therefore playing a direct role in nurturing and realising it. Creativity directly leverages this individuality to generate new avenues for human experience, thereby broadening the range of possibilities for others. New social institutions which structure themselves around these traits will be able to maximise their potential, fostering an economy which facilitates people rather than dictating to them.
Clearly, tech companies are the key players in the development of economically useful artificial intelligence. However, the development of the technology is not the whole story. Going forward, the most significant bottleneck is not likely to be technological, but social. Without a clear vision on what life in an AI-driven world would look like, it is likely to face significant resistance from those who fear its effects. Therefore, the vision of the participatory society is not only vital for ensuring an equitable future, but could also play a key role in accelerating technological progress. By conceptualising the relationship between AI and society in a uniquely integrated way, the theory of the participatory society aims to create harmonious relationships between developers, policymakers, and the wider public, allowing all to work together effectively towards a shared vision of the future.
With the technical requirements of an AI-driven society largely guaranteed, what remains is the need for a broad social vision which is coherent, elegant, and beneficial to all, whilst staying closely tied to the limits of empirical reality. The participatory society offers this framework, clearly demonstrating how to move beyond the constraints of our current time by utilising the capabilities of AI. Stepping fully into this framework, we can begin to imagine what a participatory society would look like a decade or two onwards from now:
In the participatory society, educational institutions would be highly personalised, creating self-directed learning environments which are intricately tailored to the strengths and needs of each student. Moving away from standardised top-down learning models, schools would instead evolve into ecosystems of growth, where students collaborate with teachers and peers on projects that foster creativity, equipping them with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly transforming world. Healthcare would transition from reaction to prevention, embracing a holistic model of human health that understands individuals in a dynamic relationship with their lived environment. Emotional wellbeing and a sense of individual purpose would be seen as vital components of bodily health, treating the patient as an integrated whole, working alongside radical advancements in AI-driven medical treatment. Freed from the constraints of the traditional workday, the economy will emerge from individual purpose, with teams and companies forming spontaneously to respond to their environments and pursue mutual benefit. Widespread digital and project-based work allows the market to become a space for individual self-expression, organised through positive innovations rather than top-down directives. Governments would move beyond restrictive regulation, instead actively shaping adaptive frameworks which respond in real-time to the needs of individuals and communities. The purpose of governance will shift from imposing order to facilitating spontaneous growth, ensuring that the nation has the necessary foundation to allow it to flourish. All across the participatory society, the spontaneous vitality of human life is not an afterthought to social organisation, but its driving force.
By concretely imagining the possibilities of AI integration, we can help society to prepare for its radical effects, while at the same time offering a positive vision for the future. The transition to an AI-driven world doesn’t have to be something which happens to us passively, but something that everybody can participate in. The goal is not to prescribe a new system, but to elucidate radical possibilities which are open for anybody to begin to build. The participatory society begins not in a distant future, but today.
A response to atomisation
We live in a time which is increasingly characterised by atomisation, a dominant social dynamic which leads to fragmentation and disconnection between individuals and groups. This pervasive phenomenon spans multiple dimensions - cultural, economic, and institutional - making it a complex issue to truly comprehend. The challenge lies in the inherently evasive nature of atomisation, which often defies conventional cause-and-effect rationality. Identifying a “problem” with this scenario and proposing a “solution” can present a paradox, because this action may be a product of the very atomisation that we are seeking to address.
We can find an interesting analogy for this in the distinction between classical and quantum physics. In the classical model, physicists are able to neutrally analyse the way in which events affect each other through space and time. However, in quantum mechanics, the very act of observation may affect the events themselves. Therefore, it appears that atomisation is operating on some kind of “quantum” level of social action, where subjective interpretation is not separate from the dynamic but a key part of it. In order to understand the phenomenon of atomisation as a whole, we need to develop a new framework which examines subjective individuality in its own right, and its relationship to historical modes of social organisation.
In terms of our recent history, we can see atomisation as an unplanned feedback response to a series of unexpected crises emerging within the liberal world order. As contradictions within this world order became exposed, people sought shelter in privatised understandings of social value. As a result, we shifted from a society governed by a shared ideology of progress to one defined only by fragmented interpretations.
