Accelerating Integration and Synthesis in the Global Network

Since the beginning of recorded history, radical innovations have always reshaped the world. At the opening of the 21s' century, radical technologies, once rare and unusual occurrences, are taking place at ever increasing rates. At the same time, the combination of incremental innovation based on older technologies and radical technologies are forming ever increasing complex networks that are more rapidly reshaping the world. Understanding the current direction and trends in technology requires an understanding of their effects on, and relationship to, global development trends. The pioneers Kondratieff and Shumpeter, and later Anderson and Tushman, have described a theory of technological cycles related to industrial and economic cycles. However, in the current context of globalization, industrial and economic cycles can be placed in a new and more comprehensive global context that demonstrates that technological development cycles are more related to the larger macro stages in the history of globalization than to economic cycles. This paper proposes that a new framework for understanding the development of technology can emerge from an deeper understanding of the stages of development of the global network that has linked the economies of the world for the past 22 centuries.