Thank you so much for your comments. I went back and looked at Perez’s 7 points – may I suggest your analysis of what Perez means is a little skewed as her research states the following,

‘When our economies are shaken by a powerful set of new opportunities with the emergence of new technological capability, wedded to a profound shift in human needs and values,’ extraordinary things happen. Society, says Perez, ‘is still strongly wedded to the old paradigm and its institutional framework.’ Whereas Perez points out, as do many others that, ‘the world of computers, flexible production and the internet has a different logic and different requirements from those that facilitated the spread of the automobile, synthetic materials, mass production, and the highway network.’

So in fact Perez is talking exactly about a new paradigm, that you point to in mentioning that Tapscott is the architect of. Perez’s book was published in 2002, which means her thesis was developed, well before that in the late 90’s

Thank you for stopping by.

Kind regards

Alan Moore

I have been working on the same stuff. I do think however that there is one very big difference with the earlier economic cycles we have experienced. The other cycles (water, steam, steel and oil) were all focused on producing tangible resources. The outcome of the ICT cycle is completely different. We are now producing intangible resources. It is a shift from atoms to bits.

And this paradigm shift (a punctuation point in time, see Penny For Your Thought by Don Tapscott, http://vint.sogeti.nl/?p=1354) is not the transition Carlota Perez means. For her it is just a new economic cycle just like the old cycles. Every 60 years such a cycle occurs. But this cycle – caused by ICT – is different. We say goodbye to the economics defined by the Industrial Revolution. New rules, a new framework is needed.

You can read more of my thoughts on: http://sanderduivestein.posterous.com/

What do you think?