The political economics of complexity : From the information economy to the ‘complexity’ economy

The economics of information allows one to distinguish within the national product the real production from the costs of organization. It reveals a continuous inflation of these costs which, per employee and since 1900, has been twice as fast as the increase of productivity. From this, one can conclude that the growth of productivity comes up against a real ‘wall’ when the costs of organization approach 50% of the national product. This is the essential cause of the present crisis. The author subsequently designs an economy of organization structures applicable to complex systems, such as physical, biological or social systems. He shows how the 50% wall is characteristic for centralized structures. Most economic structures are those where social forces and solidarities are distributed justly among all levels of organization, from local to global ones. They tend to establish themselves by self-organization, but a new political economy applying these principles would, aided by information and communication technologies, accelerate this process.