Distributed Economies
Encyclopedia
Definition
There is no official definition for DE, but it could be described as a regional approach to promote innovation by small and medium sized enterprises, as well as sustainable development. The concept is illustrated in the figure below, that shows centralised, decentralised and distributed economies respectively.
Features
The relations in DE are much more complex than those in a centralised economy. This feature makes the whole economy more stable - leaf nodes no longer rely on just one central node. It also resembles ecological networks, making it a good practical example of Industrial EcologyIndustrial ecology
Industrial Ecology is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modeled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resources into commodities which can be bought and sold to meet the...
.
A big advantage of DE is that it enables entities within the network to work much more with regional/local natural resources, finances, human capital, knowledge, technology, and so on. It also makes the entities more flexible to respond to the local market needs and thus generating a bigger innovation drive. By doing this, they become a better reflection of their social environment and in that way they can improve quality of life.
The whole concept of DE is not at all a new invention - this is how most pre-industrial economies were organised. However, information technology has opened new doors for the concept: information can be shared much more easily and small scale production facilities (rapid prototyping
Rapid prototyping
Rapid prototyping is the automatic construction of physical objects using additive manufacturing technology. The first techniques for rapid prototyping became available in the late 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used for a much wider range of applications...
) are becoming cheaper.
The DE concept works well with the development of Fab Labs
Fab lab
A fab lab is a small-scale workshop offering digital fabrication.A fab lab is generally equipped with an array of flexible computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything"...
.
Not all industries are fit for DE; for example, many chemical processes only become economically feasible & efficient on a large scale. On the other hand, bio-energy and consumer products are interesting candidates.