In contrast to our atomised social order, the phenomenon of globalisation in the 1990s and early 2000s led to a great wave of international unity, economic growth, and collective optimism. This period of global integration was driven by several key factors, but most notable was the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party’s embrace of market capitalism, which significantly expanded personal freedoms and economic interconnectedness worldwide. This collapse of the great divide between capitalism and socialism was vividly symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, as the Soviet-controlled East Berlin sought reunification with the democratic West Berlin, tearing through the artificial barriers which kept them apart.
The ideological legitimacy of the globalisation era was driven by a faith in limitless growth through international integration. However, this optimism was severely punctured by the financial crisis of 2007 and the subsequent Great Recession, as a crash in the American housing market led to a global financial breakdown. Yet, while the social and economic foundations for a unified progressive worldview weakened, the desire for personal freedom and prosperity persisted unremittingly. As a result, individuals, groups and nations began to diverge in their understandings of social progress, no longer being grounded in a collective liberal public sphere. This fragmentation reflects a self-reproducing feedback loop, where crises disrupt the common frameworks which once connected various global actors, pushing them towards increasingly isolated and individualistic worldviews. As these actors continue to diverge from a common framework, the public sphere deteriorates faster, therefore accelerating the dynamic.
The Great Recession was not the only crisis to emerge within the paradigm of globalisation. Throughout the early 21st century, crises have begun to appear at an accelerating rate. Events such as the climate crisis, rising political populism, and the COVID-19 pandemic have all further eroded trust in the liberal world order. These unexpected shocks to the system expose contradictions inherent within globalisation - an ideology which aspires towards universal liberation, but which often operates within inherited historical frameworks that perpetuate inequality, inefficiency, and exploitation. Emerging crises undermine popular faith in the system but without offering any clear alternatives, therefore creating a political vacuum which continues to feed the flame of atomisation. As disillusionment with the public sphere grows, collective institutions become increasingly neglected, which in turn compounds and intensifies emerging crises. This feedback loop perpetuates a cycle of fragmentation and instability, making it difficult to reverse the trend. The end result is a society that responds to breakdown not with positive action, but ever-increasing privatisation, viewing public life as merely a “means to an end”.
This atomisation of society into individualised units can be clearly seen on a cultural level, particularly in the shift towards social media as a means of maintaining relationships. Facebook, the leading pioneer in mainstream social media use, grew from 20 million users in 2007 to over one billion in 2012. Since then, platforms such as Instagram, Twitter (X), and TikTok have each accumulated hundreds of millions to billions of daily users. This shift towards social media as a form of cultural organisation reflects the decline of the public sphere after the Great Recession, as people began to identify themselves with individualistic “profiles”, rather than through shared, physical institutions.
On social media, users often present highly curated, idealised versions of themselves, abstracting from their lives into selective representations. As a result, people engage far less with collective institutions such as places of worship, civil society groups or community hubs. The digital focus on surface-level connectivity fosters a form of relationality which lacks spontaneity and depth, therefore further accelerating the atomisation of social life. This shift highlights a profound transformation: the public sphere is no longer anchored in shared, material experiences, but instead fragmented into isolated online interactions. As a result, individual lives become disconnected from collective meaning, unable to have an effect upon the world other than through superficial identification.
However, this individualisation of identity is not just a cultural perception, but ingrained into our economic system. The Great Recession of 2008 led to a significant shift in how the economy was organised, also reflecting the feedback loop of atomisation. During the globalisation period, abundant economic opportunities emerged through international liberalisation, fostering new connections in trade, migration, and political cooperation. This period of growth was driven by increasing economic interdependence and a shared sense of universal progress. However, after the financial crisis, it became clear that the paradigm of continuous growth through liberalisation had reached its limits.
In response, economic atomisation emerged as a strategy to preserve the wealth and progress of globalisation without proposing any systemic alternatives. Instead of discovering a new frontier of economic interconnection, actors instead retreated from public purpose, focusing on maintaining private stability through streamlining profits. After the financial crisis, companies shifted their priorities to preserving their core assets through cost-cutting measures, focusing on shareholder value as an end in itself rather than directly improving their services. This approach is bolstered by new public relations methods which align companies with social causes in performative ways, without working to address deeper systemic issues. While companies maintain their public image on social media, the core of their business model is focused on extraction and self-preservation.
