Information Space (RLE: Organizations)

Chapter 8

Conclusion

ABSTRACT

Economic growth and development today is limited less by the availability of physical resources than by environmental constraints on their utilization. Increasingly, it is the output rather than the input side of the physical transformation process that is causing concern. Putting the lid on economic growth, however, would create intense conflicts between societies at different levels of development. Yet this need only be so if we continue to think of our planetary resource endowments in purely physical terms.

In Chapter 1 we saw that under certain circumstances information resources can effectively be substituted for physical ones but that whatever substitution occurs is the fruit of a learning process. Orthodox ...