Monday, June 13, 2011

Society Learning Curve - Evolution of Economy System

Economy had been existed since the stone age or ice age. Ever since human start to shift their life from hunting animal and living in cave to erecting simple shelter along the river side, and finally able to grow crops; economy system is there. The first economy system is system barter. People trading to each other from their surplus commodities to other commodities. Fisherman trade fish to farmer who raise chicken for instance. Unfortunately, the system are not robust to maintain the stability of market. Inefficiency of trade, fairness of trade, and lack of regulation of trade, making the market into chaos. Then, people start to choose a leader to lead them, regulated them. A chief become mayor. Mayor become governor. Governor become king and emperor. Then, kingdom and empire is born. The market system evolved from a simple trade of surplus commodities to a more complex system - feudalism. Assets, labor and commodities today was called as soil, human and tools. Emperor and Kings hold absolution in regulate and shaping the marking economy system in according to his or her wish to be. Hierarchy is formed. People living in tradition, with no free will to choose their place in society. Bloodline and family will dictate your destiny. Then, 16-century, revolution come, and invention of steam machine. Industrialization set in. Productivity raise, and standard of living become better. Then, scholar started to officially started to use the word "economy" as a representative subject of social market study. He who study the economy then called economist. Many economist raise to question the existing market system, and eventually daring to challenge and introduce doctrine and idea of market system which could making the economy more stable and prosper. Adam Smith the most profound economist introduce a free liberal market system which eventually evolve into what we call today capitalism system - laissez faire market. Others like Karl Max, John Stuart Mill introduce utopia communism and utilitarianism. Some idea is accepted by certain society and nation, some otherwise. Then about 500 years after industrialization age, human civilization come across a test by time with events and challenges; new economy as technology evolved - the information age (World wide Web & Computer). By old wisdom and continuously evolution throughout century, today we are able to enjoy a very much efficient market - social capitalism. Yet, the system still have flaws, perhaps more insidious problems on it as ever before, since the complexity are much more complex. As we speak, we shall not be complacent or too proud of what we have achieved and created, as evolution is not a destination, but a journey of progressiveness improvement. It is just part of our learning curve.

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