Paul Mason

productivity was off the agenda.

Economists call this ‘extensive growth’ – as opposed to the intensive growth that raises real wealth. In the medium term, a system based on extensive growth cannot survive.

understand that planning is guesswork.

It would work for a while because the ‘memory’ of the appropriate prices would be imprinted on to the system, but once that memory faded, it would collapse in chaos.

we must understand from the outset that neoliberalism can exist only because certain key countries do not practise it.

The ‘network effect’ was first theorized by Bell Telephone boss Theodore Vail 100 years ago. Vail realized that networks create something extra, for free. In addition to utility for the user of a telephone and revenue for the owner, he noticed a third thing: the more people join the network, the more useful it becomes to everybody.

‘the number of users squared’. So while the cost of building a network rises in a straight line, its value rises in an exponential curve.38 By implication the art of doing business in a knowledge economy is to capture everything between the straight line and the rising curve.

And, of course, it cannot be managed peacefully.

And the economy is a world of complex, random events, not simple waves.

Kondratieff was the first person to show the existence of long waves in economic history.