Talking about the hope, trouble and practice of Web3: technology and system, who is the primary productive force?
Original author: Li Jun, founder of Ontology
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productivity myth
In a conventional context, many daily discussions about productivity are involuntarily linked to hard technology, the big bang, machinery and equipment, and so on.
Indeed, from an intuitive point of view, the progress of a technology, including the progress of manufacturing technology and production capacity, has indeed directly promoted the development of the entire society, but no matter from a historical or global perspective, there is another The question is equally important, that is, why these technologies were born, and why they were born here instead of there. This has become an important issue of technological development.
Furthermore, because the comparison of productivity can be viewed from a macro perspective, the production capacity of the entire human race can be represented by the most advanced regions, groups, countries or companies. At the micro level, everyone, every country, every organization, and every individual are actually more concerned about their own productivity, their competitive advantage in the big environment, and their ability to compete in the competition.
Therefore, the commonly used productivity indicators for evaluating different regions, different organizations and countries now use a total factor productivity, which is not daily. We are accustomed to thinking that the development capabilities of science and technology also include organization and collaboration, etc. More dimensions and evaluations.
"Total factor productivity" refers to "the efficiency of production activities within a certain period of time". It is a productivity index to measure the total output per unit of total input, that is, the ratio of total output to all factor inputs. The growth rate of total factor productivity is often regarded as an indicator of scientific and technological progress, and its sources include technological progress, organizational innovation, specialization, and production innovation. The part of the growth rate of output exceeding the growth rate of factor input is the growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP, also known as total factor productivity). The general meaning of total factor productivity is the efficiency of the development and utilization of resources (including human, material and financial resources). From the perspective of economic growth, productivity, capital, labor and other factor inputs all contribute to economic growth. From the perspective of efficiency, productivity is equal to the ratio of the output of the national economy to the total input of various resource elements within a certain period of time. In essence, it reflects the ability and effort of each country (region) to get rid of poverty, backwardness and develop the economy in a certain period of time, and it is a comprehensive reflection of the role of technological progress in economic development. Total factor productivity is an index used to measure production efficiency. It has three sources: first, efficiency improvement; second, technological progress; third, scale effect. In terms of calculation, it is the "residual value" after the input of factors such as labor, capital, and land are removed. Since the "residual value" also includes the failure to identify factors that bring about growth, conceptual differences, and measurement errors, it can only be compared Measures the extent to which benefits improve technological progress. "
From this evaluation dimension, although there are three elements, it can be regarded as the joint cooperation of the two elements that are often talked about. The first is the progress of technology and technology, which is also the way of productivity improvement that we are familiar with every day. The other is It can be summed up as the efficiency of organizational collaboration. The latter can be regarded as the improvement and progress of production relations, so in a comprehensive sense, the capabilities of an organization are the simultaneous progress of technology and production relations.
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Technology and Institutions: Who is the Chicken/Egg
The institutions discussed in this paper do not refer to political institutions in a narrow sense, but various coordination mechanisms in a broad sense. In the debate on the importance of technology and institutions, there are basically two schools of thought, one is that technology promotes institutional changes, and the other is that institutions incubate technology.
For example, the industrial revolution in history is an obvious technological revolution from an intuitive point of view. The technological innovation represented by the steam engine has brought industrial production to a new height. But from another angle, look at industry from a more detailed perspective. The process of revolution is not a technological breakthrough at a certain point in time, but small technological changes and accumulated technological changes over a long period of time, and people who were in the middle of industrial civilization at that time, I didn't feel that they were going through some sudden breakthrough technological changes, but that many things were slowly accumulating and came to life naturally. It can be said that even if there is no Watt, the steam engine will be born at that time, but there may be another person or several other people appearing at the same time. The fact is that many new inventions and breakthroughs in the fields of basic science and technology at that time were invented by different people in different places in Europe at the same time, which proves that the accumulation of science, technology and culture in Europe at that time had reached a certain level. New technologies and models emerge naturally.
But there is another question. In what areas are these new technologies born and developed? Is it accidental or inevitable, or is it the result of some other factors behind it? Comparisons can be made in a narrow sense of science and technology. Although the Industrial Revolution has always been considered to have occurred in the UK, when compared horizontally with the level of science and technology, the UK is not absolutely in the lead. France on the other side of the strait also has very profound basic science and technology talents, but most of the technological innovations of the industrial revolution ultimately took the UK as the main foothold and source of development. What is the reason behind this?
