Overcoming Symbolism's Revolution
Nomadic lifestyles persisted on Earth for at least 5,000 years ago. They lugged their little belongings, which were few and far between, on their backs and in their hands. Unpredictably, they went on hunts and collected food.
After the Agricultural Revolution, people began to permanently reside on individual pieces of land, developing strong emotional, legal, and physical ties to them. A well-thought-out strategy guided their food production. Animals were tamed by them. Significant changes in population distribution resulted from this novel human existence pattern.
The Industrial Revolution didn't begin for another 4,500 years. Its primary accomplishment was to detach the land from the production processes and raw materials. Having a well-educated workforce was also made necessary by it. The emergence of cities (which provided labor for mega-factories), widespread educational opportunities, and leisure time were all products of this Revolution.
People started to have more spare time than ever before in history.
The ever-increasing complexity of social and economic systems necessitated the formation of numerous organizations, businesses, and other institutions to cater to the insatiable appetite for amusement.
Although it may not seem so now, the service-oriented society was and is an integral aspect of the industrial world.
Taking a cue from Alvin Toffler's brilliant idiom, "the Third Wave" describes the massive storm that is currently bearing down on Earth. Let us call this a revolution in knowledge and information. Information (the raw material equivalent) and knowledge (the processed good equivalent) will form the basis of the economy that this trend is pointing toward. An ever-expanding range of people will be able to access all of these.
The fact that this Revolution is distinct from its forerunners is due to this very thing:
(1) It's fair since everyone is welcome to take part.
It took a lot of money to take part in the last two revolutions. A lack of capital necessitated the acquisition of raw materials, capital goods, land, and other production means (including slave labor) through the use of brute force.
The requirements for this Revolution are different: excellent ideas, a small amount of (decreasing) technical knowledge, and ever-decreasingly-cheap infrastructure.
This Revolution, then, is accessible to teenagers in their parents' garages (where behemoths like Apple Computer and Microsoft were born).
It doesn't care about your age, gender, ethnicity, color, nationality, or sexual orientation. This Revolution Helps Level the Playing Field.
(2) No human history can be found that predates this period when inputs, outputs, processes, and channels of marketing and distribution are all interdependent. Consider the following case study of online product sales (e.g., software):
Computers are used to write software, which involves the manipulation of electronic bits in a virtual environment through programming languages. So, everything from the product (the software) to the production processes (the programming languages) to the raw materials (the Internet's electronic bit streams) to the marketing and distribution channels (the mental algorithms) is interconnected.
Because of this, the technology is inexpensive. This is why the upcoming Revolution's goods will be circulated with such ease. Production and distribution will no longer be esoteric processes, but rather commonplace ones.
(3) The Agricultural Revolution's impact on our ancestors is limited. The impact of the Industrial Revolution on only a subset of these people is limited. As an example, in the United States, the proportion of the people engaged in agricultural labor fell from over 60% to around 3% throughout time. Among the working-age population, there is a corresponding decline.
However, the third revolution was different:
The Information / Knowledge Revolution, the third and most significant revolution in human history, has an impact on every single person on the planet.
Radio, television, computers, cell phones, and the Internet are all parts of everyone's daily lives. These goods and services are lowering in price and expanding in availability every single month. There is no corner that has been left untouched by the new Revolution.
A new type of economic development—one that is decentralised, has a high value contributed, moves quickly, and experiences short business cycles—was born out of all the aforementioned features. It marks the beginning of a period in human history that is neither colonial nor mercantilist. In the past, businesses could only function by importing cheap raw materials from the same markets that bought finished goods made from those commodities for a premium.
Eventually, this kind of exploitation will be unable to occur. The location of production holds little significance in today's market. The previous difference between "colonizer" and "colony" has all but disappeared because the boundaries between raw materials and finished goods are so porous, even when it comes to traditional industrial goods.
Less developed and emerging nations have a lot to gain from this.
To compete with the rest of the world's industrialized nations in the (recent) past, they would have required vast sums of money and other non-monetary resources. These days, you can get the same benefits with a lot less money. As the wise Western media scholar Marshall McLuhan put it, "The Global Village" is quickly becoming the new normal. Where you are is less important than what you think. Creativity, improvisation, invention, and an entrepreneurial mindset are highly valued in today's world economy.
The world's nations, whether developed, developing, or less developed, have equal and ample access to these new mental commodities.
There has been a shift away from the traditional view of economic development as a linear progression from an agrarian to an industrial to a service economy. Countries like Macedonia are being pushed by a new school of economic thought to skip the agricultural phase and jump straight into the Third Wave, which consists of information and knowledge sectors. This type of industry is a good fit for Macedonia since it is accessible, cheap, easy to comprehend and apply, very lucrative, and always changing and improving.
Macedonia won't be the first nation to choose such a risky approach of rushing forward, bypassing the Industrial Revolution and entering the Information Age instead. Along with Israel, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and (with some reluctance) India, this has been done before. It was only inevitable that these nations would be poor. Some of them are nothing more than deserts, while others are extremely overpopulated or are lonely islands. The revolution was still in its early stages, but they were all able to become deeply involved. With the exception of India, a newcomer with only half the commitment, none of these countries have lower per capita GDP than the rest of the globe.
It was a wise decision.
A fascinating side-benefit, meanwhile, is associated with this option.
Leaving the actual world behind and entering the realm of symbols characterizes the transition from industrial to the IT and knowledge industries. No matter what symbols are being manipulated, the techniques remain the same. If a nation is good at producing symbol operators, its citizens will be able to work with and change any type of symbol.
The greatest symbol of them all, money, is no exception.
Everyone knows that money is just a symbol. It stands for a consensus that a group of individuals has achieved. There is no inherent worth to it. The manipulation of the symbol known as money is a natural extension of the manipulation of information.
A nation's proficiency in handling all types of financial transactions is directly proportional to its proficiency in processing symbols, or information. It has a better chance of luring investors, creating thriving money and stock markets, educating the next generation of workers, engaging in trade, and generally becoming woven into the web of the contemporary global economy.
