The Power of Ideas: A History of Technological Thoughts on Digital Economics PDF
Preview The Power of Ideas: A History of Technological Thoughts on Digital Economics
Contributions to Economics Zhiyi Liu The Power of Ideas A History of Technological Thoughts on Digital Economics Contributions to Economics TheseriesContributionstoEconomicsprovidesanoutletforinnovativeresearchin allareasofeconomics.Bookspublishedintheseriesareprimarilymonographsand multiple author works that present new research results on a clearly defined topic, butcontributedvolumesandconferenceproceedingsarealsoconsidered.Allbooks arepublishedinprintandebookanddisseminatedandpromotedglobally.Theseries andthevolumespublishedinitareindexedbyScopusandISI(selectedvolumes). Zhiyi Liu The Power of Ideas A History of Technological Thoughts on Digital Economics ZhiyiLiu AntaiCollegeofEconomicsandManagement ShanghaiJiaotongUniversity Shanghai,China ISSN1431-1933 ISSN2197-7178 (electronic) ContributionstoEconomics ISBN978-981-19-4573-1 ISBN978-981-19-4574-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4574-8 ©TheEditor(s)(ifapplicable)andTheAuthor(s),underexclusivelicencetoSpringerNatureSingapore PteLtd.2022 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsaresolelyandexclusivelylicensedbythePublisher,whether thewholeorpartofthematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsofreprinting,reuseofillustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors, and the editorsare safeto assume that the adviceand informationin this bookarebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpublication.Neitherthepublishernortheauthorsor theeditorsgiveawarranty,expressedorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforany errorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictional claimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations. ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSingaporePteLtd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Foreword I WhathasattractedmeisthatLiuZhiyihasponderedoverthe“intelligentage”from the perspective of the history of ideas. For me, questions raised in this book are actuallysomethingliketheRiddleofSphinx3.0solving.TheRiddleofSphinx1.0 mainlytalksabouthumanbeingsintheagrarianageasking“whoamI”;version2.0 discusses human beings in the modern age asking “who am I”; version 3.0 is supposed to be human beings in the intelligent era asking the same question as version 2.0. Obviously, if one can answer the question definitely and thoroughly, then he or she will know the senses of life; if not, the person will feel that life is meaninglessandblind. As Zhiyi once said, the book is to discuss the “ideological origin” of digital economicsfromtheangleofthehistoryofideas.Actually,itdoesn’tmatterwhether it is digital economics for this book. The so-called digital economics is just a yardstick for dating here, which delineates people in “the age of intelligence,” indicatingthat theconcepttobediscussed doesnotbelong totheagrarianage,the industrialera,butbelongstothe“smartera.” Differenttimeshavedifferentideasabouthumanbeings.Wecanroughlydivide historical periods into human pre-modernity (the epochal character of the agricul- turalera),modernity(theepochalcharacteroftheindustrialera),andpost-modernity (the epochal character of the information age) according to different hardcore paradigms.ToclassifyZhiyi’sthinkinginthehistoryofideas,itshouldberegarded ashumanpost-modernity.Personally,“TheHistoryofIdeasintheIntelligentEra” askswheretheconceptofhumanpost-modernitycomesfrom.Asforthenameofthe informationage,itdoesn’tmatterwhatwecallit.Anynameincludingtheintelligent age,thedigitalage,thenetworkage,thebigdataage,theartificialintelligenceage, etc.,willdo.Thesenamesarejustchickenfeathersflyingonthebannerofthetimes. Everyfewdays,someofthemwillfallontheground.Thecontentofthespiritofthe timesshouldnotbedeterminedbychickenfeathers,butbythetimes. WhattallieswiththethinkingrhythmofZhiyibylocatingtheoriginofideasfrom theeraitselfistheconceptualrhythmof“paradisegained,paradiselostandparadise regained” in Western thought. The theme of paradise gained is human nature, the v vi ForewordI theme of paradise lost is human alienation, and the theme of paradise regained is human liberation. Since the dawn of mankind, their ideas often stay in a state of paradisegained,andholdapositiveandoptimisticviewofhumannature,likeAdam and Eve playing in the apple orchard and Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” When they cometothemiddleofthelifecircle,theirideasentertheparadiselost.Theyleavethe GardenofEdenandbegintonoticethecontradictionsinhumannaturetowhichthey paidlittleattentionintheearlyoptimisticstage,justlikeFrankfurtschoolfrequently mentionedbytheauthor.TheirideasinthisstagewereabitlikeGoethe’s“Faust” with fighting scenes between angels and the demon (the original archangel). As humanbeingssteppedintothenextstage,theystartedtomissparadiseregained.The main tone of the idea began to turn to overcoming alienation and then restoring humannature,andwantedtoreturntotheGardenofEden.Asthecentralclueofthe book,humanliberationisatypicalthemeofparadiseregained. When I read The Power