The Fourth Economy

Ron Davison argues that a fourth economy, built on entrepreneurship, is emerging and will differ from the information economy as much as that one differed from the industrial economy. In his account, the West since medieval times has passed through agricultural, industrial and information economies, each of which reshaped religion, politics and finance. The last century spread knowledge work, moving from an industrial economy that relied on child labor to an information economy that relied on adult education. This century, he predicts, will spread entrepreneurship, change what it means to be an employee and transform business. Among his forecasts is that the next generation will find social invention as ordinary as the previous century found technological invention.

Marvin Liao, a partner at 500 Startups, named it in a Book-Talk interview among the books that completely changed how he saw the world and pushed his life in a new direction.