As economic activity becomes centred on maintaining power rather than producing social value, the economy shifts towards a model of rent extraction, where oligopolies increasingly dominate industries and restrict competition. The corresponding stagnation, combined with rising income inequality and reduced disposable income, has further limited opportunities for economic growth and social mobility, therefore deepening the cycle of economic atomisation. The end result is an economy in which decisions are predominantly made according to fragmented short-term motives, focused merely on staying afloat in a sinking ship rather than a deeper dynamic of social improvement.
This economic stagnation, alongside other crises emerging within globalisation, has led to a widespread disillusionment with political systems. The authority of political actors during globalisation was founded on a program of breaking with the past in order to pursue continuous growth through liberalisation. However, as crises continue to build up, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain this ideological legitimacy. In response to their loss of authority, governments take measures that reflect the dominant economic model of the time - withdrawing attempts to enact a common good in society, instead imposing austerity measures and cutting back on investment. After the emergence of the Great Recession, strict austerity measures were imposed in the US, the UK, and across the EU in the case of Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. Instead of pursuing future-oriented policy programs with the aim of investing in and improving their societies, political parties opt to make performative moral statements while continuing to decrease positive action.
The intention of political atomisation, like the other dimensions of atomisation, is to attempt to preserve the wealth and optimism of globalisation by shielding systems from the consequences of crises - despite the fact that it is the contradictions within those systems which are the source of the crises themselves. Faced with severe challenges to the state’s legitimacy, political parties adopt a model of ruthless self-preservation, while deflecting responsibility for social issues onto moral scapegoats such as immigrants and the poor. This reflects a political model the goal of which is not to improve public life, but to preserve wealth and power for privileged groups in the face of social decline.
In the years following the Great Recession, the quality of public services continued to deteriorate, without the necessary investment or innovation to overcome pressing challenges. This has led to the emergence of antagonistic populist movements, which campaign against the ineffectiveness and shallowness of what is deemed to be the “political elite”. Notable examples are the UK’s decision to leave the EU in a popular referendum and Donald Trump’s presidency campaign to “make America great again” in 2016. In powerful governments across the world, not just the West, many leaders have been usurped by nationalists, or at the very least forced to alter their programs to appease them. This emergence of nationalism has led to states becoming increasingly uncooperative, without a common good to unite them in action.
While anti-globalisation figures effectively voice a popular frustration with the status quo, they do not offer viable systemic alternatives to our major governance issues. Although some symbolic wins over globalisation may be made, public services and international cooperation often continue to decline in practice. Therefore, rather than creating a new political order, the rise of populism in fact accelerates the process of atomisation that was already in place. With neither political side able to offer real solutions, the ambiguity on the right path forward leads to the kind of “culture war” exemplified by the US, where polarised cultural groups take increasingly radical and opposed stances on who is to blame for the nation’s crises, and what to do about it. The result is a severely fragmented society where disillusionment and dissent rules the day.
What makes the era of atomisation so unique in our modern history is its extreme ideological focus on the individual, defined in opposition to more holistic notions of social purpose. Liberalism as a political ideology has always been focused on the freedom of individuals. However, this is a freedom conceived as existing in harmony with a common good, not at the expense of a common good. This can be clearly seen in the writings of Adam Smith and John Locke, for example, who make a moral case for the pursuit of individual interest, not an anti-moral one. On the contrary, atomisation attempts to preserve individual security against the common good, which it sees as an unnecessary obstruction to its private aims. Our atomised society is like a ship without a rudder, where there is no central organising mechanism to prevent further decay. In every dimension, whether political, economic or cultural, individuals attempt to shield their portion of territory from the world outside.
The participatory society responds to atomisation not by attempting to recover traditional forms of centralised order, but by acknowledging the divergence of individual interests and producing a new system out of this understanding. While the kind of homogenous unity that characterised the globalisation era is no longer possible, we can develop a new form of social harmony by creating institutions that adapt themselves around individual needs. This way, individual actors can once again be aligned in a common good, united by the universal benefit of a decentralised and self-organising system.
Therefore, the participatory society is not an idealistic vision, but an attempt to realign social order with our empirical reality. Because atomisation is already a system without a centre, it is arguable that it already follows some of the key dynamics of a participatory system. While we can see atomisation as a reactionary response to the breakdown of globalisation, we can also regard it as a transitional process whereby the ideals of modern liberalism begin to be expressed in a materially decentralised form. Although it begins as a mere survival mechanism, in many ways atomisation starts to address the key contradiction of globalisation, which is its attempts to create a system of universal freedom via power structures with their roots in historical colonialism. By internalising these ideals into a realm of private autonomy, it begins to resolve the tension between conformity and individuality latent within this old paradigm, aligning the ideology of individualism with its true implementation.
