Traditional economy vs. Knowledge economy

January 4th, 2010

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 AttentionIntention
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 ?
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Posted by Guillaume Lebleu Filed in Uncategorized
Comments
  • I would really like to see what happened if taxes were voluntary.
  • oxyblue
    Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot
  • 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.
  • Eric Harris-Braun
    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?
  • Eric Harris-Braun
    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.
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