hackonomics
hak&-'nä-miks
<p>n. A burgeoning social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of information in an un-regulated copy-culture.</p>
<p>The world seems on the verge of a dual economy, much like that of communist nations in the early part of the last century. Incumbant industrial interests, in an effort to protect their outdated business models, collectively vie to impose a global economy based on the enforcement of copyright laws antithetical to the natural flow of information goods in a networked world, thus driving those markets underground.</p>
<p>That underground market is the realm of hackonomics.</p>
<p>The world seems on the verge of a dual economy, much like that of communist nations in the early part of the last century. Incumbant industrial interests, in an effort to protect their outdated business models, collectively vie to impose a global economy based on the enforcement of copyright laws antithetical to the natural flow of information goods in a networked world, thus driving those markets underground.</p>
<p>That underground market is the realm of hackonomics.</p>
Origin: [Middle English hakken, from Old English -haccian; akin to Old High German hacchOn to hack, Old English hOc hook + from L. oeconomia, from Gk. oikonomia "household management," from oikonomos "manager, steward," from oikos "house" (cognate with L. vicus "district," vicinus "near;" O.E. wic "dwelling, village;" see villa) + nomos "managing," from nemein "manage"]
rec'd June 28, 2005