However, the core issue with atomisation is that, while individual behaviours have changed, our public institutions have remained the same. By understanding the autonomy of the self as in opposition to social order, our organisations become neglected, left to rot instead of helped to change. This is tolerable to those with a historically privileged access to private property, but for those dependent upon public institutions, it is hellish. It is not just a matter of economic inequality, though, because the pervasive lack of meaning and social harmony is suffered by everyone, whether rich or poor. People might try to fill this void through private consumption, but the spiritual desolation is often undeniable. The clear solution to the breakdown of globalisation ideology is to change our social institutions to adapt around individual purposes, allowing the divergent intentions of individuals to shape the systems themselves. The goal of the participatory society is to clearly demonstrate how this is possible, and how it resolves the deep-rooted problems produced by atomisation.
Atomisation cannot be understood as a single system, but is rather the breakdown of systems into a disharmonious network of subjective interpretation. By coming to a clear analysis of the problem, the participatory society puts itself in a position to propose a real solution. Its program of reform involves creating new systems which incorporate the diversity of subjectivity, thereby offering a new paradigm of unity. To return to our analogy in quantum physics, we have created a framework that allows us to understand subjectivity as part of the system itself. This not only creates a more effective system of organisation, but also allows for a more accurate understanding of the current empirical reality.
The endpoint of industrialisation
The participatory society is a decentralised system of exchange between the productive meaning-making activities of groups and individuals. Every individual in society is continuously involved in making sense of their reality. As they learn from their experience, this knowledge becomes outputted in their productive actions, therefore benefitting the wider whole. In the participatory society, our social systems structure themselves around this process of learning itself, facilitating rather than controlling it. As a result, the whole society benefits, with people given the tools to become their most productive and intelligent selves.
As a decentralised market system, the participatory society has a lot in common with the system of capitalism. The system of capitalism emerged fully in the late 18th century, as industrial methods of production began to dominate Europe. Capitalism is a system of economic organisation which departs from traditional centralised control, being governed instead by the profit motive of private companies. However, over the course of its history, capitalism has not always been fully decentralised. This is because it emerged out of older power structures of feudalism and religious hierarchy, from which it retained many features. Although capitalism organises itself in a decentralised way, it builds itself upon these older hierarchies, thereby sustaining some of their authoritarian tendencies. As capitalism grows, it wears away these older power structures and incorporates them into its decentralised markets. We can see the foundation of the participatory society as the completion of this decentralisation process, where capitalism is no longer mixed with centralised authority, but functions in an entirely self-organised way.
While the power and wealth generated by capitalism has tended to reinforce existing social hierarchies, it also contains a radical undercurrent which continually moves towards a more decentralised distribution of that power. This is due to the fact that the power of capital sustains itself through growth, always needing to expand its profits to stay in control. If a capitalist firm is not able to expand its profits, it is fundamentally at risk of being replaced by another firm which is able to grow faster. Larger firms can directly acquire smaller firms, or have the means to invest in more efficient methods which drown them out of the market. Therefore, if companies in capitalism are to survive, they need to grow faster than their competition. This means that there is a general tendency within the system towards higher growth, with lower growth strategies becoming outcompeted and abandoned. As capitalism grows, it is compelled to distribute its power more evenly across different social and cultural backgrounds. This is because it must utilise a greater amount of human life to sustain its increasing organisational complexity.
As capitalism grows in complexity, it doesn’t only expand in terms of size, but also in terms of its internal structure. In order to integrate more cultures and individuals into its systems, it has to be more subtle and sophisticated in the way that it manages human life. This is because capitalism works best not when it coerces people into working for it, but when it actively taps into those people’s desires, making them want to be a part of it. This way, capitalism can maintain more and more intricate and interconnected networks of organisation. Over time, capitalism’s systems shift from a centralised imposition of order to a more fluid and culturally relative network, deeply integrated into everyday life.
