Where will we work? That’s the primary question everyone is asking, because it is such a fundamental driver of all our lives. Where we work, and how we produce the income necessary to live, sets the cornerstone of every economy—and of every individual life. Today, a large majority of our economy remains tethered to a shrinking industrial and service economy, resulting in unemployment and underemployment. Add artificial intelligence and its stated goal of replacing most employees, and it is easy to see the panic rising.
It is important to keep in mind that while many jobs are being eliminated from the old economy, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done. Past economies focused on a quantity of stuff and hired people to produce stuff. In an economy based on quality of life, the work is human based—and it offers vibrant employment that can include everyone in a community.
The Proposal
We are proposing a new business called Integrative Community Ventures (ICV)—a prototype business that provides the necessary infrastructure for a successful Integrative Economy. Once the Local Community Capacity employment sector is added alongside the market, government, and illegal sectors, it sets the stage for Integrative Community Ventures as one of the businesses within this new sector.
ICV will hire, train, and manage Human Capacity Development Professionals (HCDPs). Networked in teams, HCDPs will work from their homes with children, adults and children with disabilities, and senior family members to ensure optimal human development for this community group. HCDPs are professionals trained to the highest levels to maximize outcomes for all.
The Rationale
In the twentieth century’s industrial, consumer-driven economy, the transportation system was the infrastructure for success: planes, trains, trucks, automobiles, roads, and railways. We invested in transportation through businesses such as General Motors, Southern Pacific Railroad, and Standard Oil, and they employed millions around the world.
For equivalent success in the twenty-first century’s Integrative Economy, we must invest in a new infrastructure of high-functioning humans. We imagine ICV as the “GM or Standard Oil” of a new, transformative Integrative Economy. At this stage, ICV is a proposed pilot project—but with the intention of being replicated in hundreds of local communities, establishing thousands of similar small, local businesses throughout the US, employing millions of people working in their homes and communities, and sparking thousands of suppliers and small businesses interconnected for success.
ICV’s Human Capacity Development Role
Human development does not just happen. Humans must be taught how to achieve optimum outcomes of physical, emotional, cognitive, sexual, and spiritual wholeness—so they can move into adulthood as high-functioning, autonomous human beings with full agency. ICV’s professionals provide, on a daily basis, the integrated teamwork necessary to ensure optimum development for all. A team of twenty HCDPs might have a workload of thirty-seven children, three adults, eight children with disabilities, and five seniors. Each team is different and self-determined as it designs its workflow.
As trained professionals, HCDPs use an extensive knowledge base grounded in a whole-person framework—nutrition, exercise, preventive health care, community gardening, financial responsibility, relationships, communication, and emotional well-being—applied at the highest skill level to build human and community capacity within their local community, networked with local universities, businesses, and government.