of Ideas, my first feeling is that Zhiyi raises questions fromaverygrandandlong-termviewpoint.Intheageofintelligence,whenothers’ “notionsofhumanbeings”(thedefaultanswertotheRiddleofSphinx)stillstayin thestageofmodernity,hehasthoughtofthemainproblemaftermodernity,thatis, humanliberation,whichIhavetoadmire. Another main line of this book is to think about “the ‘ideological origin’ of the digital economy research.” What is the essence of this problem? In my view, this problem is the preparatory question of human liberation, which is equivalent to askinghowananti-modernityconceptarisesfromthetraditionofmodernity. Thelasttimemankindponderedoversimilarissuesonalargescalewasafterthe victory of the industrial revolution. The industrial class (people featuring “moder- nity”)wonderedwhereourcorrectideasthathavehelpedussurpasstheagricultural class(peoplefeaturing“pre-modernity”)comefrom?Ofcourse,theEnlightenment Movementand theRenaissance areneedlessto say.The problemlies inwherethe ideological origin of the “rationality” paradigm extracted from these two thought movements is from? Finally, human beings living near the small lake in the Mediterranean region found that pre-modern ancient Greece was the birthplace of “rationality,”thecoreconceptofmodernity.Thentheyrejectedtheotherschoolsof thoughtandonlyrespectedancientGreece.Bythen,ancientGreekclassicshadbeen burntupalongtheMediterraneancoast.PartofthemwasrediscoveredfromIranian librariesandtransportedbacktotheMediterraneanregion.Thisisverymuchlikethe originalscripturesofBuddhismburnedoutinIndiacanonlyberetrievedfromTibet. The author has done this work in advance after the victory of the intelligent revolution. The concept of the intelligent age is so different from the industrial age.Howdiditoriginatefromtheindustrialageorevenfurtheraway? Whathewasdoingisequivalenttoarchaeologyofideaswhichisextremelyhard. Justasallhistoryismodernhistory,allideasaremodernideas,itseemsthatallideas canbereinterpretedwiththeconceptofmodernityoftenandhavelosttheiroriginal look. Documents do not meet this standard were either rejected or even burned directly. In this case, where can we find the “ancient Greece” of digital economics? The methodadoptedbytheauthorisabitlikePiaget’sgeneticmethod.Let’sjustcallit ForewordI vii genesisofideas.Intheauthor’sownwords,thismethodinvolvesnotonlyeconom- ics, but also politics, computer science, physics, culture, art philosophy, and so on.Allconceptsaffectingthedomainof“digitaleconomy”aresomewhatinvolved. In other words, the book is to build a history of “ideological origin” of digital economyresearch. Here I have to express my admiration for the author again. I deeply understand thattheauthorwantstogoaroundthe“digitaleconomy”todiscovertheconceptof digitaleconomy.Letmegiveyouanexampletoexplainwhyhedidso.Lookingat allthehistoryofeconomics,youcannotfindasingletraceofGeorgesBataille.This is not because the man has not existed, but because he had been “burned” by the economics profession at the level of “ideas.” From the perspective of digital eco- nomics,hismonographoneconomics,UniversalEconomics(whichtreatsneoclas- sical theory as a special case and the principles he put forward in this book are general),canbedescribedasgreat.Butallhumaneconomistsshowatotaldisregard for this work instead of opposition (a better attitude). They even don’t know that UniversalEconomicsiseconomics.Thismonographmayexistonpaper,butnotin ideas. Ten years ago, I wrote a history of ideas on digital economics (Postmodern Economy). The book contains seven chapters, namely, “value,” “exchange,” “cur- rency,”“organization,”“capital,”“system,”and“welfare,”andsystematicallysorts out the ideological origin of digital economics ignored by the economic circle and scatteredinotherdisciplines. In the last 10 years, I further found in the research of “Sharing Economy” that comparedwithdigitaleconomics,therearesystematicideaomissionsineconomics, notonlyinthegeneralconcept,butalsointheconceptitisbestat,suchas“property rights.” For example, because number belongs to what Williams calls the “general purposetechnology” (GPT), thus it’s better torent properties rather than buythem (i.e., transfer of access instead of transfer of ownership). However, the modern propertyrightssystemsystematicallyomitsthenotionsofdistinguishingandjuxta- posingtherightofdomination(equivalenttodriver’slicense)fromtherightofuse (equivalenttodrivinglicense)inthedefinitionofpropertyrightssincethedawnof ancient Roman law. Such omission is positively related to the idea of continental legal system and negatively related to the idea of marine law system, which just corresponds to the degree of ideological resistance that Uber has encountered in various countries. Uber have met with difficulties in the countries like France, Germany, and Russia while situations in Britain and the United States have gone relativelysmooth. CISofChineseAcademy JiangQiping ofSocialSciences Beijing,China OfficeofInformationand NetworkEconomics Beijing,China Foreword II Emergence of Times: From Digital Economy to Smart Society I’m very glad to read the book The Power of Ideas: A History of Technological