TUESDAY LUNCHEON
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
12:45-1:15 p.m.
The Knowledge Economy: Peace and Prosperity through Productivity
Our economy divides into three parts: the transformational economy, which includes producing finished goods from raw materials; the transactional economy, where human beings do routine or machine-like work; and the knowledge economy. In principle, there is no ceiling on the productivity of knowledge workers. Knowledge is abundant, not scarce, and doubles every five years. It is virtually free of pollution, it shows increasing returns to scale, it is accessible, and it pays its practitioners well. It does not respond to the theorems of the productivity economy, which is ruled by scarcity. Rather, it carries its own laws which will transform the future of nations, and the world.
Tor Dahl, founder, president, and CEO, Tor Dahl & Associates; economist, consultant, and adjunct associate professor in public health, University of Minnesota; chairman emeritus, World Confederation of Productivity Science, White Bear Lake, Minnesota. He served as the Governor’s Representative on the Minnesota Coalition on Health Care Costs, and on the blue ribbon task force on State Health Priorities.
key words: knowledge economy, productivity