The Intention Economy

23

EmanciPaytion

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.

—Nelson Mandela¹

The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.

—Milton Friedman²

THE ARGUMENT

The market will have many more dances when customers can take the lead.

Somewhere in the vast oeuvre of John Updike, I stumbled across this line: “We live in the age of full convenience.” It stuck my mind because it seemed perfect, yet had never been perfectly true—and never will be. In life, we often want more than we can get, and the delta between the two contains opportunity.

For example, sometimes when I give a talk here in the United States, ...