Order the book and download an excerpt here:
http://www.8forms.org/regenerative-enterprise/

Or read the essay the book was based on’
Eight Forms of Capital

A WHOLE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC UNDERSTANDING
©Copyright 2011 Ethan Roland & Gregory Landua

This article, initially published in 2009, lays the basic framework for the 8 Forms of Capital. It has been translated into Spanish and Hebrew, and new translations are welcome. The value of this system of economic understanding has proved itself over the last 4 years, and now forms the basis of our new book, Regenerative Enterprise: Optimizing for Multi-Capital Abundance…
Eight Forms of Capital

The Oxford American Dictionary states that capital is, “wealth in the form of money or other assets” and a “valuable resource of a particular kind.” What are these ‘other assets’? I’ve never seen a whole map of all the different types of ‘valuable resources’. In the Permaculture Designers’ Manual, Bill Mollison offers and expands on a categorization of assets based on their potential: Degenerative, Generative, Procreative, Informational, Conservative (1). These always seem like a good way to think about things, but I don’t use them in any tangible way.

I wanted something that would be more helpful for understanding the complex transactions and exchanges swirling around me as a human being and us as a global community. As I considered the ‘mapping financial ecosystems’ exercise, a bigger picture began to emerge as I thought about the capital pools and flows of the Mayor of a hypothetical small town.

The Mayor might have some money (financial capital). A good Mayor would probably also have many friends in the town and some influence (social capital). The Mayor, who has a degree in economics, knows the stock market extremely well. S/he uses that intellectual capital to generate more money (financial capital) to run a re-election campaign, in which s/he works to transform financial capital into more social capital in the town.