any genuine upsurge in opportunity is almost inevitably bound to lead to at least a brief surge in inequality.

As scale economies fall, and capital requirements for many types of information-intensive activities fall simultaneously, there will be a strong incentive for firms to dissolve. Business operations will be more ad hoc and temporary. Firms will tend to be more short-lived. Virtual corporations that assemble talents for specific purposes will be more

This is a situation with striking parallels in the past. Whenever technological change has divorced the old forms from the new moving forces of the economy, moral standards shift, and people begin to treat those in command of the old institutions with growing disdain. This widespread revulsion often comes into evidence well before people develop a

An equally striking parallel arose from a tremendous surge in crime. The breakdown of the old order almost always unleashes a surge in crime, if not the outright anarchy of the feudal revolution we explored in the last chapter.

Whenever elites find themselves threatened, their first reaction is denial. This

There are 25,000 millionaires for every billionaire. If you are a millionaire and not a billionaire, that does not make you poor.

Honecker

Societies that reconfigure themselves to become more complex adaptive systems will indeed prosper. But when they do, they are unlikely to be nations, much less “political superpowers.” The more likely immediate beneficiaries of increased complexity of social systems will be the Sovereign Individuals of the new millennium.

In an environment where the greatest source of wealth will be the ideas you have in your head rather than physical capital alone, anyone who thinks clearly will potentially be rich.