The economy of liberal globalisation could be seen as an apex of this development. In this paradigm, capitalist markets span the majority of the globe - even in former and existing communist nations such as Russia and China. However, the qualitative nature of capitalism in the 21st century has radically changed too. In order to be actively adopted into a wide variety of different cultures, capitalism has learned how to express itself in the terms of positive social values such as personal aspiration, liberty, and human rights. Rather than being a necessary evil to achieve economic development, capitalism is a gift to the world, a miracle that bestows freedom and prosperity on all who take part in it.
This ideology of “social capitalism” is reflected in the new markets which have emerged in the 21st century. For example, the ‘information economy’, engineered by big tech companies, actively monetises people’s thoughts, emotions and habits through data collected on their online behaviour. The ‘gig economy’ utilises real-time data to organise a fluid distribution of resources that fits around individual lifestyles, such as with the Uber app. The ‘self-care economy’ commodifies emotional wellbeing into marketable products such as corporate mindfulness programs. In the economy of liberal globalisation, capitalism integrates itself even more intimately into everyday life, turning real-time emotions and experiences into monetisable commodities. This allows it to maintain a friendly, personable image while spreading more pervasively across the world.
Globalisation’s social capitalism has planted itself deeply within human experience, creating a sophisticated network of distribution which is already highly decentralised. However, the information, gig and self-care economies all have strong limitations. This is because globalisation’s economy demands flexibility from labour, but not from capital itself. While individuals are expected to continually adapt to intricate market forces, the systems in which they operate remain stagnant and averse to change. In the information economy, people’s most intimate habits and emotional responses are exploited and converted into opportunities for corporate profit-making, but without allowing these intimate personality traits to shape the nature of the product itself. This creates a significant power imbalance, as it coerces individuals into interpreting their identity only in terms of mass-produced commodities, rather than according to their unique character traits. This is a significant reduction in the depth of human experience, and therefore is often resisted by consumers. Similarly, the gig economy allows for greater flexibility in paid services, but imposes this demand only on workers, while the legal and financial structures of the corporations that control them remain fixed in place. This ensures that market dominance can be preserved while precarious workers suffer financial insecurity. Finally, the self-care economy treats the symptom of distress rather than the cause, offering temporary respite to burnt-out workers, but leaving deeper systemic issues unchallenged. In many ways, the self-care economy reinforces inequalities by offering short-term release from its pressures, while continuing to exploit those pressures for its own monetary gain.
Growth is a fundamental feature of capitalism, but it’s unclear how it can expand out of the limitations of the current economy without significantly altering its core structure. This is because the key obstruction to growth in the 21st century is human nature itself - the requirement of basic needs such as security, personal freedom, and emotional recognition. The information economy cannot encroach any further into people’s lives without compromising basic autonomy; the gig economy cannot further destabilise the labour market without compromising basic security; and the self-care economy cannot further relieve people’s emotional pressures without changing the way we relate to the system itself. Space exploration and environmental technologies are potential new avenues for capital’s expansion, but these aren’t enough in themselves to rejuvenate a stagnant economy. At this point in capitalism’s development, it seems that the only way it can radically increase its profit is by detaching from its control of human workers altogether. This “post-human” economy is the next frontier of capitalist development.
By detaching itself from the control of human labour, capitalism finally overcomes the coercive social hierarchies from which it emerged. We can see this post-human economy clearly emerging with the rapid ongoing development of artificial intelligence. Through AI, capital internalises the economic value of human workers - their cognitive capacity and ability to carry out complex organisational tasks. As such, the value of labour is fully integrated into technological capital. This new frontier of economic development offers sublime possibilities for future growth. Accordingly, it has rapidly become one of the most valuable industries in the world, with the AI hardware producer Nvidia surpassing other tech firms to become one of the highest valued companies on the planet. The level of investment going into AI isn’t only speculative, it reflects a real understanding of the new economic frontier that lies beyond the control of human labour. By making the dissolution of historical capitalism’s authoritarian dynamics the height of the profit motive itself, the system completes its decentralisation process, removing its old feudalistic tendencies.
Although the production process may detach itself from human lives, it still remains tied to human needs through consumer demand. Capitalism needs people to which it can sell its goods and services. Equally, humans are the best agents to make decisions on what to produce for other humans, using their unique creativity and empathy skills. In a post-human economy, goods and services won’t need to be mass-produced commodities, consumed passively around the institution of the workday. On the other hand, humans will be able to gain enjoyment through holistic self-development. Self-development is productive, so the goods and services that the market produces for consumers will be facilitating more production. The processes of companies can be shaped around the unique purposes of self-developing individuals, and those companies, in turn, can be guided and shaped by self-developing individuals too.
