The Parasite Economy: Why Leaders Must Reinvest in Their Brands (Not Just Drain Off Profits)

It's time to end the extraction economy, in which we suck out the value of our commercial and cultural capital, and get back to creating things of value.

Walk a mile (barely)

Young and a bit frantic, Tomás was already one of the world's great experts in footwear. Looking no older than 30, he rapidly informed us that he had already been repairing shoes for 18 years. His native Poland had Old World attitudes on apprenticeship, and apparently on child labor laws as well. He didn't seem to be exaggerating his depth of experience, as he quickly shoved business cards into our hands and began to sally forth on the State of the Shoe Business.

"I'm already repairing most of the shoes for Chicago's retailers," he said puffing with pride. "You take it to them, but they send it to me." I remarked that given the rotten economy, his business must be thriving. Barely allowing me to finish my sentence, he spurted, "Never better! Nobody buys shoes anymore! They take them for repair! And the stores send them to me!" Tomás explained that this was his only night off to go clubbing, to hear some music on the town before returning to his bench.

I paused to think of how lucky it must be to have a real trade that isn't based on the Ponzi scheme of financial assumptions and debt structuring, but on wood and leather. He opened the door further: "And lucky for me, people don't understand shoes."

This last bit is nebulous. Shoes aren't collateralized or securitized, its technology isn't really disrupted by Twitter or Facebook, so what's to misunderstand?

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Eric Garland is a futurist, competitive-intelligence analyst, and adviser to leaders about long-range trends and what to do about them. He is the author of Future Inc.: How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What's NEXT (AMACOM).