Many people have been expressing a
same idea using the two words, “Development” and “Expansion”,
alternatively. These two words,
however, have significantly different meanings.
Development should be viewed as a qualitative change, while Expansion on
the other hand, ought to be considered as a quantitative change. Most of all,
they depend on each other. This
fact is identified in the both systems of nature and economies.
Development,
as many people think, is just a process of which an object evolves into one or
multiples of new objects. Unfortunately
things turned out to be more complicated. First
of all, things that are considered as complex, even slightly, are essentially
differentiations of something that is very simple and basic.
For an instance, in a nature system, a rod was used as a weapon to fight
wild animals in the Stone Age. Later
on people had learned that a rod with a sharp end--now known as a spear--could
be a much better weapon. When
society had advanced to Iron Age people had learned to produce durable metal
spears. Spears, table legs, light
posts and chopsticks, commonly seen today, are various kinds of differentiations
from a simple wooden rod. Same
pattern is found in economies, a local store that sells electrical parts can
develop into a larger shop that sells not only parts but appliances as well.
A larger shop then has the potential to open several other shops in town
and as time passes by it would have the ability to open more shops in other
places of the country. Eventually
the owner of a little store can evolve in to a C.E.O. of a national enterprise.
Now that we have enough facts to show that both development in an
ecosystem and an economy system is essentially a process of differentiation
emerging from generality.
However, the
world would be different should we only had spears and chopsticks.
What makes the world fulfilled of so many intricate things is the second
nature of Development, that is, that the differentiations themselves become
origins that generate more differentiations.
Spears are good, but heavy to carry; our smart ancestors then invented a
shorter and lighter version of spears with a feather at the rare end--an arrow.
Not long after broad head arrows were invented, many new kinds of arrows
have emerged. Examples would be
arrows that make a sharp sound for giving a signal, arrows with explosive ends
to achieve more damage and the ones with sacs of water at the tips to
distinguish torches, commonly used by medieval thieves.
There is no need to mention that missiles and rockets are more advanced
version of arrows. In terms of
economies, consider the local shop we mentioned before.
Once it becomes larger, it is possible to divide the shop into two parts,
one of which still sells the parts, while the other can start the business of
fixing electrical appliances. When
enough funds are accumulated, the shop can then start import new appliances and
sell them. Literally there is no
end for the development of the shop, for there are plenty of new ways it can
choose to extend its business. Therefore
a simple object, which originally emerged from an even simpler object, can be
the origin of many other new objects. Once
again this is true in both an ecosystem and an economy system.
We are now
ready to look at the final part of the nature of Development.
Development cannot exist without other co-Developments.
In an ecosystem, tigers cannot live long without eating smaller animals
like goats. But the goats’ lives
in turn depend on green plants. Plants
on the other hand needs sunlight, water and nutrients from the soil.
Sunlight is naturally given, but water cannot be obtained should there
are no rainfall. Nutrients,
furthermore, would vanish soon if no more bacteria decompose the body of other
animals like tigers themselves. It
is rational to think that should one of these creatures did not exist, hardly
any one the series would be able live on. Same
scheme is identified in an economy system.
A high-tech company’s C.E.O. is as well an ordinary human, meaning
he/she needs food and water. Therefore
there would be no Bill Gates of Microsoft or whatsoever if bakeries stops baking
breads and civil engineers stop constructing underground aqueducts.
But people in the bakeries will not be happy to make bread should they
have no place to live, which forces society to develop new careers like house
designers and workers to build houses. Enough
examples have been listed to show the importance of co-Development in the
systems of nature and economy; one sentence that best describes the point would
be: “An economy consists of interdependent relationships, competing and yet
also knitting together co-Developments.”(Nature of Economies, P22)
At this
moment we can conclude the nature of Development as follow: “Differentiation
emerging from generality. Differentiation
becomes generalities from which further differentiation emerge.
Development depends on co-Development.”(Nature of Economies,
P16-19) Development is seen as a
qualitative change because once and once again new species are produced.
These species are more advanced in many aspects when compared with their
ancestors. Each step of generating
can very well be view as a raise in the quality.
This change in quality reminds us of another kinds of change, that is,
the change in quantity, which is what we are referring to as “Expansion”
here.
The iron law
of nature states that “every organism and every machine needs infusions of new
energy from outside itself or it comes to a halt.”(Nature of Economies,
P53) Since our goal here is
not only to exist but also to expand quantitatively, this law apparently applies
to us. Expansion needs a constant
source of energy input. In an
ecosystem, energy is practically the sunlight.
It is free and consistent. Green
plants contain chloroplasts that will turn sunlight into sugar and oxygen.
Sugar is consumed by the plants themselves, while oxygen is released into
the air, which in turn benefits animals. Small
animals like rabbits will then eat the plants and later on be eaten by larger
animals like wolfs and foxes. Energy
is not lost through the entire process or cycle though, only its form has been
changed. Energy flows in the
ecosystem like a river. In an
economy system, on the other hand, same thing is happening, but only a bit more
complicated. The first major
problem we have to ask ourselves is, what is the energy input?
Unlike an ecosystem where consistent sunlight is used as the primitive
energy input, we have nothing to start in economy.
Notice that most popular economical ports and hubs have or at least used
to have abounding natural resources. One
suggestion would be that we might be able to combine these natural resources
with human work. Logs can be
chopped and ores can be refined. These
nature resources become the energy input of the economy system.
Once businesses in the system have accumulated enough funds by exporting
these Earth’s gifts, they can start import the goods that they don’t have or
produce originally. As soon as
these goods enter the market, more ways of consuming this energy (goods) are
shown and depending on how people choose to let the energy pass on, their
economy lever and trend will be different.
This leads us to our next question in Expansion: How is the energy used
or waster? Another way of saying
this would be, how to let energy release its maximum amount of good?
The general
principle it that if the energy in an ecosystem is converted and repeatedly
converted, combined and recombined, cycled and recycled, the value of the energy
will be maximized. Think of the
arctic area as an example. Everyday
sunlight has been released there, but year after years, there are hardly any
creatures living there because the environment is too cold.
Hardly any of the energy input is being used to produce, not to mention
being reused or recombined. In this
case most of the energy is wasted and it comes out of the system without being
stretched. While in a tropical
forest, equal amount of sunlight is given, but thanks to the moisture and
warmth, energy flows through green plants, then insects who live on plant
leaves, then small animals who feed on insects and finally large animals who eat
small ones. Energy is being reused
and recycled for so many times that literally every species are benefited from a
single energy in the form of sunlight. We
now focus our sight on economy. If
a local businessman imports goods but simply sells it to only a few people he
knows and consumes most of goods himself, the energy flow is being halted at
that point, meaning many other business are left alone without sharing the
energy flow. Should these goods
needs to be refined, it will benefit local blacksmith who will be performing the
job. They could as well be stored
in the warehouse, where the warehouse’s owner becomes part of the conduit
which energy flows through. The
more evidence the energy flow leaves, the more people and enterprises it
benefits, the better the quality of the system would be and the quicker it will
expand and better the economy will be.
The
essential link between Development and Expansion is diversity and energy.
Because of the rule of “differentiations emerge from generalities”,
Development creates diversity. With
diversity, energy will then be reused, recycled and therefore its value is
maximally extracted. Once its
maximal value is obtained, more energy is reinvested into the system.
The primary condition required by diverse Development, is again energy.
In general, Development and Expansion are tight integrated; they cannot
exist—if they do, very difficultly—without each other independently.