Therefore, the post-human economy is paradoxically a deeply humane economy, where everyone aspires to develop themselves holistically, and in doing so, facilitate the development of others. This economy is no longer about dictating to people through the legacies of religious power structures, but about facilitating their desire in a holistic way, allowing this to feed back into a collective network of flourishing. This transition from globalisation to a participatory society can be explained as capitalism reaching its highest state of organisational complexity, where the market becomes indistinguishable from human desire. From this perspective, we can see the history of capitalism as like an accelerating wave, where our mechanisms of production become increasingly attuned to the lived experiences of individuals. Crises provoke adaptation, which gradually expand the system as a whole. AI is the culmination of this process, because it is the full internalisation of human experience into the system of capitalism itself.
In the 1700s, industrial capitalism emerged during the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain and later spread to Europe and North America. This radical shift in systems of economic production was driven by new scientific innovations that allowed for mechanised production, such as the steam engine and the sewing machine, which drastically increased the speed and efficiency of manufacturing goods. Already, in this system, we can see the beginnings of the technological automation of production. However, at this early stage of capitalism, the system built upon pre-existing social inequalities which had been inherited from the medieval feudal system. This concentration of landownership into the hands of a privileged few allowed scores of peasants to be exploited, being forced into working in factories to earn a living. At this time, there were no rights for workers at all, so factory workers simply worked until physical exhaustion, their wellbeing entirely subordinate to the profit motive of the business. Children as young as four were forced into hard labour, without any kind of education or the option to choose otherwise. Early industrial capitalism was dependent upon a shocking suppression of human life for the former farmworkers of medieval Europe.
As this system proliferated across the world, it began to face serious challenges in the form of militant socialist movements, financial instability, and the two world wars. These crises led to the birth of a new, progressive form of capitalism, which was heavily influenced by the thought of the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes advocated for state intervention in the market in order to ensure financial stability and soften the human cost of capitalist production. After World War II, it was a widely held belief amongst British intellectuals that the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany had been a result of unfettered capitalism. Therefore, by intervening in the market with the state, Keynesianism sought to prevent soughing the seeds for future conflicts, while simultaneously appeasing socialist movements, and ensuring the stability of the capitalist mode of production. After the war, workers were guaranteed stable employment, adequate working conditions and good pay. This not only prevented political conflict, it also expanded the market by creating new consumers, as workers were now able to afford some of the goods that they helped to produce. Although Keynesianism reduced the human burden of industrial production, it also enabled a significant expansion of the system as a whole, by ensuring that social factors which posed a threat to capitalism were now integrated into its organisation.
However, by the 1970s, this new mode of production was beginning to stagnate. While the Keynesian system had made life more bearable for the average worker, it also relied heavily upon bureaucratic control. This was perceived by some to be restraining innovation, preventing capitalism from reaching new levels of complexity. The system that replaced Keynesianism is commonly known as “neoliberalism” - indicating a return to the free markets of the industrialist era. However, the social environment from which neoliberalism emerged was radically different to the industrialist era. In this new system, capitalist markets weren’t only guided by a privileged aristocracy, but by a network of entrepreneurs from diverse social backgrounds. In the system of neoliberalism, everybody was expected to behave as a capitalist, investing their money and labour into the market to acquire profitable returns.
From the perspective of neoliberalism, the horrors of 20th century fascism were not caused by an excess of capitalism, but an excess of monopolies. Fascism was thought to be a result of monopolistic firms merging with the power of the state, creating a system of absolute economic and political power. Therefore, what neoliberalism sought to foster was economic competition, where a plurality of actors compete in a market setting to produce better goods and services. This had a simultaneous political and economic motive: ensuring individual liberty from the overreach of the state, while stimulating new methods of productivity. In practice, it involved reducing the influence of labour unions and government regulation on the markets, thereby allowing new economic opportunities to emerge. By expanding the complexity of capitalism once again, neoliberalism further decreased the distinction between capital and labour, expecting everybody to behave as a profit-maximising entrepreneur. This allowed for the emergence of a far more flexible and decentralised system than available before.
