Author of machiavelli.net, proud father of three, interested in shaping network society. Welcome to my blog.revolutionary transaction costs – keeping the revolutionaries honest
Today in the Monterrey Forum, we discussed two interesting projects trying to revolutionize human life – the use of Web 2.0 applications in municipal government in Japan and the idea to create transnational republics, responsible for introducing democratic accountability concerning global issues, through the issuance of a world currency.
It was interesting that both presenters were able to show that the benefits of their idea (government 2.0 and transnationalism) outweighed the costs by far not only in absolute terms, but also relative to other potential solutions. However, we were informed, that at this point in time both projects are absolute failures.
A member of the audience introduced the analytical framework of revolutionary transaction costs to think about the feasibility of revolutions. If we cut up transaction costs into “final-state costs” (the number that the presenters were using) and “getting there costs” (the resources that need to be invested to get the world on board), we might have an interesting framework to evaluate revolutions and other transformations (and to keep revolutionaries honest).
