The **Hitchhiker Impact Economy** is an economic model that replaces traditional metrics like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and conventional market investments with a rich system of interconnected Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). In this economy, the core unit of economic measurement and investment is not a company or a traditional financial instrument but a democratically designed impact-focused bond aimed at solving specific social, environmental, or community issues. ## Structure and Principles In the Hitchhiker Impact Economy, all major areas of social and economic life are organized around these Social Impact Bonds. Each bond is a targeted financial instrument that raises capital specifically to achieve a measurable positive outcome—for example, reducing homelessness, increasing literacy, or cutting carbon emissions in a community. ### Democratic Design and Control All these bonds are designed and controlled through democratic processes, ensuring that the priorities reflect the collective will of the community rather than just profit motives. Markets still exist, but they are markets of innovation within each bond’s goals. Investors can put their money into the bonds that align with the social outcomes they care about, and returns are tied to the success of achieving those outcomes. ### Restructuring Investment and Growth In this economy, traditional investments in companies are replaced by investments in clusters of impact areas. You don’t invest in a single corporation; you invest in the bond that addresses education or health, for instance. This means the “growth” of the economy is measured by how well these impact areas perform rather than just by financial throughput. ## Economic Critiques While this model offers many appealing aspects, such as aligning investment with social good, it may face critiques in terms of efficiency, stability, and long-term economic richness. For example, some economists might argue that this system could be less efficient than a profit-driven market because it prioritizes social outcomes over pure economic signals. Others might worry about the complexity and potential bureaucracy of democratically designing each bond, which could slow down decision-making or lead to unintended consequences. Nonetheless, the Hitchhiker Impact Economy represents a bold reimagining of how economic incentives can be structured to serve the collective good, opening the door to new forms of innovation and community-focused growth. # Critiques This page is a pointer to the main critiques of the Hitchhiker Impact Economy.
- Goodhart Hell. Targets become the game, complex human outcomes are flattened into KPIs, and energy flows into gaming and reporting instead of solving problems.
- Red Tape Overload. Every domain needs its own democratic design and verification stack, creating decision bottlenecks, veto points and opportunities for capture.
- Knowledge Fragmentation. Impact silos struggle to coordinate across housing, health, transport and culture, leading to double counting, gaps and misaligned incentives.
- Capital Formation And Risk Pricing. Tying returns to verified social outcomes makes risk harder to price, potentially starving long term, uncertain innovation of capital.
- Impact Cycles And System Stability. Payouts depend on political and fiscal conditions, so crises can trigger impact crashes, contagion and hidden liabilities surfacing at once.
- Perverse Targeting And Neglected Problems. Capital chases measurable, tractable problems and easier populations, leaving the hardest, messiest and most marginalised issues under served.
- Competitiveness And Shadow Markets. If you ban normal investment, profit seeking reappears inside complex contracts, or leaks into offshore and grey zones, adding friction without real transparency.
- Time Horizons And Impact Theatre. Discounting and short political cycles bias the system toward fast, photogenic wins and away from deep, slow transformations.
- Hitchhiker Bureaucracy And Transaction Costs. Multiple overlapping bonds can drown frontline work in forms and audit, raising the cost per unit of real care or action.
# Beyond Pure Impact Section ten, What This Does Not Mean, argues for a hybrid Hitchhiker architecture that mixes impact instruments, free innovation spaces and protected commons, using these critiques as design constraints rather than reasons to give up.