ABSTRACT
New computer and communications technologies emerged that would temporarily rescue global growth. There was a growing belief during the Progressive Era in the early twentieth century that public education could propel society forward together. Steve Ballmer's USAFacts is an example of a first step in a process that will lead the construction and growth of social capital in the decision economy. In a modern Followership world in which everyone in the global economy must follow everyone else to the future, artificial intelligence will allow for something that the technology limits of the past would have made impossible: technology can now follow people. Accounting is wrapping up its Followership role of the twentieth century where, alone, it provided decision-making information to investors and managers who then used that information to promote the interests of financial capital–thus building the durable networks of people that grew as a result.
