Technology or Monetary System: What is the key to progress? — Part I: The case for Technology

Abstract

It seems today there are two competing narratives regarding the question of growth. The first regards technology as the key to our economy, our wealth, and our way of being. The second claims that a proper monetary system is foundational for being able to freely invent and build layers of complexity within our society. In particular, we generate technology inside a society with a monetary system, that values and influences it. However, money itself can be regarded as a social technology, so we are inside a sort of Chicken and Egg problem displayed in the cover image. Historically technology comes before money, however, societies without money don’t look like anything we are familiar with today. Was money the key innovation that unlocked the power of modern society? Was money the fundamental element to extend the principles of natural selection to markets? In this series of posts, I’ll explore some ideas that argue in both directions. First I’ll argue why technology is the key to economic growth and how it’s dependent and independent of a monetary system in part I of this series.

Keith Y. Patarroyo

Researcher Engineer on Chemical Evolution, Digital Chemistry and Unconventional Computation

My research interests include Hierarchical Assembly, Chemical Evolution and Material Computation.