COORDINATION The Main Technology of Humanity

Abstract

This monograph proposes a radical reframing of human history through the lens of coordination—the mechanisms by which billions of strangers align their actions. Arguing that coordination, rather than energy, capital, or the state, is the primary technology of civilization, the book traces the evolution of this technology from collective memory in small communities to money as a universal "information compressor." The author demonstrates that money, while a brilliant engineering compromise that enabled global scale, achieved this by radically simplifying reality. In the monetary signal, human talent, integrity, long-term consequences, and pedagogical contributions disappear. Society pays for this compression with an "economy of excess costs"—a gigantic layer of intermediaries (financial, legal, bureaucratic) that service not production, but the limitations of the information transmission mechanism itself. Building on the historical socialist calculation debate (Mises, Hayek) and recent advances in agent-based modeling, the book posits that artificial intelligence offers a way beyond this historical compromise. AI is framed not as a digital dictator or a replacement for human labor, but as a potential new coordination technology capable of multidimensional accounting and direct feedback. The author outlines a "two-circuit architecture" for the future, separating strategic political competition from everyday life, ensuring systemic stability even under self-interested elites. This work is intended for scholars and readers in economic history, philosophy of technology, institutional economics, and science and technology studies (STS) seeking to understand the past and future of civilization beyond conventional debates about money and power.