ABSTRACT
The first thing to say may well be that—again contrary to what most everybody believes—it will not be a future of expanding, free markets as we have understood free markets, that is, as markets for the exchange of goods and services. On the contrary, those markets may well shrink, if only because the growth sectors of tomorrow’s society are surely going to be two knowledge areas, health care and education, neither of which has ever been, or will ever be, a truly free market. “Free market” tomorrow means flow of information rather than trade. Beginning in 1960, manufactured goods began to decline in terms of relative purchasing power, that is, in terms of trade, against knowledge goods. Between 1960 and 2000, prices of manufactured goods, adjusted for inflation, fell by almost three-fifths, that is, by 60 percent. But the most important certainty is that the next society and economy will have a totally different social complexion.
