First, for Dr. Dartnell: Please create a category for members of the forum to contribute book titles.
Second, I just read a lengthy commentary on a new book about transition from capitalism to something else.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/j ... lism-begun
The commentary's author mentions Karl Marx has having envisioned an information based society, but (of course) he was decades ahead of the present time.
I see in this discussion the potential for reducing the scope of the problem Dr. Dartnell is addressing, which (as I understand it) is the vulnerability of the current networked civilization to any of a large number of potential failure modes. A way to reduce the scope of disaster is to reduce the size of communities which are interdependent. That goal is entirely consistent with the similar goal of designing communities which can exist comfortably in locations away from Earth, including free flying habitats in addition to planets or moons.
The millions of displaced people on Earth today are a source of potential build-sites for self-sufficient communities.
I don't see anything in the existing market system capable of taking advantage of the opportunities the refugees represent.
(th)