The New Economy

What is the Old Economy?

It is based on Free Market. A person who has something concrete may swap a number of these for a number of something concrete another has. The addition of money with fine denomination acts as a lubricant to enable very fine exchanges.

This system of exchange has the been the World's leading means of "communication" enabling the accurate transfer of things to where they are needed, and the accurate instruction of people to make what is needed.

It is accurate because with violence and a legal system to stop what is called "theft" you cannot transfer false information in the system. If I want something I cannot get it without actually having something to exchange with it.

The other means of communication that has developed is language. Undoubtedly language (and mathematics) have arisen because of the market; to augment this system of communication for example in laws and accounting to stop theft. But language and maths has developed a very great deal in its own right and now challenges the Old Economy.

First attempts to challenge the Old Economy came as reactions to what was perceived as injustice. People with large amounts of wealth could use this to exploit poorer people and so grow ever more wealthy. Laws and maths were turned to abuse the system, as well as support it. These challenges sort to replace the markets with a reasoned transfer of wealth, by central bodies of people. However while abuses to this system did occur (although nothing like as bad as under the free market system), more funds were available but the weakness was lack of information to ensure that those funds found the right recipients.

With the advent of The Internet and with the ability of automated machines to watch communications it is possible now to gain information about the population in even greater resolution than through markets. It is a wonder that the US and UK governments don't sell trading information as they will know not only every trade that occurs but also the market moods and trends in social media before they even occur.

On the one hand such information gives enormous power to central bodies which is dangerous, but if the military and "national security" (what ever they are) were forced the free up this information from the private to the public realm (as indeed they did The Internet itself) then an economy could run without the need of old fashioned trading and the major problems of injustice and exploitation with the Old Economy could finally be solved.

===

Alternative point. Opening up the massive productivity of oil and machine based economies to the "masses" could lead to a population explosion. As Malthus argued populations will increase to exploit resources and so re-create poverty through competition. In this way humans are governed by the same laws as bacteria in a petri-dish.

There is also the problem that in the current system those who are able to maintain complex roles in the system tend to have little time for childcare, which means those who are unable or unwilling to take up roles in the system tend to have more children. This will genetically alter the human population toward a tendency to be either unable of unwilling to perform functions in the society.

The Old System solved both these problems by ensuring that poverty reduced populations in those who were either unable or unwilling to take up positions in the society. This is the typical right-wing position in the UK. While reasonable, it is brutal and leaves very little hope for mankind. It is also partially wrong.

It appears that wealth has reduced population growth in the West. High fecundity appears to be a response to poverty as much as a cause of it. The poorest countries currently have the highest birth rates. There is intense selection for genetically physically fit individuals, and in a reversal of the UK right-wing position, the wealthy in this country with their good healthcare and easy living have bred the genetically physically weakest of global individuals.

But genetics is only half the picture. While the wealthy in the UK are genetically physically the global weak, their good lifestyles mean they are actually the globally most healthy. Environment is as important as genetics. Recent studies show that intelligence is 50% genetic and 50% environmental. When the poor are unable or unwilling to work this is 50% due to the poverty they experience.

This argument is part of the way to suggesting that while the Old Economy focuses on the genetic half of causes, the New Economy will focus on the environmental half. With support, opportunities and education those under-achievers in society can become the achievers.

Clearly the markets of the Old Economy have failed the majority of the World. It has created a world of haves and have-nots and all it can do is raising the overall heat of the economy to benefit the poor, it can't change the structure. This is wasteful and extremely damaging to the planet.

Under the New Economy of rapid communication through modern technology the vast wealth of oil driven societies can be more accurately focused where it is needed, removing the inefficient inequalities and generating justice. Painful to those who have been brought up in the climate of competition and feeling good based on what they have achieved, but a joy to those who live in a climate of fairness and sharing and who take pleasure in the the welfare of their neighbours.