A large number of studies on the history of the industrial revolution have found that Britain's advantages in system construction and collaborative mechanism construction helped incubate the birth of the industrial revolution, such as its patent system, and its social and political system dominated by industry and commerce. All allow more technologies to be born and incubated. Or transfer to the UK to flourish. So from this perspective, the collaborative mechanism or system is an important catalyst and soil for growth of technology. Although technology is a kind of shared knowledge of all mankind, it is very important where this technology occurs, where it is used, and even where it is controlled.
However, because of this analysis, it is easy to fall into the comparative advantages of the political system in a narrow sense, and many subsequent constructions have emphasized the political system as the core element, thinking that as long as a certain advanced political system is adopted, all other developments Progress happens naturally, but look back. After all, many countries with very similar political systems also have great differences in economic development and technological development. Some countries with completely different political systems have also developed very good, different iterative paths of economic development and technological development.
So everyone gradually realized that the system is a good foundation and incubator for technological and even economic development, but a lot of attention is only focused on the political system in a narrow sense. As far as organizations are concerned, it is the establishment of organizational rules and structural divisions in a narrow sense. It is believed that the adoption of some advanced political system or corporate governance structure will naturally bring about technological development or economic development.
Historically, this process has encountered a large number of contradictions. Many top-down good planning and good designs have not achieved the expected results in the end, and even brought negative and catastrophic effects. What is the core reason? In the development of technology, productivity, and society, there are a large number of uncertain factors and uncertain environments. A single top-down plan will play a role in promoting at certain points in time, but it cannot achieve long-term results. , continuous perfect control and design.
Therefore, there is a new idea that the system or coordination mechanism is not designed, but emerges from the bottom up by the society itself.
More than 100 years ago, Tocqueville, a young French political scientist, made his first inspection of American democracy and wrote the book "On American Democracy". The spirit of association, citizenship, social cooperation and participation in social governance are the key elements to ensure the integrity of this system and its continuous operation.
And another American sociology book, "Bowling Alone", observes from another angle and finds that because new technologies, such as television and the Internet, make people's communication more independent, so in the physical, Communities and organizations are less and less participating in social governance around them. They also pointed out with concern that this trend is a threat to the American political system and democratic system, because its bottom-up soil is becoming more and more Weak and split, it is difficult to support the better and luxuriant growth of this big tree.
So many people soon discovered that just designing a good collaboration system according to the template cannot solve the problem once and for all. Because in actual collaboration and social development, there are a large number of new scenarios, new collaboration methods, new business processes, and new social governance needs in social and economic development, which will continue to emerge, only relying on a set of well-designed The so-called perfect system is difficult to solve long-term problems once and for all. Even in the new situation and environmental changes, such a perfectly designed system may actually hinder development.
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Social Capital: Land to Plant Giant Trees
The previous section mentioned the bottom-up breeding soil of a society. There have been many studies in this area, including the aforementioned civic communities and social studies in the United States, which are also studied in the interdisciplinary fields of sociology or anthropology in China. The behavioral culture of crowds, and so on. The concept of "social capital", which has been very popular in recent years, is also an important point of view in this regard. Social capital is a measure of the quality of a social soil.
The earliest concept of social capital in a narrow sense is the resources available to individuals in society. Subsequently, many sociologists also proposed that social capital is a characteristic of the infrastructure of the whole society, and it is the social soil and social capital needed for organizational collaboration, economic development, and social governance development. The following is one of the generalized society capital definition.
"The similarity in the connotation of social capital is reflected in the fact that researchers either regard social capital as a productive resource to promote cooperation among actors in a social network, or as the ability to promote individuals to obtain resources and benefits in a social network. Scholars will The essentials of network, trust and normative social culture are supplemented into the theoretical framework of social capital, which enriches the connotation of "social capital".
From the broad definition of social capital, it can be seen that social capital is a comprehensive evaluation index, which includes a society’s culture, organization, collaboration methods, citizens’ concepts, and the degree of perfection of various infrastructures. Simply put, It is whether the fertility of the social soil in this area is good or not.
