Wakanda, technological advancement without market and ecosystem to scale
By now, I think most of everyone watched Black Panther, right?
Now, what is so interesting for you about the movie, Wakanda, the cast, the stories, the battle, the technology or the ideology?
Yes, the Black Panther has many interesting points. For me, it’s the Wakanda technology.
Ok, I know that Vibranium is not real, its only real in Marvel cinematic universe. But, let’s imagine that Vibranium is real and some hidden and close kingdom of Wakanda has managed to master it and use it for many different purposes, from cloth to communication device.
The key point I want to stress here is the hidden and close factor or the Wakanda. It makes we wonder. How or is it possible to a closed society develop such as advancement in technology on their own.
Again, I know it is just a movie, but is it possible?
Let’s back to our reality.
I’m not an economist, but I understand more or less how our world and our economy works.
In our world, we have supply and demand, we have people that prepare the raw material, people that change that raw material into a product that in some way, have demand in the market, or someone creates the demand so we buy the product.
Even, in our world, especially now, having a raw material supplier and some factory to process is simply not enough anymore. Take Shenzen in China. You may able to design and develop a good smartphone but you live in Nairobi than you’re out of luck. You can’t just build a factory in Nairobi to produce it because Nairobi just doesn’t have the ecosystem that supports all the supply chain to manufacture a smartphone.
Last, in our world, if you want to design, develop and manufacture, there are so many costs to cover. And one of the way business justified a product is the economy of scale. How big is the market, how much we will produce related to the tooling cost of the manufacturing, how long is the product lifecycle, and how is the ROI.
Wakanda simply doesn’t have all of that …
So, is there a way around this?
Is there any different economic system that can support Wakanda like society?
What if there is a driving force that moves the civilization to become so advance beyond money and profit like capitalism?
To be honest, I don’t have the answer. At least not yet.
But, just like the idea of helping others because we can. From the Black Panther, I also like the idea that technological advancement should be possible without the constraint or the motivation behind the classic capitalism.
If we find the model, maybe is going to have a positive impact on our society.