ThoughtsonDigitalEconomicswrittenbyresearcherLiuZhiyi.Theworktracesthe ideologicaloriginofthedigitaleconomytotheeramythofdigitalenlightenmentin its 12 chapters with abundant content. It involves a number of celebrities and scholars including Marx, Hayek, Mises, Herbert Alexander Simon, Weber, Coase, North,Kirk,McLuhan,Benjamin,Wiener,andQianXuesen.Sometimeswecansee “ahundred flowersbloomandahundredschoolsofthoughtcontend”inthebook; sometimesitallowsusto“walktotheendofthewatertoseekitssourceorsitand watchtherisingcloudschanging.”Andyoureyescannevertakeallthebeautiesof thebookin.Itdepictstheemergence,evolution,dissemination,andinfluenceofall sortsofideasandcharactersinthefieldofthedigitaleconomyinthenewerafrom numerousaspects. AsGermanphilosopherandrevolutionistEngelssaidthatthetheoreticalthinking of each era, including our era, is a product of history. It has completely different formsandcontentindifferenttimes,headded.Thecurrentsocialconsensusisthat mankind has entered a new era of digitization. What is the times thinking of this new era? In natural science, one of its core features is computational thinking 1.Whenitcomestosocialsciences,whatisthetheoreticalthinkingofthisparadigm shift? How to guide today’s economic and social form to the future intelligent economyandsociety?Thesearethevaluesandsignificanceofthebook. Human society is facing a major historical turning point and begin to enter the thirdaxialperiodwiththedevelopmentofartificialworldasitsmaintask.Itsbiggest manifestation is the digitization of software definition and the parallelization of virtualandrealinteraction.Firstofall,inthenewera,thecontemporarysignificance ofITisneitherinformationtechnology(“old”IT)norindustrialtechnology(“obso- lete”IT)anylonger,butintelligenttechnology(“new”IT).Secondly,thethreeITs ix x ForewordII abovemustbeintegratedtojointlydevelopKarlPopper’sthreeworlds:the“old”IT isthemaintechnologyfordevelopingthefirstworldofphysics,the“obsolete”ITis thecoretechnologyforbuildingthesecondworldofpsychology,andthe“new”IT is the key technology for exploring a new artificial or virtual third world. And the “new”IThaslaidfoundationforAItobecomea“hotspot,”datatoturnintomineral resources, and for the IT of the age to be replaced by the “new” intelligent technology. As such, human history has moved from Karl Jaspers’s first axial period, the second axial period of the Renaissance to the third axial period dominated by the intelligentrevolutionandcharacterizedbyparallelcoexistenceofreality andvirtu- ality.Atthelevelofknowledge,wehaveexperiencedthreeperiods,thephilosoph- ical system emerging from the great awakening of human nature, the scientific systememergingfromthegreatawakeningofrationality,andtheintelligenttechni- cal system emerging from the great awakening of spirituality. At the development level,wehavealsogonethroughthreestages,thefirstwaveofglobalizationfeatured by“negativesum”andwar,thesecondwaveofglobalizationdistinguishedby“zero sum” and free trade, and the third wave of wisdom globalization characterized by “positivesum”andall-wininclusiveness.Thisisathinkingparadigmshiftoriented to increment rather than stock. It is a development logic that can maintain the sustainable development of human society and determine the trend towards “a community with a shared future for mankind” 2. To this end, we urgently need to developcorrespondingnewideas,newmethods,andnewsystemsineconomicand socialtheories.Thebookisnvitalbasicpartofthisworktowardsthisdirection. Thefocusofthisbookisdigitaleconomics,whichhasbeentheconceptandfield promoted strenuously by young scholar Liu Zhiyi in recent years. Obviously, to establish a complete and new concept and method system for intelligent economy andintelligentsocietyisunlikelytobecompletedinashorttimeandrequireslong- term efforts. However, the author emphasizes that the study of digital economy should take complex systems and complexity science, especially the principle of evolutionandemergencemechanismasthecore.Iquiteagreewithhimonthispoint. Inthis book, theauthor carriesoutextensivediscussion with multidisciplinaryand interdisciplinary ways from perspectives such as thought, cognition, ecology, sys- tem, technology, paradigm, rule of law, ethics, figures, and prospect of digital economy and intelligent economy to provide useful materials for further in-depth andsystematicresearch.Besides,thebookcloselycombinestheideasofhistoryand thecurrentfashionwiththepresentpopulartechnologiesandcommercialoperation, which makes up for the deficiencies of its kind. These treatises are often too old-fashioned and abstract, and even out of touch with society and their times. I believe that readers are sure to find something new and useful for their further thinking,analysis,andresearchiftheyfollowtheclueofthebook. In fact, some topics in this book can be used as a starting point for in-depth exploration. For instance, the topic, “Politics of Prescription,” in Chap. 10 on the revival of conservatism is of great significance. The concept of prescription is not onlyimportantintheeyesofRussellKirk,thefatherofAmericanconservatism,but alsothecoreconceptofhis“sixenduringprinciples”ofhumansocietyorofhisten
The list of books you might like
