Institute For The Future

Andrea Saveri on The Grassroots Economy

"Overall pattern of sociotechnical change in the last several decades: "The social revolution of the 1950s-70s is intersecting with the technological revolution of the 1990s to create an economic revolution."

1960s: Counterculture was a protest against military-industrial complex, conventional economics, social conformity (music was a key piece of it-- interesting that the music industry is now being convulsed by P2P, Bittorrenet, etc.).

The big picture

• 1900-1950: The worker as primary unit of economic productivity (labor movement)
• 1950-2000: The consumer as central to economic growth (consumer rights movement)
• 2000-today: Personal expression is emerging as central to economic growth (the grassroots economy)

Value shifts

• Social: from individual competition to group cooperation.
• Technology moves from centralized, productivity-oriented functions, to distributed systems aimed at increased sociability.
• Economy: From mass top-down, to bottom-up creative.

What grassroots structures will we see?

• New modes of production: Open source, collective problem-solving (e.g., think cycle)
• New webs of exchange: Alternate distribution systems, P2P networks blending technical and social networks (e.g., ensemble forecasting, Folding@Home)
• New property regimes: Beyond private (excludable and rivalrous) and public property, discovering new forms of property that can spark economic growth
• New ways to value the commons: We're better able to measure and appreciate the economic and social value of commons

A couple other enablers

• Grassroots accounting: New means of tracking assets; thinking about what constitutes an asset; and how the accounting is performed (e.g., Slashdot system for rating articles and thus contributor reputations; eBay reputation management; referrals)
• Grassroots monitoring: Monitoring is one of the key challenges in creating viable grassroots systems: it's what catches free-riders, and makes it possible to reward good behavior. The shift from centralized to distributed monitoring, in which people's reputations and activities are very public, is making it possible to grow sustainable grassroots systems.

Questions for the day

• New strategic pathways
• Who leads? Industries, countries, organization?
• What are pitfalls and discontinuities?
• How do people change as a result?
• Does it improve our fitness for a tough century?

"