The “social capitalism” of globalisation wasn’t born out of a critique of neoliberalism, but built upon its successes. As the competitive market doctrine was adopted across the world, it began to be seen as a new source of international unity and human empowerment. As opposed to the austere moralism of Margaret Thatcher, one of the pioneers of neoliberal politics, leaders like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton emphasised the social side of free market capitalism, equating it with positive values like progress and interconnectedness. Entrepreneurship in this era often blurred with philanthropy, with business titans such as Bill Gates becoming known for their charitable endeavours. Cultural icons such as Hollywood celebrities often combined lavish private lifestyles with concern for social issues, without these things being seen as contradictory.
Some believed that this pairing of capitalism with social activism would be the final resolution of the system’s power dynamics. The American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that the world had reached “the end of history”. This new, social form of capitalism integrated emotions, thoughts and experiences into the market. The modern Western services economy doesn’t only require people to perform functional roles effectively, but demands personal passion and emotional positivity - whether to aid ‘workplace culture’, or to leave a good impression on clients and customers. In this system, almost everything within human experience has been optimised for the benefit of capital. By removing the moralistic tone of neoliberalism, social capitalism allows the system to expand even deeper than before, requiring every individual to have a positive attitude with regards to their own economic exploitation.
The key limitation of social capitalism is that it demands emotional flexibility from workers without helping to facilitate this on a structural level. Although globalisation declares a deep concern for the living conditions of humans, it does so within a system which has entrenched historical inequalities. These inequalities are ingrained in the division between capital and labour, because access to the ownership of capital is the privilege of those with historical social advantages - proximity to European feudal power. Owning factories in the industrial era was only available to those who had been born into a position of landownership, with the wealth to invest in new methods of production. This legacy continues today, and the bottom end of globalisation’s system is still built upon an oppressive exploitation of human labour in sweatshops and factories. The hierarchical nature of this system means that the economy is not a network of free association, but controlled by authoritarian managers answering to self-interested shareholders.
Atomisation can be seen as a direct result of this contradiction within social capitalism, being a symptom of both extreme individual competition and emotional burnout. As the system of social capitalism is so demanding, the desire for private space increases, therefore wearing away old institutions of communal solidarity. At the same time, this desire for private space increases the urgency of economic competition, with everybody competing for limited resources in a zero-sum system. While in the early 21st century social cooperation was driven by a collective faith in universal progress, when this growth began to slow, people sought to preserve their wealth and wellbeing by separating their private interests from the whole. By privatising social wellbeing, public institutions become barren and neglected, therefore further increasing the desire to fragment. Once again, capitalism becomes stagnant, with very few people willing to invest themselves in publicly beneficial innovation. Instead, people focus on extracting wealth for their own private benefit.
The only way for capitalism to grow out of its current slump is to abolish the division between capital and labour, thereby freeing up human energy to pursue meaningful, self-directed activities. This is the apotheosis of industrial development, which began with industrial machines, grew into assembly lines, became managed by the Internet, and will finally reach full automation with artificial intelligence. The productive capital that began in factories expands over time to incorporate a greater depth of human experience into its systems of organisation. As it grows, it relies to an increasing extent on the full population, unable to be effectively managed by a centralised elite.
The economy of globalisation is a wide dispersal of capitalist power, but it is not a full decentralisation. This is because it exploits human experiences and emotions to maintain hierarchical systems, but doesn’t allow these traits to shape the nature of the systems themselves. Human intelligence is controlled by capital, but capital doesn’t adapt towards human intelligence.
The emergence of artificial intelligence radically disrupts this situation. This new form of capital opens up the possibility of a participatory society, where the economy is shaped spontaneously by divergent individual meanings and purposes. In this society, there is no difference between markets and emotions, systems and selves. The economy has become completely self-organised, guided by the organic learning process of the human mind.
Abundance mindset
Artificial intelligence is a technological catalyst for the formation of the participatory society, just as early industrial machinery facilitated the emergence of capitalism. However, the shift from atomisation to participation is not built entirely upon technical changes, but a transformed understanding of the relationship between the individual and society. To create the participatory society, and to sustain it, requires seeing the essence of social order as a spontaneously generated network of systems, which are emergent from the unique meaning-making practices of individuals.
