Information Research Weblog

Tom,

You commented

"Technology provides it (Ethiopia) with the potential to leapfrog the development process, while Britain and other rich countries are locked into a belief system that lauds the market <above other mechanisms - a strategy that will surely lead to economic decline."

One could also cite the example of the Indian information economy and the virtual takeover by its progeny of Silicon Valley - bypassing the class and caste systems.

New Growth theory or any other economic theories do not quite explain all this, do they? (As Marius Saulauskas says - contemporary happiness presupposes access to informational wealth no longer just material ownership or power).

If the knowledge economy is predicated on a justified true belief in markets it too will inevitably decline (like the KM movement) according to the laws of entropy and fashion.

Information may be a force independent of belief, knowledge and (dare I say?) human behaviour. Within its domain what goes around doesn't necessarily come around (if we can accept the quantum information theories of CF von Weizsacker and Holger Lyre the virtual circle is more vicious than virtuous) - sometimes 'information', like the Holy Ghost, just blows where it lists.

Maybe information and economics would be a good topic for a future issue of IR?

John