Sublime

Our argument in this chapter will go through the following propositions, which serve as headings for their own sections of discussion: Value is subjective; uncertainty is not risk; economic complexity resists equilibria; markets aggregate prices, not information; and, markets tend to leverage efficiency.

Karl Marx called it ‘primitive accumulation’ – the initial influx of capital from the colonies which allowed the nations of Western Europe to kick-start the industrial revolution.

in the highly developed economies of the future, it is probable that cities will become huge, rich and diverse mines of raw materials. These mines will differ from any now to be found because they will become richer the more and the longer they are exploited. The law of diminishing returns applies to other mining operations: the richest veins, havi

Jacobs, Jane. The Nature of Economies. New York: Modern Library, 2000.

The Stack is the new nomos, or political geography of the Earth.

The Economy of Cities

In the early 1970s those seeking individual freedoms and social justice could make common cause in the face of what many saw as a common enemy. Powerful corporations in alliance with an interventionist state were seen to be running the world in individually oppressive and socially unjust ways. The Vietnam War was the most obvious catalyst for disco

The world today is being swept by tectonic shifts in both supply and demand. On the demand side, what constituencies want is radical—and rapid—change. On the supply side, the productive possibilities and the untapped paths for real wealth creation available to people, entrepreneurs, and organizations are undergoing equally transformative change.