Distributed economy
Distributed economies (DE) is a term that was coined by Allan Johansson et al. in 2005.[1]
Definition
[edit]There is no official definition for DE, but it could be described as a regional approach to promote innovation by small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as sustainable development. The concept is illustrated in the figure below, that shows centralised, decentralised and distributed economies respectively.
Features
[edit]The relations in DE are much more complex than those in a centralised economy. This feature makes the whole economy more stable – leaf nodes no longer rely on just one central node. It also resembles ecological networks, making it a good practical example of industrial ecology. A big advantage of DE is that it enables entities within the network to work much more with regional/local natural resources, finances, human capital, knowledge, technology, and so on. It also makes the entities more flexible to respond to the local market needs and thus generating a bigger innovation drive. By doing this, they become a better reflection of their social environment and in that way they can improve quality of life. The whole concept of DE is not at all a new invention – this is how most pre-industrial economies were organised. However, information technology has opened new doors for the concept: information can be shared much more easily and small-scale production facilities (rapid prototyping) are becoming cheaper.[2] The DE concept works well with the development of fab labs.
Not all industries are fit for DE; for example, many chemical processes only become economically feasible & efficient on a large scale. On the other hand, bio-energy[3] and consumer products are interesting candidates.
See also
[edit]- Decentralized planning (economics) – Type of economic system based on planning
- Distributism – Economic theory promoting local control
- Long tail – Feature of some statistical distributions
- Open-design movement – Movement for product development with publicly shared designs
- Slow design – Social movement
References
[edit]- ^ Johansson A, Kisch P, Mirata M., 2005, Distributed economies - A new engine for innovation Archived September 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Journal of Cleaner Production 2005;13:971-9
- ^ "New York Times - Beam It Down From the Web, Scotty" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
- ^ Mirata, Murat; Nilsson, Helen; Kuisma, Jaakko (August 2005). "Production systems aligned with distributed economies: Examples from energy and biomass sectors". Journal of Cleaner Production. 13 (10–11): 981–991. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2004.12.018.