I have sent out a monograph I have written to my son and several close friends. The monograph is, metaphorically, the top floor of the building I have been constructing about the the structure of modern commerce.
You will get to read it soon.
My son points out a key problem in explaining modern commerce: it is invisible.
I am considering the following paragraphs to deal with the invisible nature of the lives we lead, heedless of invisibility.
The most fundamental factor in our life is invisible; the oxygen in our air. We can't see the sound we use to communicate nor the temperature of the air we are immersed in.
Standing in a kitchen we can’t see the temperature of the water coming out of the faucet, nor can we see that the water is safe to drink. The water leaves our kitchen through pipes and a vast underground network of invisible tunnels. We cook on a stove that gets electricity invisibly through dormant copper wires or pipes carrying methane that appear to be empty. Or we use the invisible electric waves that are contained in our microwave oven. We have a digital clock on the oven that keeps us in sync with friends, family and strangers in our daily activities along with the smartphone in our purse or pocket that relies on a clutter of radio waves travelling around and through us.
Our modern kitchen has a refrigerator driven by invisible exotic gases. It keeps the air inside cool enough to suppress the growth of invisible microbes, parasites and micro fauna that is eating our food. Food that includes fruit and vegetables that came from Chile a few days ago and a piece of tuna that was part of a fish caught near Ireland, sold in a Tokyo market and flown in two days ago.
We are standing in the world of modern commerce which is global, involving billions of people working together and it is invisible to us. The origins and growth of modern commerce are invisible too.
Do those four paragraphs help as the introduction to a monograph on modern commerce?