Dematerialization
Encyclopedia
Dematerialization in economics
In economicsEconomics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, dematerialization refers to the absolute or relative reduction in the quantity of material
Material
Material is anything made of matter, constituted of one or more substances. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to...
s required to serve economic functions in society. In common terms, dematerialization means doing more with less. This concept is similar to ephemeralization
Ephemeralization
Ephemeralization, a term coined by R. Buckminster Fuller, is the ability of technological advancement to do "more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing". Fuller's vision was that ephemeralization will result in ever-increasing standards of living for an...
as proposed by Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
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Dematerialization is the counterargument
Counterargument
In reasoning and argument mapping, a counterargument, also known as a rebuttal, is an objection to an objection. A counterargument can be used to rebut an objection to a premise, a main contention or a lemma...
to the idea that economics is only about 'more is better.' The idea that more is better, a common activist argument which likens economic logic to the logic of a cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
cell, ignores the differences between inputs and outputs, and it ignores the ratio of inputs to outputs.
Dematerialization of securities
In financeFinance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
and financial law, dematerialization refers to the substitution of paper-form securities by book-entry securities. This phenomenon is ancient, since in many small firms that cannot afford printing secured paper-form securities, the securities are often held in a book-entry form, under the control of an attorney who acts as a notary to certify the existence of the securities, as well as their authenticity. Today, dematerialization concerns more and more listed companies in the US (where the process has begun in the sixties) and now in the European Union, where dematerialized securities represent often more than 99% of the securities listed on regulated markets. However, this recent phenomena of dematerialization of securities issued by large firms is mostly undertaken via Central Securities Depository
Central Securities Depository
A Central Securities Depository is an organization holding securities either in certificated or uncertificated form, to enable book entry transfer of securities. In some cases these organizations also carry out centralized comparison, and transaction processing such as clearing and settlement of...
, a national or regional institution holding the notary function, such as the DTC in the US, which itself entrusts banks and investment firms to act as intermediaries between issuers and investors for the custody of these securities. Therefore, dematerialized securities are often referred as intermediated securities, in particular by the Unidroit convention on substantive rules for intermediated securities
Unidroit convention on substantive rules for intermediated securities
The Unidroit convention on substantive rules for intermediated securities, also known as the Geneva Securities Convention, was adopted on 9 October 2009. So far , it has been signed by only one of the 40 negotiating States...
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Dematerialization of the Art Object
In "Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object" Lucy Lippard characterizes the period of 1966 to 1972 as one in which the art object was dematerialised through the new artistic practices of conceptual artConceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
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