Without these three advances, you'd die from diseases that are today considered trivial (at least in the developed world) and every citizen not working as a bureaucrat, soldier or parasite (nobility, clergy, etc.) would be tied up producing foodstuffs and very basic commodities.
The ability to efficiently produce basic things like food and clothes in bulk quantities, combined with the industrialised distribution systems for these goods (as well as for clean water) are quite simply the underpinning of every creature comfort you or I currently enjoy.
Ultimately, satisfaction of basic human demands - heat, air, water, food, shelter - must surely rank as more important than any other advance. And industrialisation, for the first time in human history, provided the tools to ensure that those demands are reliably met for the vast majority of the population (notwithstanding the fact that the world lacks the political will to use the tools in this fashion).
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Praxis informs information; building a steam engine teaches one how to build a better steam engine.
In the first iteration, Society was decentralised but disconnected, and "market presence" was "physical" ie buyers and sellers met physically in a market forum.
In this current second iteration, Society has become centralised, but connected, and market presence has been through (increasing consolidated) intermediaries.
The next, probably final, iteration - "Society 3.0" - will be decentralised but connected, and market presence will be a "network presence".
The transition to Society 3.0 manifested itself most memorably in Napster, the out-rider of the "peer to peer" markets to come.
I give banks (ie credit intermediaries) between 2 and 5 years before they are "Napsterised" and after this happens, progress to a fairer society will be rapid. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I give banks (ie credit intermediaries) between 2 and 5 years before they are "Napsterised" and after this happens, progress to a fairer society will be rapid.
Except that the parties to the credit transaction (which may be settled in money or even "money's worth") will be members of the "third party".
ie a form of mutualised credit I call a "Guarantee Society".
Investments are something else, and distinct IMHO from credit (= time to pay").
Here I see investors in productive assets (eg property renewable energy) connected "peer to peer" with people who need investment. The difference being that the investment vehicle would no longer be the existing sub-optimal "Corporation".
This will be superseded by partnership based forms such as US LLC's and UK LLP's. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Except that the parties to the credit transaction (which may be settled in money or even "money's worth") will be members of the "third party". ie a form of mutualised credit I call a "Guarantee Society".
Credit Unions create no credit "ex nihilo", as a bank does, based upon the amount of capital set by the Basel-based BIS.
www.zopa.com and www.prosper.com essentially disintermediate/ Napsterise credit unions, but lack a guarantee function.
The idea of a "Guarantee Society" is that bilateral "trade" credit - ie from seller to buyer - is subject to a mutual guarantee by members of the GS collectively in respect of which the users of the guarantee pay an amount into a "default pool".
Settlement of the credit granted may be either in conventional money, or, if the seller agrees, in "money's worth" (ie barter).
The result is of banking without the bank as intermediary, although there is a requirement for a service provider to manage the system, allocate "guarantee limits" manage defaults etc.
ie the bank becomes a service provider.
But note that this model facilitates the creation and circulation of wealth through "mutualising" credit creation.
Equitable investment of existing wealth is another matter entirely. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
But local groupds will be able to link together to form "pools of pools" and so on...
Conventional "microcredit" Grameen Bank style relies upon small groups of guarantors.
And when you think about it, all that credit derivatives are is a form of time limited guarantee, but not exactly a transparent one... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
We are talking "bottom up" community based groups here, probably both geographical and functional. ie any group of individuals with a "common bond". But local groupds will be able to link together to form "pools of pools" and so on...
Sounds like the credit union movement to me.... Index of Frank's Diaries
Existing credit unions would manage the process and the default "pool", and handle accounting and defaults etc as "service providers". "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
What has happened since - automation, miniturisation, nanotechnology, electronics, digitisation, bioengineering and computerisation etc. are largely about "the knowledge" revolution - doing totally new and previously unimaginable things - didn't really get going until the middle of the last century - is ungoing, and is qualitatively different. I don't think we are even beginning to see its potential yet. Index of Frank's Diaries
To build on some ideas in earlier replies, here is a parallel:
You quite properly count agriculture as a great revolution, and count as one aspect of the greatness of the industrial revolution the emergence of industrialised agriculture.
Likewise, however, one can regard much of modern physical technology (both production and products) as a sort of "informationalised industry", made possible only by the explosion in information technology. The information revolution thus gets an increment of credit as a part of the industrial revolution, in addition to its other revolutionary aspects. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
