Central banks. Central government. Central command. Central headquarters. What do all these have in common (besides the word central?).
The 20th century was the age of combination, globalization and centralization, the 21st will be the age of decentralization, localization and distributed networks. These cycles have happened before in human history. There was, in essence, a global economy – just with much slower transit times and information flows – during various periods in antiquity. We have had decentralized periods – such as when city states and kingdoms were prevalent. There have also been various periods of centralized bureaucratic states, such as the ancient Egyptians. Clearly none of this is new – the passions of man never change and thus everything goes in cycles.
“Nothing is new under the sun” per King Solomon.
What are some drivers of this change and possible outcomes, both positive and negative? Rather than a lengthy post all in one, we will be writing a series on different topics we believe are causes, correlations or effects of the trends. Generational trends generally do not change easily once in motion, so this will be more analysis – with some linking articles and interesting reading – rather than armchair quarterback recommendations.
Some topics we will cover in this series:
Supply chains
Automation
Political environment
Agriculture
Wealth creation and distribution
Information and Communication
The Entrepreneurial Underground 