Just like farming, when you have a very fertile land or a relatively ecological environment, you can naturally grow into a place with ecological diversity, and the types of animals and plants will also be very rich. Promote each other, each other. The cross influence forms a positive cycle. Putting it into the real society, this will eventually lead to the prosperity and development of regional or national company organizations,
From this point of view, going back to the previous article, during the industrial revolution, the United Kingdom first sprouted before the European continent. It is also because of the cultural and political development of the United Kingdom in the hundreds of years before the industrial revolution. Economic development gave birth to the formation of such a social soil.
The social capital that breeds a system that is conducive to technological innovation and technological development is not only a single institutional factor, just like the patent system that will be better in the UK, it is also because of its previous ideas, culture and social capital. During this development, these concepts were formed naturally.
From this perspective, social capital can be regarded as an upgraded version of the system, a root cause, and the soil constituent elements that grow towering trees.
In the past, many people have talked about the complementary relationship between so many technologies and systems, but now it leads to the relationship between WEB 3 and them?
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Web3: a combination of technology and system
I have talked about the integration and incubation of so many technologies and systems before. From the perspective of WEB 3, it wants to create a soil that can freely iterate and innovate, social capital or grassroots soil. But as mentioned before, no matter from the Glorious Revolution promoted by British industrial and commercial capital to the obedience of the Industrial Revolution, and the formation of the social mechanism and civic spirit of the American social system, they are more or less spontaneously formed by history and religion. , cultural and other reasons, and WEB 3 is to realize a bottom-up, free collaboration infrastructure for the society.
What are the core elements of Web 3? Some people may mention decentralization. Of course, there are degrees of decentralization, so this single element may not be enough to fully summarize web 3. From my personal point of view, the core element of web 3 is to give people the "tools" and "concepts" to collaborate freely without relying on third parties.
Historically, in all kinds of collaborations of major commercial societies, there will be a certain dependence on third parties. New collaboration systems, collaboration tools, and collaboration platforms need to be supported by different providers, and this provider It will be like a link embedded in the collaboration process.
Without Internet companies, we may not be able to do social networking, e-commerce transactions and a large amount of online work. Without the services of financial companies, we will not be able to do more large-scale transactions and capital cooperation, etc., all of which are caused by The third party provides you with collaborative support. Of course, such support is not free and will inevitably become part of the transaction cost. In addition, because of the third party's control over information, data, matching power, etc. in the intermediary link, a series of problems such as monopoly and privacy have been derived. Furthermore, you can only choose existing third-party services to complete your collaboration. If your collaboration tasks are special or have no third-party support, many of them will not be able to obtain effective support even if you are willing to pay the cost.
Therefore, the concept of WEB 3 also arouses people's hope, love and vision from two aspects of technology and system. Technically, a series of technologies can indeed be used to allow everyone to have a common decentralized collaboration tool. In the early days, but in constant iterations, everyone can do various collaborations. In terms of concepts and concepts, it has brought you a new concept of free collaboration, free combination, and self-control, a free combination of free people, which has formed a special concept.
Of course, you will also see the confusion encountered in this process. First, Web 3 itself is a concept that advocates bottom-up emergence, bottom-up free combination and decentralized collaboration, but web 3 has not yet been applied to the mainstream on a large scale. The concept of Web 3 itself Planning from a big concept, the vision planning of web 3 is also a concept first. Then this is between top-down planning and bottom-up emergence, how to find a balance? That path is the main driver of the next phase of web 3.
In addition, between free collaboration and core promotion, when you only have free collaboration without effective execution capabilities, you cannot provide more effective services to the society. The idea touches many people, but many times when it comes time to actually use the service or even define it, the idea and interests create conflicts, and sometimes there are obstacles, and not everyone is willing to pay for the new idea.
At this stage, the concept of WEB 3 itself is more like a proposal of a concept, and even designed such a decentralized collaboration concept from top to bottom, so its birth also has a certain bottom-to-bottom Because frankly speaking, WEB 3 has not been widely used in a large number of mainstream application scenarios, and is still in the early exploration and concept stage of development, so there will be many new hopes, contradictions, and ideas in the middle. Confusion and uncertainty, expect these problems to be resolved in the process of continuous innovation.
