Society and catalysts of economic growth

A teaser from upcoming publications and written musings that took me all over:

Studying impact of large-scale technological implementations in the past and its impact on economic cycles and growth is fascinating — and illuminating. Only a systemic and auditable systems are able to propagate, change the societal rhythms of regions and whole countries, allowing those heeding to lessons of history to accelerate and those ignoring them — to decline:

Technological change is often sold-organised and hardly guided by all-knowing ruler — as shown in a solid study — Cities of Commerce: The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250–1650 — of medieval commercial centres of Bruge, Antwerp and Amsterdam by Dutch Oscar Gelderblom — cities embedding exterritorial trade practices of guilds facilitating trade through them — into legal systems — and evolving property rights, arbitration and societal fabric overall:

They integrate egoistical elements of time tracking, personal record keeping (a developed discipline of recording transactions leading to summations of personal nature — paving way to diaries). Renouncing egoism and diligent study of natures laws first brought “prescriptive knowledge” — then rendered into “propositional” (Mokyr)

Capital followed — a cyclical gyrations of “financial capital” switched by “production capital” (Perez)

Cannot stop and not mention a brilliant book — “The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation” by Carl Benedikt Frey who’ve knitted a marvellous fabric on both side of change: technological and societal. One quote from the book: “Words like “factory,” “railroad,” “steam engine,” and “industry” first emerged then. But so did “working class,” “communism,” “strike,” “Luddite,” and “pauperism.””

Below a summary of moments, when change was not appreciated from Frey’s book.

#history #technology #growth