End of the Market

* Book: The End of the Market. The rise of the service economy and the death of the market-clearing price

URL = https://sites.google.com/site/theendofthemarket/home

Contents

Chapter 1 The irresistible rise of the market-clearing price The End of the Market begins with the history of the search for the origins and meaning of prices. The cast includes Aristotle, Jesus Christ, the Prophet Mohammed, Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman.

Chapter 2 The renaissance of value End of the market shows how economic theory of all schools fails when applied to services, now accounting for 80 per cent and more of the GDP of most advanced economies. In intangibles, value is created solely through human interaction at the level of the individual rather than through insitutions like corporations and markets. The theory of value is reconceptualised with only two factors of production: the relationship, where value is created, and the process, which supports value-creation.

Chapter 3 Economic growth in service economies The End of the Market examines the broader implications of the new economic ideas emerging as a result of the rise of service economies and value-creating communities in which a growing proportion of people in advanced economies work.

Chapter 4 The business organisation in service economies The End of the Market investigates the implications for businesses supplying services.

Chapter 5 The role of the state in service economies The End of the Market addresses the issues facing the state in advanced economies where services account for the majority of output. Seeking to regulate unstable service economies and struggling to avoid massive waste in its own activities, the modern state needs to focus on process activities and provide the basic infrastructure that individuals need to create value in economies where services are dominant.

Chapter 6 Concluding Thoughts The End of the Market concludes with a meditation on the implications of the rise of service economies and suggests that the liberal era in which society was supported by enforceable rights is coming to an end and a new era where intuitively-defined communities bound together by obligations at the level of the individual will be the engine for economic and social progress." (https://sites.google.com/site/theendofthemarket/home)

Summary of Theses

by Edmund O'Sullivan:

"*The emergence of the market-clearing price as the central factor in economic affairs was followed by a steady decline in the contribution tangible good production made to economic output. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, more than 80 per cent of GDP in many advanced economies was accounted for by services (intangibles-- Chapter 1).

• The economics of intangible production and consumption invalidates the role of price in stimulating production, consumption, saving and investment in service industries (Chapter 2)

• Value in intangible production is created through interactive relationships at the individual level among participants in service markets (Chapter 2).

• Technology has led to the separation of the process -- the tangibles and mechanisms that support value-creation – from the relationship at the individual level where value is actually created in services (Chapter 2).

• In intangibles, markets and industries necessary for the production and consumption of tangibles are being replaced by intuitively-defined communities within which individuals interact to create value (Chapter 3).

• Companies producing intangibles will face a growing calculation problem because of the decline of the validity of price as a stimulant of service production and consumption (Chapter 4).

• Companies producing services with horizontal structures, minimal centralised decision-making and no external financial liabilities will have a competitive advantage compared with competitors that do not (Chapter 4).

• The separation of process from relationship in value-creation in service industries will encourage companies to focus on one of the two critical skills in service value creation (Chapter 4).

• Governments will face increasing challenges in creating value in the service markets they participate in and should concentrate on the process elements of service value-creation (Chapter 5).

• The rise of service industries raises questions about ideas of social and economic progress that have been dominant for two centuries (Chapter 6)"

(http://theeconomicrealms.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-end-of-market.html)