Smart Economy of a Connected World

Books come into being when language can carry the weight of lived experience and, when experience comes, it is brought about through language. “Smart Economy of a Connected World,” with the slogan “A message from the future of a transformative new economy for humanity,” crossed that threshold: a new attempt at redesigning the geography of understanding at one point between the very hot, flaming fire of discovery and the cool, astute patience of appraisal. It talks about a world that is constantly hurtling forward on the restless momentum of tools, but whose endurance lies not in iron and fire, but in the rules we adopt and the responsibilities we accept. These pages try not to fatten catalogs but to show the bones of meaning; not to join the clamor of names but to take the measure of the human relation to time, to knowledge, and to the ordering of the world around us.

Technology is not about glorifying tools; it is the discussion of consequence measurement: speed is not synonymous with virtue, and complexity, unless hardened into a method, will always mean confusion. The economy and institutions discuss power, which, like invisible rivers, runs through the lives people lead every day. And when ethics and rights show up, no order can last without a covenant of justice. This book pursues, in its modest way, to restore the balance, or at least the opportunity to recover a fair balance between productivity and human dignity, invention and caution, freedom and responsibility.

The author does not find easy certainties on this path. Here, to reflect is also responsibility: the responsibility to know what we know and to confess what we still do not know; to honor propositions’ testability and to resist the spell of metaphors when they pretend to stand in for reasons. Once again, for this reason, the text will come back again and again to the “rhythm” of appraisal—claim, reason, example, tension, and bridge tying one to action. Understanding is supposed to prove its worth only in the field of decision and deed, and otherwise knowledge merely adorns the shelves instead of lighting the way. The world does not need words that shout or whisper, but clear voices on which to build decisions. This book wishes to count itself among those voices.