I like the approach of mapping the economic factors of production to Resilience.

I think this relies to much on classical economics. Current economic thinking recognizing that the factors of production are muchmore intangibale then the ones you present.

The intangiable factors are heavy human capital-ish: education, entrepanerislm, leaderships, process knowledge, etc.

I like this approach. I think total Resilience might be quantified by assigning weight (1,3,9 for low, medium, high) to each factor and then a score for the country for each factor (1,3,9 for l, m, h)…multiple…add get a toal score.

“Capital” may be the hardest part to measure. Part of Capital surely is Human Doctrine, but that is not the same because, while both the Italian and German tactics in WWII were based on “maneuver warfare,” Germany was able to implement them while Italy was not. To fully measure resilience we would need to operationalize all parts of Orientation — cultural traditions, genetic factors, etc [1] — and it is unlikely that will happen.

I like your paragraph, and the suggestions for measuring this. Another approach might be to use some numeric scale that's based on standard deviation, but even then the main point is that we are now closer to being able to objectively “test” for resilience. Objective tests aren't perfect and aren't the end-all, but it enables a line of research that otherwise would just be writing what seems obvious to us.

Stay tuned for Part II… I wonder if you will like that, too….

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/08/23/boydian-orientation-as-a-political-science-paradigm.html

http://www.howardbloom.net/reinventing_capitalism/

The method I cribbed from the corporate world for product evaluations bake-offs (give much more weight to more important things).

Yep, it can't be measured perfectlyl. Maybe it can be like the GDP though. GDP calculations get many things wrong. What's wrong though cancels out enough that the realitive change from year to year is still an interesting metric.

How much have you read of Reinventing Capitalism? I loved Bloom's previous too books, so I have been thinking about forking over the $40 for a copy…

I haven't read the online excerpt yet, but I agree with you on the $40 barrier. That's even more than the the $34.95 unabridged audio of Bill Bryson's “A Short History of Nearly Everything” I purchased which kept me sane during two bus trips [1] [2]. easily fit on a mini ipod with plenty of room to spare, was excellently produced, and provided a pleasant and very long history of the universe from the big bang to the rise of modern man.

Hopefully Bloom's latest will be printed by regular publisher or at least reduced in price online.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/07/22/a-rant-on-greyhound-bus-travel-in-the-american-south.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/07/28/from-nacogdoches-to-lincoln.html