It depends who and where you are. For some people in parts of Detroit the old economy is already gone. If you overlay a map of credit card transactions onto the city its pretty easy to see where currency-based activity is alive and well. The reputation economy in the places in between is harder to track. However, it exists in the minds of people. Personal endorsement and sweat equity matter.

Is the OP referring to the actual old economy or the hybrid transitional economy? Because if it's the latter, I don't see it going away anytime soon in the setting, if ever for the foreseeable future. The new economy is far from flawless and thus far only seems to work in small, "self-sustained" societies (quotation marks because I'm pretty sure most autonomist habitats are not 100% self-sufficient). Elements of it are incorporated in the hybrid economy, however, and seems to be working just fine.

The difference between the old and new economies seems to come down to how easy it is for an individual to get their hands on a CM. Mind you, even the new economy does not completely decentralize the economy, as certain goods can't really be produced without some kind of specialized machine (antimatter, nuclear isomers, large amounts of power, qubits) which are unfeasible for everyone to have. Economies where the consumers of goods do not have direct access to a CM probably have quite a long life left in them, but the PC may not have all that much time. The old economy also is much better at using alternatives to nanofabrication, which still have plenty of advantages (nanofabs are power hogs compared to other methods fabrication in their specialized areas, and a lot of habs are power-limited) Most economies will probably end up somewhere transitional, except for remote locations where the new economy makes more sense, and areas with security concerns (CMs are WMDs if the wrong people get their hands on them after all). My guess is 5-15 years before the only purely old economies left are poorer Jovian habs which lack the panopticon/policing force to make CMs safe (which might be almost all of them). I don't think there will ever be a complete transition to the new economy, as even places like Locus are still transitional. (though not corporate)

Trappedinwikipedia wrote:

The difference between the old and new economies seems to come down to how easy it is for an individual to get their hands on a CM. Mind you, even the new economy does not completely decentralize the economy, as certain goods can't really be produced without some kind of specialized machine (antimatter, nuclear isomers, large amounts of power, qubits) which are unfeasible for everyone to have. Economies where the consumers of goods do not have direct access to a CM probably have quite a long life left in them, but the PC may not have all that much time. The old economy also is much better at using alternatives to nanofabrication, which still have plenty of advantages (nanofabs are power hogs compared to other methods fabrication in their specialized areas, and a lot of habs are power-limited) Most economies will probably end up somewhere transitional, except for remote locations where the new economy makes more sense, and areas with security concerns (CMs are WMDs if the wrong people get their hands on them after all). My guess is 5-15 years before the only purely old economies left are poorer Jovian habs which lack the panopticon/policing force to make CMs safe (which might be almost all of them). I don't think there will ever be a complete transition to the new economy, as even places like Locus are still transitional. (though not corporate)

It's not just access to nanotech manufacturing. EP is not a true post-scarcity society, as detailed in Panopticon. Besides items like the availability of CM, you additionally need ample resources, including certain rare materials like heavy elements, radioactives, etc. It should also be noted that most of these rarer resources are relatively abundant in the inner system capitalist Old Economies economies like the PC, LLA and Morningstar, and scarce in the outer system home of those who embrace the New Economy (the transitional economy Extropians, primarily in the asteroid belt, have resources, but do not seem poised to embrace an entirely New Economy system any time soon). Another issue that run parallel to resources is power (which requires significant resources). Do not forget that as you move far out past the sun, easy energy like solar is not particularly viable. Expansion for a growing population also needs significant power and resources (and organization and a security apparatus). Further, the discussion about the purported inevitability of the New Economy fails to discuss the inherent flaws and risks in New Economy reputation-based societies. Despite the propaganda (the EP in-setting perspectives and fiction are purposefully and expressly written by mostly die-hard Autonomists), there are many left-behind in such cultures, particularly as these society grow and expand. Those with unpopular ideas in New Economy zones are often worse off than the poor in Old Economy areas. As history dictates, revolutions by the oppressed are not only a product of the left. If history is a guide and indicator of human nature, it should not be forgotten that the "inevitable" end to "capitalist oppression" and similar collectivist calls have been heard for centuries. Even after near extinction and mature nanotechnology, the Old Economy is alive and well in most of settled space (and as a group, these polities have the biggest guns). Claims that the Old Economy is definitely on its way out, at least in short and medium terms, appears to be little more than aspirational (and maybe a little author and reader wish-fulfillment). However, if and when a -friendly- ETI arrives and gifts transhumanity with magical Star Trek replicators and teaches us how to voluntarily end greed and disunity, I might change my opinion. :)

