The 5 Ps

People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity

All technology must serve the 5Ps in order to assure human flourishing

The Foundation for The Good Future

The 1P world (profit/growth) is dead or dying. Enter the 5Ps

For most of the last century we measured progress with a single yardstick: profit and growth of GDP (and power). The industrial revolution, and then, the information revolution (the Internet) both fed off and into this simple economic logic. Milton Friedmann would have loved it.

The 1P world made some of us rich and it made the markets more efficient, but today it’s utterly unfit for the future as we head into the Intelligence Revolution fuelled by AI and other hyper-exponential game-changers such as robotics, fusion energy and quantum computing. If we continue to pursue the sole objective of Profit & Power, we will implode before we reach 2050 – a world of abundance cannot coexist with the outdated economic mantras of the pre-AI world (watch Sir Geoffrey Hinton spell it out, here)

“Capital markets, corporate governance, and public policy must start to reward organizations that create value across all five objectives”

This (and the climate emergency) is why I keep coming back to the 5Ps that I introduced over a decade ago: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity.

Not as just another meme, but as a better, future-ready economic operating system for the decisions we make about science, technology, business, policies and the future. Get the first four right, and prosperity stops being the thing we chase – it becomes the thing we earn.

People, because no economy is worth more than the lives inside it. Planet, because there is no good future on a broken one (even if/when we do travel to other planets). Purpose, because efficiency without meaning and telos (direction) is just a faster way to nowhere. Peace, because everything we want to build assumes we don’t tear it down first, and that we can indeed collaborate. And prosperity – real prosperity, shared and lasting – as the result, not the goal.

The future is not written; it’s a choice. The 5Ps are how I propose to design it.

ALL POSTS ABOUT The 5 Ps

  • The Good Future is increasingly unlikely to originate from the USA - it's a Mandate for Europe.

    MUST-READS

  • After twenty-two years as a futurist keynote speaker I'm moving beyond it...

    NEWS

  • Powerful Keynote by Futurist Gerd Leonhard SIBOS 2025 (Super-Cut)

    VIDEO

  • Thomas Piketty’s Global Justice Report: powerful must-read!

    ESSAY

Gerd’s Memes

  • Twice Upon a Time: Gerd’s 2022 film (still timely)


    AI is gearing up to become the world's OS. Not humans - machines. Watch this film on 2 potential futures.

    Twice Upon a Time: The Good Future or the Bad Future, 2030?

  • The 5Ps: Gerd’s Roadmap to The Good Future


    People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity is Gerd's credo, and his roadmap to The Good Future

    Have a look at Gerd's microsite on the 5Ps

Campaigns & outposts

  • fightforthegoodfuture.com/

    Fight For the Good Future

    The technocratic USA versus the Humanistic USofE - colliding worlds?

  • ANDRORITHMS.com

    More on the Androrithms

    A powerful concept blending "Andro" (human) and "Algorithms" — contrasting uniquely human qualities with artificial intelligence. More information on the official microsite.

GERD’S QUOTES ON The 5 Ps

  • “Federation is not the Loss of Sovereignty – it’s the Pooling of Sovereignty”

  • “The Key to Future Success: Build Ecosystems not Empires”

  • “Ethics is knowing the difference between doing what you have the right (or the power) to do and what is the right thing to do”

  • “Trust isn’t digital, happiness isn’t a program, and relationships aren’t code”