The phrase “design for decay” first appeared in a substack conversation offered by Anarcasper in response to my unending questions about building new structures inside of the capitalist system. The phrase stuck with me because it named something I had been circling without articulating. Not collapse. Not apocalypse. But erosion. A recognition that whatever comes after capitalism will not arrive as a clean replacement system. It will emerge unevenly, through breakdown, contraction, and reconfiguration.
Jason W. Moore’s world-ecology framework helps situate this. In Capitalism in the Web of Life, Moore argues that capitalism depends on the continual production of “Cheap Nature” (cheap labour, cheap energy, cheap food, cheap raw materials) and that this frontier logic eventually exhausts itself. What happens when the cheapness runs out? When supply chains fray, when capital investment becomes unstable, when paid labour is no longer infinitely available? We are left not with a smooth transition, but with this slow coming apart at the seams. Capitalism decays.
While my version of “design for decay” may differ from Anarcasper’s original intention, I believe it is a fundamental transitional design principle. We must begin where we are: inside an oppressive capitalist economy. But we build in ways that do not assume its permanence. Systems must be flexible and able to pivot. Infrastructure must not assume fixed value in the marketplace. Projects must be able to operate without access to funding, without the presumption of secure global supply chains, perhaps even without paid labour. We can’t predict what capitalism will become, but we can design systems capable of surviving its erosion.
This is not fatalism. It is humility. We do not know what comes after. So we design for the inability to know. We expect contraction. We expect instability. And we design ways of being that can function under both conditions. This creates a natural runway for long term resilience.
Map one system you participate in
(workplace, community group, co-op, etc).
Ask:
What inputs does this system depend on that require stable capital flow?
What breaks first if funding drops by 50%?
What breaks if supply chains are interrupted?
What could continue operating with only local resources and volunteer labour?
What knowledge would be lost if key individuals left?
Imagine what it might take for the system to function under conditions of contraction. Make it truly resilient.
Moore JW. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. London, UK: Verso; 2015.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/222-capitalism-in-the-web-of-life
de Beer P. Designing for decay: Entropy, impermanence, and the aesthetics of sufficiency. The Sufficiency and Wellbeing Magazine. Published September 9, 2025.
https://www.sufficiencywellbeing.com/p/designing-for-decay
Subsomatic. Comment thread including contribution by Anarcasper. Substack. Published July 16, 2025. https://substack.com/@subsomatic/note/c-135918812
