Revolution

People were still nomads when they roamed the planet five thousand years ago. Their few, priceless belongings were carried by them on their backs and in their hands. They randomly went hunting and gathering food.

After that, there was the Agricultural Revolution, during which time individuals became physically, emotionally, and legally bonded to particular land parcels. They followed a planned strategy when they grew their food. Animals were tamed by them. Significant changes in demographic trends were brought about by this new structure of human existence.

Prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution, another 4500 years passed. Distinguishing the tools of production and raw materials from the land was its principal accomplishment. It also made having an educated workforce necessary. Following this Revolution, cities emerged, providing labor for mega-factories, mass education systems, and leisure time.

People started to have spare time for the first time in history.

To meet the demands of an ever-increasingly complex social and economic structure and the insatiable appetite for amusement, a plethora of organizations, businesses, and institutions have emerged.

Despite popular belief, the service-oriented society was and remains an integral component of the industrial world.

We are currently experiencing the strongest storm on record, dubbed the Third Wave (to use the great coinage of Alvin Toffler). This is the Revolution of Knowledge and Information. It is paving the way for the development of an economy built around the gathering, processing, and distribution of knowledge (the equivalent of processed goods) and information (the equivalent of raw materials). An increasing number of social classes will have access to all of these.

In fact, this is what sets this Revolution apart from its forerunners:

(1) Everyone is able to participate in it, making it egalitarian.

The past two Revolutions required substantial sums of money in order to take part. When capital was lacking, brute force was employed to acquire capital goods, land, raw materials, and other means of production, including extremely cheap labor via slavery.

This Revolution is distinct in that strong ideas, a minimal amount of technical expertise, and increasingly affordable infrastructure are all that are required.

In other words, young people in their garages are welcome to join this revolution (this is how computer titans like Apple Computers and Microsoft were founded).

It does not discriminate based on factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, color, nationality, or sexual preferences. The Great Equalizer is this revolution.

For the first time in human history, the raw resources, production methods, final goods, marketing strategies, and distribution networks are all the same. Let's look at an example of a product being sold online, such as software:

Programming languages are used to write software on computers, which manipulates electronic components inside a virtual environment. As a result, the same elements and components make up the product (software), the production processes (programming languages), the raw materials (mental algorithms converted to electronic bits), and the marketing and distribution channels (Internet-based electronic bit streams).

This explains the low cost of the technology. This explains why the outcomes of the impending Revolution will spread so quickly. Production and distribution will cease to be mysterious and become routine tasks.

(3) Only a small portion of our ancestors were impacted by the Agricultural Revolution. The Industrial Revolution has had an influence on only a portion of them. Over time, the proportion of people who worked the land fell from over 60% to fewer than 3% (in the USA, for example). There is a comparable decline in the demographic segment involved in industry.

But with the Third Revolution, this is not the case:

The information/knowledge revolution, the third and largest revolution of all, is affecting every person on the planet.

We are all surrounded by media, including computers, television, radio, and the Internet. Every month, these goods and services get more affordable, more widely available, and more easily accessible. The new Revolution is all-encompassing and ubiquitous.

(4) The aforementioned traits gave rise to a novel type of economic growth that was decentralized, highly value-added, rapidly evolving, and characterized by short business cycles. It is the only period in human history to be neither colonial nor mercantilist. The importing of raw materials at low costs from the same markets that consumed the finished products (made from those raw materials) at considerably higher prices typified all economic activity in the past.

The ability to exploit people in this way will eventually disappear. Nowadays, it makes no difference where products are made. Even in the case of traditional industrial products, the boundary between finished goods and raw materials is so hazy that the previous one between "colonizer" and "colony" has all but disappeared.

For developing and less developed nations, this has enormous potential.

They would have required enormous sums of money as well as other non-financial resources in the (near) past in order to be on par with the more developed region of the world. These days, substantially less money is required to get the same outcomes. At long last, the globe is becoming into what Western media guru Marshall McLuhan dubbed "The Global Village". What matters more is what you think rather than where you are. The entrepreneurial spirit, inventiveness, improvisation, and creativity are highly valued in the global economy.

All nations in the globe, developed and developing, rich and poor, off-center and on-center, have equal and abundant access to these new mental commodities.

The outdated economic theory that held that economies evolved from agricultural to industrial to service is being supplanted. Countries like Macedonia are encouraged by the new economic paradigm to transition straight from the agricultural to the information and knowledge sectors of the Third Wave. These industries are more suitable for Macedonia because they are profitable, easily understood and implemented, accessible, affordable, and constantly growing.

Macedonia won't be the first nation to adopt such a risky strategy of eclipsing the Industrial stage and entering the Information Age first. Israel, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and (to a certain, cautious extent) India have all already done this. These were all by nature underdeveloped nations. A portion of them are merely deserts, while others are extremely overpopulated or remote islands devoid of life. However, they all succeeded in becoming deeply entwined with the developing revolution. They all have the highest per capita GNP in the world, apart from India, which is a recent, hesitant entrant.

The risk has paid off.

However, there is an intriguing benefit to making this decision.

Dealing with symbols instead of realities is the transition from the industrial to the information technology and knowledge sectors. Regardless of the nature of the symbols, the same methods are always employed to manipulate them. If a nation is successful in producing skilled symbol operators, they will be able to manipulate, operate, and change any type of symbol.

This also holds true for money, which is the most significant symbol of all.

As everyone knows, money is a symbol. It stands for a consensus that a group of individuals has achieved. It is worthless in and of itself. It is easy to manipulate the symbol known as money using the same methods that are used to manipulate information.

A nation is more adept at handling financial transactions of all kinds the more proficient it is at processing symbols, or information. It has a greater chance of drawing investments, creating thriving money markets and stock exchanges, developing young professionals, trading, and generally becoming woven into the very fabric of the contemporary global economy.

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