Economics is so complicated: supply curves, demand curves, inflation risks, unemployment rates, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Can't anybody do something?
Hope appeared in 1996, but was quickly squashed by Nevada's office of the attorney general. But the real power of the new "networked" economics cannot be suppressed by party-pooping public prosecutors. While "realists" at Feed were advising readers that the eBay run-up was losing steam at US$46 a share (a mere 186 times earnings per share) and the cynics at Tulips and Bears have been advising their victims to short Amazon since last May when the stock was at $40, the visionaries at the World Wide Ad Network were balancing these overly negative prognostications with a bit of free education about life. "Well, the facts are not every company is bad," they said. "Not everything in life is a 'scam' or a 'trick.' If this was really the case, the world would fall apart quickly and nobody would be successful."
As the typically successful PointCast CEO David Dorman (whose signing bonus alone was $1.4 million) said to The New Yorker's Ken Auletta, "Never has more money been made in a shorter period of time. The convergence of the economy and the stock market and the Internet phenomenon: It's magic."
![[since, i've had men comment on it after i've walked past (hint: men don't care about coats); a woman come up to me, recognizing me from the coat as she's seen it in the neighborhood, the same woman say hello to me again; the checkout boy regard it admiringly. ]](http://static.suck.com/daily/98/11/30/b.gif)
Certain cheap-shot artists have been pondering this magic for years and making fundamental and incisive criticisms along the lines of "How do I get some?" Others have taken a more serious approach, offering a handy, practical set of new business fundamentals. But Wired executive editor Kevin Kelly's new book, New Rules for the New Economy, has gone far, far beyond mere webonomics.
New Rules for the New Economy offers "10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World." The strategies are Embrace the Swarm; Increasing Returns; Plenitude, Not Scarcity; Follow the Free; Feed the Web First; Let Go at the Top; From Places to Spaces; No Harmony, All Flux; Relationship Tech; and Opportunities Before Efficiencies.
Black-hearted cynics like Chris Byron (the New York Observer columnist who maintains something called the "Cybersuckers Index") might argue that when New Rules advises its readers to invest heavily in new networking and database technology, to rewrite their business plans frequently, to walk away from stable revenue streams, to seek inefficiency, and to give their products away for free, the book is simply translating the run-of-the-mill business practices of desperate Web managers into an overarching economic theory.
And like all cynics, he would be half-right: There are still bounteous opportunities to go broke following these rules. (Although, come to think of it, if you've been shorting Amazon since May, you're broke already.) However, the true genius of New Rules does not lie in its practical recommendations, which for better or worse, are rapidly becoming conventional wisdom in the competitive field of inspirational business consulting. Kelly's original contribution lies in the honesty with which he describes the metaphysical implications of these developments.
While others may murmur insincere pieties about protecting individuality, privacy, and democracy, Kelly boldly and cheerfully imagines a world in which the machines take charge: "Supply and demand are no longer driven by resource scarcity and human desire. Now both are driven by one, single, exploding force: technology."
![[i'm begining to fear it for it's unknown powers. perhaps it was once owned by a powerful person. ]](http://static.suck.com/daily/98/11/30/c.gif)
How does technology take over from human desire? It's simple. It begins with those handy "free" services. Order some Beano at My Basics, and your propensity toward flatulence is entered into the database. This info is noted not to be cruelly shared with Big Brother or his domineering parents but simply to provide you with the opportunity to take advantage of additional custom offers of specially priced bathroom deodorizers. It's handy!
Free, as Kelly says, is how you hook them. Or to quote Web supergenius James Barksdale's critique of the greatest software giveaway in recent memory: "Free is predatory."
