I do not deny that both post-modernization and industrialization are still in progress. In my opinion, the “third Industrial Revolution,” which is now being rapidly advanced, will probably enter the breakthrough stage and will produce new leading industries, such as computer and digital industries, in the not-too-distant future. However, I would like to say that a core social change of today is that the modern age itself is reaching maturity. Modernization started with the formation of so-called sovereign nations or military states, mainly in Europe, in the latter half of the 16th century. After approximately 200 years, that is to say, at the end of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution started toward the industrial society. And today, since the latter half of the 20th century, modernization has been moving toward informatization as the third stage.

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     From this broad perspective, the information society is still a part of the modern society, although it has changed from the traditional concept of modern society in some points. First, there is a major change in people’s consciousness and behavioral patterns. At the first stage of the modern society, “fights” and “battles” counted for a great deal. This sense of value was based on the concept that goals could be accomplished through fights without hesitation in this world. People used to say without embarrassment that “even peace should be achieved through fights.” Next, people began to point out the importance of “competitions.” They said that “it was a competition that would produce wealth and social progress.” And today, people in the information society have started to think as follows: “collaboration is more important than competitions, especially in making good things happen” or “means are certainly important, but a more important power in the future will be brain power (chiryoku) or fame supported by brain power (chiryoku) rather than political power, economic strength and funding ability.”

    In addition, organizations have started to play different kinds of games. In the traditional modern society, modern sovereign nations were playing a so-called “power game” at first: they were competing with one another to become powers by waging competitions and wars for boosting and enhancing national prestige, occupying foreign territories and annexing them based on treaties. After this stage, companies started to play a capitalistic “wealth game.” However, in the information society, although both nations (governments) and companies still exist, a lot of new organizations that I would like to call “brain activity organizations (chigyo)” (in general, they are called NGOs, NPOs or CSOs, that is, civil society organizations) are being established to play another kind of social game. It is neither a wealth game nor a power game; it is a “reputation game” or a “brain game” (according to my expression). This is the core social change in “informatization.”

    In the information society, decentralized collaborative networks will be ideal organizations, instead of vertically integrated large organizations that were typical in the 20th century. Existing political and business worlds will surely be affected by the change. I think that so-called “e-governments” and “e-commerce” can be considered also as incidental changes when the flow of “informatization” is penetrating the political and business worlds. In other words, the whole modern society, which started as a military society and shifted to an industrial society, is now moving toward the information society.

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     The “Capital” starts with a sentence that “the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities,’ its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.” Now, let me replace “capitalist mode” with “brain power mode (chihon shugi),” “production” of commodities with “generation” of knowledge and information (sanchi), “wealth” with “brain power (chi),” “commodities” with “knowledge and information to be shared (tsushiki),” and “accumulation of commodities” with “accumulation of knowledge and information to be shared (tsushiki base).”

    The “Brain Power Theory (Chihonron)” will start with the following sentence: “the brain power of those societies in which the brain power mode of generation prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of knowledge and information to be shared,’ its unit being a single piece of knowledge and information to be shared. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of knowledge and information to be shared.” I think that this is the sentence that should be written on the first page of a textbook on micro infosocionomics. If “brain power” in the information society is considered to be equivalent to “capital,” it can be defined as a “self-organized moving body of knowledge and information,” and people who embody the concept will be called “brain power persons (chihonka)” or “brain business persons (chigyoka)” and will come to the forefront in the future.

    “Commodities” are goods and services that are produced for sale from the beginning. The aim of producing commodities is neither to use them privately nor to give them to other people, but to sell them. In principle, all goods and services are produced as commodities in the capitalist world. On the other hand, in the information society, almost all knowledge and information are produced not for sale, but for sharing. It is needless to say that some of them are produced and sold as commodities, but the overwhelming majority is produced for free-of-charge sharing from the beginning. Therefore, I would like to call that kind of knowledge and information “knowledge and information to be shared (tsushiki).”

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     Modernization in Japan, which had already started in the age of provincial wars (Sengoku Era) at the latest, experienced a “breakthrough” stage from the Meiji Era through the Showa Era. What served as the driving force was “Westernization,” through which Oriental and Occidental modern civilizations made the second contact with each other. In the 16th century when the two cultures made the first contact, Japan at first enthusiastically accepted two “G”s (god and gun), which were elements peculiar to the Western civilization, and then abandoned them. Through the second contact, Japan received two “I”s (imperialism and industrialism). Nowadays, modern societies are about to simultaneously enter the “maturity” stage, not only in Japan, but also in the United States and Europe. I think that, as a result, the two “I”s will be probably abandoned. It is far past the time when Japan saw the last of imperialism (with military strength). Japan has not shown any sign of parting with industrialism (toward wealth) yet, but it is reasonably expected that the world will enter a new stage, separating from industrialism, probably in the coming decades.

    The process of “Westernization” in Japan can be clearly summarized as three S-shaped waves (waves of militarism, industrialism and informatization) that appeared every sixty years, or as long waves (*4) with an upward cycle of 30 years and a downward cycle of 30 years. It may be unbelievable, but this view can be applied also to the past quite well, at least to the beginning of the age of provincial wars.

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     In the present-day society, if “revolutions” equivalent to the Industrial Revolution and people’s revolutions in the past industrial society break out, they will be classified into the following two types. First, if we understand that a social revolution is an “emergent” process toward a new social order beyond the intentions of individuals and groups, the ongoing digital revolution and information revolution exactly fall within the definition. With new sources of power as typified by information technologies, the society will change beyond the intentions of individuals, and a new social order will be created. On the contrary, if we consider that a social revolution is a “generation” process of a new artificial and political order, we will be able to understand that a “brain power revolution (chimin kakumei)” will break out after people’s revolutions (bourgeois revolutions) in the past. In other words, those who are not satisfied with the dominion of the old power that has been hampering the development of informatization, or those who see themselves as key players in the new power, will emerge as a political force on purpose to hold power. We may probably experience a “revolution” in both meanings. At any rate, the society will not drastically change without such a new power and those who play a key role in it.

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     In principle, infosocionomics is the study of new types of social changes in the information society, including the diffusion of a “brain game” and the outbreak of a “brain power revolution (chimin kakumei).” That is not to say that industries and nations will not exist any more in the information society; studies on these objects will be still needed. On the contrary, in the process of the third Industrial Revolution, all kinds of new goods are being produced, and the economy is growing based on those goods. In particular, both “digital goods” and “positional goods” are very important new goods. Online game items and characters serve as prime examples of the former category, and the typical examples of the latter one are portals that attract many people, rights of putting ads on popular websites based on a result of retrieval, etc. They can be sold at high prices because they produce new scarcity.

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