The Netocrats
Title: “Les nétocrates” (in french)
Author: Alexander Bard, Jan Söderqvist
Edition: Léo Scheer
Abstract:Feudal lords, capitalist bourgeoisie then knowledge netocrats. Three historical eras, three ways to structure the society. In netocraty, the last paradigm, netocrats architect their power on contacts and knowledge sharing. No more fields and castles or industries and funds. Only matter relevant informations, spread cautiously with the righ people.
As barbars, netocrats are coming with new rules, objectives, ambitions. Conservative positions are swept without. In that society secret management is more important than money. Real and virtual networks are invisible kingdoms where power links are redefined.
Curators, nexialists and eternalists are the three nodes typologies authors introduce to describe the netocrats network.
- Curators are those tireless human filters able to find the relevant information parts and sources into the chaotic data world. They are the myeline of the neural network. They preserve, promote and, reinforce arcs between nodes.
- Nexialists are the real nodes. They are entrepreneurs and real actors of the network.
- Eternalist bring an overall vision and explain patterns happening inside the network.
The society evolution seen by authors could be summarized as in this table (courtesy to nooranch):
Written in 2000, after the internet bubble explosion but before the official capitalist paradigm collapse and Web 2.0 raise, authors reveal, in an incredible premonitory book what gone be the next socio-politico-economic paradigm. It perfectly describes those “Connectors” presented in a previous reading “Le peuple des connecteurs” from Thierry Crouzet.
Futurist and fascinating reading.