Summary
The Four Paradigm Framework is Carol Sanford’s way of sorting the basic stances from which people and institutions act. Sanford, a writer and educator on regenerative business, names four: Extract Value, Arrest Disorder, Do Good and Regenerate Life (elsewhere, Evolve Capacity). She arranges them as levels, not as a menu. Each higher one can take in the aims of those below, while working from a lower one limits the kinds of value a person can see or create.
Her argument is that most efforts to improve things stop short of the fourth, which judges value by whether a living system grows more vital and more able to evolve.
Rationale
Sanford’s paradigms resemble deep dispositions: stances that settle what counts as value before any plan is made. We’re warier of the ladder; Part 1 expects many of us to spend time “living with multiple ones”.