I started this list of opposites to articulate the transition from our traditional economy to the knowledge economy. The knowledge economy is becoming increasingly important, but let’s not kid ourselves, it has still a long way to go to overtake the traditional economy. Although this transition will accelerate further, the two economies will cohabit for a long time and people will have to work/play in both, but an increasing number of people will be able to thrive by being only part of the knowledge economy.
Please suggest yours in the comments.
| Industrial economy | Knowledge economy |
|---|---|
| Ownership | Attribution |
| Exchange | Gift |
| Selling, borrowing | Sharing |
| Money | Reputation |
| Promises | Accomplishments |
| Banking | Thanking |
| Scarcity | Abundance |
| Push | Pull, Filter out |
| Privacy | Publicy |
| Closed | Open |
| Control | Freedom |
| Power | Influence |
| Demand: how many want something. | Supplied: how many got something (ex. # of video views) |
| Distribution/Attention | |
| Mass-produced | Unique |
| Consumers | Designers |
| Chinese factories | Home molecular assembler |
| South American farms | Farmscrapers |
| Job | Passion |
| Work | Play |
| Buying | Making |
| GDP | Happiness index |
| Unemployment | Retirement |
| Government | Governance |
| Nations | Communities |
| Taxes | ? |
For taxes what I think goes in the knowledge economy column is “contribution.” When we know how our promises of effort are going to be “spent” and there is transparency about previous results of such spending, then taxing can be a very differen thing, and hold a very different relationship to us in that they won't need to be coercive.
Thank you Eric. If taxes are voluntary, how would they be any different than gifts?
I think the point here is that in the knowledge economy there is a new distinction that needs to be created, which is why you have a question mark in that column to begin with! To me the heart of taxation is not their compulsory nature, but the fact that they are contributions to collective well-being. Their current coercive nature is, I hope, more a function of how poorly developed our social feedback mechanisms are. As those come up to speed I'm guessing that more and more of the functions that are “paid for” by taxes will be able to be “paid for” by contribution requests connected to the feedback mechanisms. I don't think that this new category should be called the same as gitfts, which by their nature seem to me to be about contributions given in the absence of strong feedback mechanisms, and given in the absence of requests.
This possibility is directly related to you row of “control vs. freedom.” In a multi-currency world with strong feedback, we can “afford” freedom, because there is enough information for people to become sovereign and act wisely.
Great list … I like:
knowledge as differentiator versus knowledge as bridge
and:
records as burden versus records as foundation
Can you elaborate on the second? Thank you in advance.
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I would really like to see what happened if taxes were voluntary.