A new paradigm shift in wealth creation
Creating and accumulating wealth is more than just a necessity. For centuries, the practice of climbing the ladder to wealth has led to wars, influenced literature and shaped cultures. Whether wealth comes in the form of money or food, all civilizations have pursued it.
The wealth creation system is based on the current worldview, which in turn is based on how science is studied and perceived. Most people will not be aware of the existing wealth creation paradigms. They will be too busy accumulating and creating wealth instead of dealing with the process that they and their wealth have gone through.
Existing paradigms in wealth creation drive economies, and any flaws in existing paradigms can lead to changes in the foundation of wealth creation. A new science can spark people’s interest and steer investment in different directions. A shift in interests and investments can create new worldviews. With a new science and worldview, a new wealth creation system can be developed. This paradigm shift can be sustained as long as the system is suitable. Again, flaws will be found and changes will be made again. The process continues.
Primitive people were nomads. They moved about and lived day by day, saving little for the shops and subsisting on whatever food came their way. As soon as they settled and as soon as farming became a way of life, people learned to keep provisions. Conserving provisions meant conserving wealth. Possession of wealth gave people the chance to control those who possessed much less wealth. The gap between the haves and the have-nots grew and widened.
At this point, local wealth creation was widespread, and nowhere was this more evident than in the Middle Ages. Wealthy landowners hired poor farmers to work as slaves or feudal lords. Wealth is accumulated by power. Compensation came only if the harvest was successful and if the fruits of the harvest could be sold. Only a few people had wealth and they weren’t very charitable to begin with.
As human skills extended beyond agriculture, the Industrial Age began and centralized wealth creation became the paradigm. Slaves became employees who were compensated with wages and salaries. As payments were standardized, so were companies. Monopolies abounded and competition was weak.
However, science was on the rise, and as more and more people became scientifically educated, more and more people began to understand industry and how it worked. Slowly, competition increased, monopolies were broken up, and jobs once given to a few people could now be filled by many.
With the spread and abundance of industries came advances in science—and with those advances came discoveries that created more jobs. With vaccination came the epidemiologists. With the discovery of DNA came the molecular biologists. With the Internet came web designers, graphic artists, and database creators.
With the advent of the information age came mass privatization. The wealth creation paradigm consisted of borderless communities where anyone could specialize in anything. A scientist can be a journalist but specialize in nuclear physics. An academic might be an economist who consults the government on the feasibility of introducing new agricultural crops. As the World Wide Web slowly crisscrossed the globe, careers intersected and merged.
If the Middle Ages brought power into the hands of the rich of the land, and if the industrial age bowed to those who were rich in industry, the modern age transferred wealth to those who possessed brains. The richest man in the world is Bill Gates, a geek who is still laughing all the way to the bank.
The mass privatization of the modern era has resulted in companies helping each other to get ahead. If a food company wants to get ahead, it must consult scientists to conduct safety tests on its products, nutritionists to declare its products superior, advertising agencies to market its product, and complete e-business solutions to move the brick-and-mortar office to the Internet.
The paradigm is all about teamwork – to create wealth, everyone has to help each other to succeed. They are no longer in less debt to make the bigger ones richer. Everyone must participate in the race, but everyone must hold hands to reach the finish line together.
Some researchers have called this the era of free intrafirm activity, the era of massive decentralization of wealth creation. This is an age where anyone can be rich and in which anyone can do so without answering to a higher power. People don’t just get paid salaries or wages – they can get compensated based on their value or a percentage of what they’ve sold. They can make wealth and get it in different ways.
With the internet bringing people together, the world has become one big family. The potential to create and accumulate wealth is no longer in one person – it is given to many, yet these many elements working separately must work together to succeed individually.
For now, with knowledge readily available and intelligence valued, the current paradigm seems appropriate. How long it will last and what will happen next, however, is still beyond the predictability of today’s brain-driven society.
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