Who are we building the world for?
We're all building the world, but if we don't choose who we're building it for, someone else will make that decision. And it might not be for us.
One of the things I’m enjoying most about writing this series is that the best ideas and conversations don’t always arrive neatly packaged around a framework.
Carolyn and I started with coffee and ended up somewhere much bigger: extractivism, AI, money, power, Indigenous knowledge, hope, and the systems that decide whose contribution counts.
I asked Carolyn to write some of that conversation down in her own words, because Collaborative Capital shouldn’t just be me explaining an idea; it should be a place where different perspectives challenge it, stretch it, and make it better.
This is Carolyn’s.
- Daf
Daf and I met for coffee, I had diarised an hour, and then deliberately left the rest of my day free. Our conversations are usually like this. They start simply enough: How are you? What are you up to?
And then we follow our feet…
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax –
Of cabbages – and kings –
And why the sea is boiling hot –
And whether pigs have wings.”
“The Walrus and the Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass (1871)
Before I jump right into what I’d like to chat about, allow me to briefly introduce myself. I’m a South African born tauiwi and grew up during the Apartheid era. I am curious by nature and have always questioned the rules and norms. This has often landed me in hot water!
Also, I tend to call things how I see them.
One of the many things that Daf and I discussed was Extractivism, this is a concept I first came across while researching for my dissertation (still very much a WiP) and I think understanding this term has value as we unpack the Collaborative Capital conversation.
What is extractivism?
Extractivism is a political-economic concept, rooted in colonial history, and at its most fundamental level, it is the removal or extraction of resources from a place, while transferring the associated capital benefits of those resources to other people and places, while leaving the locals to do the (typically poorly paid) labour and bear any costs.
To put it another way; those who do the hard mahi (work) bear the costs and see very little in terms of benefits. Those who supply the $$$ needed to build the thing / pay for the thing, reap the rewards, usually lots more $$$, and often leave damage and destruction behind. And honestly, sometimes the people who reap all the rewards just take the thing 😤 😡 🤬.
Depending on which papers one reads, the definition of extractivism is stretched beyond this initial one, to include scale, and beyond the extraction of gold and other precious (read valuable) metals to the extraction of art, culture, finance, data and ideas. It is described as a global organising concept, both industry and sector agnostic.
How does extractivism manifest?
Extractivism is a way of world-making, when I say world-making, I mean how we (people, institutions and systems) perceive the world and shape reality in line with our beliefs and expectations. When one sees the world; land, rivers, the ocean, wild animals and living beings, as resources there for the taking, with no inherent rights of their own, this is the foundation of extractivism.
And this then results in the ideas that we think are right, moral and ethical and the politicians we elect. And it results in the laws of the land.
Go Green! 🌱
We’re often told that by going green, we’ll save the world, except that renewable energy, EVs and net zero infrastructure depend on lithium, cobalt and other rare earth metals. And we can’t just pick those up walking along a beach. They must be mined. And those mines are usually owned by large overseas corporations (certainly they are if you happen to live in Aotearoa). So, we’re right back to extractivism, because the environmental damage (the cost) is borne by the locals, and the profits head offshore.
AI, yay 🤔 ??
LLMs are trained on data, and much of that data has been sucked up from the internet; we’re talking code, writing, art, ideas, insights, frameworks, images, faces, bodies – the list goes on and on. This was done without consent or compensation to the people who created the content in the first place.
And then companies charge you if you use it, or in the case of Microsoft, I’m pretty sure you don’t have a choice – Copilot is here, and regardless of whether you use it, you get charged. Perhaps they charge you more it you use it?
Financial Extractivism
Many investment structures are designed to maximise shareholder returns, this means keeping costs as low as possible, while maximising revenues. That old adage, work smarter not harder springs to mind, expect, in my experience it usually means do more with fewer and fewer resources. Eventually something has to give.
Which reminds me of a company I worked for years ago. Senior management kept demanding the Collections Team collect more money from more accounts, with fewer resources, under worsening economic conditions, whilst not keeping pace with market related salaries. And were then surprised when their top performers left for better opportunities with our competitors.
Sometimes there really just aren’t enough crayons 🖍️🌈🧮🩹🎨
You might be wondering what on earth any of this has to do with collaborative capital.
Extractivism explains why the current system concentrates capital and only counts what can be monetised. The current system, the one we usually don’t see because it is the default, was never designed to count the mahi, trust or relationships. Collaborative capital asks us to build with people, together.
This is only a snippet of our convo, but it does form the foundation, the heart of what Daf and I spoke about. We, tauiwi, concerned citizens, call us what you will, have so much we can learn from Indigenous Peoples; their world views, how they have resisted, and continue to resist colonialism and exploitation. Afterall, these are people who have survived colonialism for hundreds of years, and some of the rest of us are finally waking up to the reality that there really is no planet B, and I doubt colonising Mars (there’s that word again) is going to be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy 🍋.
I don’t think it is delusional to be hopeful. I feel deeply that being truly hopeful that we (humanity) can change tack, especially in the face of everything that is happening in the world right now, is an act of resistance and defiance.
Let’s be radically collaborative. Let’s be radically curious. Let’s be radically honest about what the current system costs, who pays and who benefits.
If you had a magic wand ✨
Daf always asks great questions, and his 3 questions at the end of each meeting are no exception: If you had a magic wand, what are three things you need right now? Here are mine.
More conversations with more people, I really want to learn about what people see as harmful and damaging.
Corporate leaders and politicians who articulate a vision for Aotearoa, I don’t even have to agree with it, but I would like to hear them tell me (us) where they see us as a country going, and how their policies are going to get everyone to a point of prosperity.
More people, understanding Modern Monetary Theory and how government finances really work. We (Aotearoa) have sovereignty of our currency; we should leverage that.
Reading list
Chagnon, C. W., Durante, F., Gills, B., Hagolani-Albov, S., Hokkanen, S., Kangasluoma, S., Konttinen, H., Kröger, M., LaFleur, W., Ollinaho, O., & Vuola, M. (2022). From extractivism to global extractivism: the evolution of an organizing concept. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 49, 760 - 792. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2069015
Godden, L. (2025). Frontier Extractivism: Climate Change and Indigenous Dispossession. Law Text Culture. https://doi.org/10.14453/ltc.1715
Gómez-Barris, M. (2017). The Extractive Zone. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822372561
Ødegaard, C. V., & Rivera Andía, J. J. (Eds.). (2019). Indigenous life projects and extractivism: Ethnographies from South America. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93435-8
Svampa, M. (2015). Commodities consensus: Neoextractivism and enclosure of the commons in Latin America. South Atlantic Quarterly, 114(1), 65–82. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-2831290
Willow, A. (2016). Indigenous ExtrACTIVISM in Boreal Canada: Colonial Legacies, Contemporary Struggles and Sovereign Futures. Humanities research, 5, 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/h5030055
Winchell, M., & Howe, C. (2024). Unsettling extractivism: Indigeneity, race, and disruptive emplacements. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12734
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