It was the first example Id seen of a consciously post-growth company. As its president John Abrams had written, this company was challenging the false gospel of unchecked growth. After the crash of 2008, it had in fact opted to shrink and to do so in the most humane way possible. Its ability to make that choice arose directly from the fact that the company was owned and controlled not by absentee owners, but by its own employees.In Maine, I visited a lobster cooperative that supported more than 40 families, helping them by allowing lobstermen to collectively buy bait and sell their catch efficiently. It is a small-scale community ownership design that is part of a larger economic design a state governing framework. That framework includes democratically elected lobster zone councils, as well as ecological rules prohibiting the taking of lobsters that are under-age, or carrying eggs. Most innovatively, the state rules prohibit corporate boats from operating in sensitive inshore waters, allowing only owner-operated boats there. In other words, only small, local, mom-and-pop type lobster operations are allowed to work the best waters. At a time when the vast majority of the worlds fish stocks are overexploited, the Maine lobster industry remains vibrant. It is often cited as an example of successful collective action in common pool resource management. Rules on ownership design are central to it all.n Denmark, I visited the town of Kalundborg, where the major pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk produces 40 percent of the worlds insulin. The town is home to a famed example of industrial symbiosis, where this companys waste becomes food for the ecosystem. Yeast from making insulin, for example, is treated and then passed to farmers to be used as food for pigs, or for fertilizer. That ecological design which has been operating and stable for decades is possible only because ownership of this major, publicly traded company is also stable. It is an example of a design that is common throughout northern Europe, which can be called the mission-controlled corporation. The aim of this company is to defeat diabetes. And the corporation is legally controlled by a foundation, intent on that social mission.These various models embody a coherent school of design a common form of organization that brings the living concerns of the human and ecological communities into the world of property rights and economic power. They can be called a family of generative ownership designs. They are aimed at creating the conditions where all life can thrive. Together, they potentially form the foundation for a generative economy a living economy that might have a built-in tendency to be socially fair and ecologically sustainable.In ownership design, there are five essential patterns that work together to create either extractive or generative design: purpose, membership, governance, capital, and networks. Extractive ownership has a Financial Purpose: maximizing profits. Generative ownership has a Living Purpose: creating the conditions for life. While corporations today have Absentee Membership, with owners disconnected from the life of enterprise, generative ownership has Rooted Membership, with ownership held in human hands. While extractive ownership involves Governance