Well, in relative terms "on it's way out" could mean a steady decline over a few hundred years. And I say that mostly because the Transitional Economy is a thing that exists and does okay for itself. You combine it with internal social pressure and general technological trends, and eventually some shift is bound to happen. And once you start shifting, is it proper to contextualize yourself as the "Old" economy, not transitional? The pervasiveness of the rep system is a good example. Only societies like Jove would be able to enforce such a rigidity. And they have the mechanisms to hold off or contain societal pressure anyway. I agree with lots of people that the more extreme elements of the Planetary Consortium will have to shift as they work through more and more indentures, or they're gonna end up skipping from shooting their feet to hacking it off as more Morningstars and Barsoomians crop up. Personally, I find the terminology (Old, New and especially "Transitional") almost comically biased, but it's the words we work with. I'm not the economics professor or talking head who in the distant past-future coined the terms (Five bucks says Titan).

branford wrote:

It's not just access to nanotech manufacturing. EP is not a true post-scarcity society, as detailed in Panopticon. Besides items like the availability of CM, you additionally need ample resources, including certain rare materials like heavy elements, radioactives, etc. It should also be noted that most of these rarer resources are relatively abundant in the inner system capitalist Old Economies economies like the PC, LLA and Morningstar, and scarce in the outer system home of those who embrace the New Economy (the transitional economy Extropians, primarily in the asteroid belt, have resources, but do not seem poised to embrace an entirely New Economy system any time soon). Another issue that run parallel to resources is power (which requires significant resources). Do not forget that as you move far out past the sun, easy energy like solar is not particularly viable. Expansion for a growing population also needs significant power and resources (and organization and a security apparatus). Further, the discussion about the purported inevitability of the New Economy fails to discuss the inherent flaws and risks in New Economy reputation-based societies. Despite the propaganda (the EP in-setting perspectives and fiction are purposefully and expressly written by mostly die-hard Autonomists), there are many left-behind in such cultures, particularly as these society grow and expand. Those with unpopular ideas in New Economy zones are often worse off than the poor in Old Economy areas. As history dictates, revolutions by the oppressed are not only a product of the left. If history is a guide and indicator of human nature, it should not be forgotten that the "inevitable" end to "capitalist oppression" and similar collectivist calls have been heard for centuries. Even after near extinction and mature nanotechnology, the Old Economy is alive and well in most of settled space (and as a group, these polities have the biggest guns). Claims that the Old Economy is definitely on its way out, at least in short and medium terms, appears to be little more than aspirational (and maybe a little author and reader wish-fulfillment). However, if and when a -friendly- ETI arrives and gifts transhumanity with magical Star Trek replicators and teaches us how to voluntarily end greed and disunity, I might change my opinion. :)

I don't quite understand this comment, the tone sounds like you're disagreeing, but I don't see a single point of difference. The majority of the system is a transitional economy already, including three of the four navies worth noting (LLA, PC, TC) which are already based in transitional economies. The only true old economy left is the Jovian Republic, and as soon as they come up with public fabbers that pass CBEAT (might be hard) they're a transitional economy as well. New Economy=/=Rep Economy, though old economies do not use rep. There are anarchist transitional economies, such as Locus, which has a ton of fairly centralized agriculture, and there are corporate or state new economies, as said on page 63 of the core book. Its worth noting that there is only one reference to rep in the write up for a new economy in the core rules. Now how long until the PC or LLA are replaced by some other form of government, or how long until everyone is using rep exclusively? Those are much harder questions with a lot of weird answers like: "Everyone goes full Rorty before we find out" throwing off any attempt to answer them.

So, p 61, Core book. Short version, Old Economies feature centralized control of the means of production by the government or other manufacturer, and take no form of payment other than traditional currency. This basically just means Jupiter and some small holdouts. Transitional economies distribute use of nanofab between centralized sources but also offer public-access or privately held fabricators, but public access units are restricted to non-hazardous, non-electronic objects. Reputation or hard currency work as the means of exchange. since Luna, Mars and Venus are listed here, I posit the PC is also Transitional. New Economies are the "post-scarcity" (even though they have scarcity) model, where anybody under certain criteria (Public Works or Citizenship) gets access to anything they need via common goods, and fabricators are probably more distributed than ever (even though the book technically doesn't say, it spends more time waxing about how the New Economy is awesome without bothering to actually draw the connection for me on how we jump from "people can make whatever they want if they have the blueprints and materials" to "and all your basic needs are met!") which works best for decentralized and collectivized habs. So while technically, the New Economy is synonymous the Reputation Economy (as opposed to just a reputation economy) the reputation element is not actually the defining one, rather how nanofab is distributed. This section also predicts all the actual Old Economies will be dead in 20 years, but since that's almost literally just Jupiter, I might actually hold off on that. No idea if they can make Fabbers or CMs meet their standards to start throwing them up on street corners like coke machines.