Abstract

Is humanity truly heading toward a post-capitalist future?
A sweeping yet intimate exploration of capitalism’s grand history and its latest frontier.

The frontiers that capitalism has historically expanded across—space, time, and production—are now on the verge of disappearing.
Yet the essence of capitalism lies in its forward-looking orientation, rooted in a linear sense of time and calculability.
What we are witnessing today is an inward turn of development within capitalism itself.
At its ultimate stage, we have finally entered the era of “Idea Capitalism.”

— Contents —
Part I: The Disappearance of Capitalism’s Frontiers
1. How to Unravel the History of Capitalism
2. The Frontier of Space and Its Disappearance
3. The Frontier of Time and Its Disappearance
4. The Frontier of Production and Consumption and Its Disappearance
5. The End of the Traditional Frontiers

Part II: The Advent of Idea Capitalism
1. Involution: Development Turning Inward
2. Toward the Age of Ideas
3. What Happens in Idea Capitalism
4. The Future of Capitalism

Author’s Information

Graduated from the University of Tokyo, where she also earned a Master’s degree. Her areas of specialization are cultural anthropology and Science, Technology, and Society studies (STS). She researched the processes of knowledge creation, patenting, and commercialization within academia.
While pursuing her scholarly work, she co-founded and managed IT startups and conducted anthropological field studies for major U.S. IT companies.
After a stint at a financial institution, she founded ideafund Inc. in 2018 and has served as Founder & CEO since its inception.
Her research and practice focus on applying cultural‐anthropological perspectives to societal challenges and on an anthropological understanding of capitalism.
She has also held roles as Senior Research Fellow at GLOCOM (Global Communications Center), Advisor to the Showa‐Ikeda Memorial Foundation, and Lecturer at Tokyo Metropolitan University’s Open University.