Our modern mindset sees a fundamental distinction between public responsibilities and private tendencies, but this is simply not the case. We can see clearly from the history of capitalism that the public-private distinction is not a neutral ideology, but exists to ensure that human bodies are optimised for the benefit of capital’s power. People from all social backgrounds are suppressed by this system, but the burden falls disproportionately on those without access to the historical privileges of European feudalism.
Atomisation is often seen as a symptom of general social collapse, but it is only a collapse of this historical power structure. In a world with no shared sense of value, there is no reason for anybody to defer their own gratification for the sake of a “public sphere”. As such, the world structures itself around the extraction of private value. However, this situation is not pure chaos, but the organic emergence of a new form of social order which is organised around the divergent intentions of individuals. The chaotic element of atomisation comes as a result of our stagnant and unresponsive institutions, not due to an inherent inadequacy within individuals themselves. The natural response to this breakdown is therefore to radically reform our institutions, making them responsive to this decentralised form of social value. This way, we can realign individual experiences with the systems they participate in.
Rather than being void of meaning, atomisation is the symptom of an excess of meaning - a proliferation of subjective interpretation so vast that it begins to overwhelm our systemic compartmentalisation. While this phenomenon destabilises the old paradigm, it also offers us an extraordinary opportunity: the possibility of creating systems that organise themselves around the fluid, spontaneously shifting nature of human consciousness. Instead of seeing our atomised world as a barren landscape, devoid of social possibility; it is possible to see it as overflowing with purpose and representation, all of which we can use as fuel for radically futuristic systems. It is this conceptual and ideological shift which is the foundation of the participatory paradigm.
The emergence of artificial intelligence underscores this shift. By integrating labour into capital, redefining organisational systems as bespoke and personal, AI disrupts the ideological boundaries between abstraction and emotion, public and private. More than just a technical phenomenon, AI reflects an understanding of human identity as part of a deeper, interconnected network of social meanings - embodied in the Internet, from which the technology emerges. In many ways, we are like AI. We are shaped by the network of meanings that we encounter in our experience, which form our perception of the world, and then feed back into the network through our responses. Human experience is not a discrete and separate object, but a realm of dynamic interaction which continually learns about itself. Each individual is in their own way a microcosm of the whole, and the whole reproduces itself through individuals.
The difference between atomisation and participation is therefore not ontological: the nature of our experience remains the same no matter what. The dividing line between the two lies fundamentally in how we represent that experience. A world governed by public-private distinctions feels meaningless because it misses the mark - it is not an accurate representation of our experiential reality. By coming to a correct understanding of the nature of atomisation, we can see that the world is in fact overflowing with meaning. However, we have not yet had social institutions which are able to express this. By developing new ways of representing and organising reality that draw upon this overabundance of meanings, we become able to tap into the vast richness of human potential that lies beneath our stagnant social order, both within others and ourselves.
This process is not linear, it accelerates only when the endpoint is present in its beginnings. Without this holistic framework, the journey risks stagnation, as fixed identities tend to resist transformation. By palpably demonstrating how individuals can create systems that reflect the fullness of reality, the participatory society becomes a living remedy for the instabilities of our time, forging the path from a social environment that imposes rigid compartmentalisation to one which creates the space for radical holistic growth.
The participatory society’s call to create new systems is not something overly abstract, alienating or prescriptive, but accessible to everyone. Simply by being alive, each human is building a systematic representation of the world. The underlying hypothesis of the participatory society is that, if we allow this process of representation to unfold to its highest potential, all people can become reflections of the diversity of the whole. The aim of this book is to show how a full social order can found itself simply upon this process of holistic development, as self-organised systems facilitate further self-organisation.
The core message of the participatory society is simple yet radical: embrace the overabundance of meaning, and use it as fuel to create systems that reflect the unity of the social order and the individual. By providing the frameworks to align perception with reality, the participatory society’s narrative empowers individuals to navigate the complexities of modern life, transforming atomisation into a vibrant and generative force. Through the participatory society, we can see our era of informational abundance not as a source of overwhelm and despair, but as an opportunity for vastly accelerated personal development. This shift in consciousness is not just the means to a new paradigm, but the paradigm itself: a self-sustaining system which feeds off informational abundance to produce radical new visions of life. It is the culmination of centuries of struggle and the beginning of a truly interconnected world.