The Diversity, Complexity, and Evolution of High Tech Capitalism

This study re-examines some of the main portions of the discipline of economics from the point of view of economic change and creativity. There are two aspects to this perspective. First, diversity and complexity: the range of different kinds of high technology products available to consumers and producers increases rapidly. As these hierarchies grow, they deliver ever more diversified and complex high tech goods. Powerful new corporations will emerge. Second, self-organization and evolution: living organisms spontaneously establish patterns and order. So does the economy. Some of the patterns of the economic world used to be large, vertically integrated corporations and multinational corporations. This structure is now falling apart and new industrial patterns are emerging: small, narrowly specialized corporations. The author argues that the US economy is currently experiencing a turbulent "phase transition", moving from one phase of capitalism to the next. New species of corporations, markets, and economic institutions are emerging.