Internet and the Economy

Francis Cairncross, Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives, Harvard Business School Press 1997

• An easy read that touches most of the bases.  Easily accessible for the reader interested in  broad trends concerning the economy, society and culture, and government and the nation state.  

• An early entry into the field of internet impact books in which the author attempts to identify where the internet is taking the economy.  Paul Krugman, an MIT economist, refers to it in an Amazon review as a book "that force your thoughts out of their usual grooves."

James Dale Davidson & Lord William Rees-Mogg, The Soverign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age, Touchstone Books 1997

• A long read centered around the premise a "the new revolution of power which is liberating individuals at the expense of the twentieth-century nation-state." (p15).  They believe the world is at the beginning of the "most sweeping revolution in history" and set out to outline the implications of the revolution.   The theme is that revolutions such is this can be traced to changes in the evolution and control of violence.  

Michael Dertouzos. What Will be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives. Harper Edge 1997

• As Director of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, Professor Dertouzos is in a good position to describe what lies in the future, where technology is headed.  In addition to a description of the technologies, you will also find some discussion of some of the potential problems associated with the emerging technologies including information overload and inequality. 

Philip Evans & Thomas Wurster, Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy. Harvard Business School 1999

• What will the internet do to your business - to your job?  These are questions being asked by increasing numbers of people as the information revolution rolls on, and these authors, executives from Boston Consulting Group.  Where others in the list are looking at broader social impacts of the revolution, Evans & Wurster focus attention on the impact on the corporate world.  

• Amazon Review: Striving for excellence or building to last is one thing. Sustaining superior performance over the long haul is another matter entirely, as longtime McKinsey & Company executives Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan persuasively point out in Creative Destruction. Based on a concept first advanced some 70 years ago by economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Foster and Kaplan propose that corporations can outperform capital markets and maintain their leadership positions only if they creatively and continuously reconstruct themselves. In doing so, they can stay ahead of the upstart challengers constantly waiting in the wings. The decidedly radical paradigm that they champion has been urged in one form or another by others since Schumpeter, but this effort is particularly convincing because of the massive research the authors cite to back it up: McKinsey studies of more than 1,000 corporations in 15 industries over 36 years.

Robert Frank & Philip J. Cook, The Winner-Take-All Society, Penguin 1996

• Not really an internet book, but it is a valuable read because of the insights it offers into the network economy.

William Greider, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. Touchstone. 

• "IMAGINE A WONDEROUS new machine, strong and supple, a machine that reaps as it destroys... Now imagine that there are skillful hands on board, but no one is at the wheel.  ... The machine is the subject of this book: modern capitalism..."  You will not walk away with the same optimism as those reading Yergin & Stanislaw, but you will get a good read on a great social transformation which is the subject of this course.  

Kevin Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy , Penguin Books 1999

• A short read in which the author attempts to create order out of the new economy, an economy he believes “has three distinguishing characteristics: It is global.  It favors intangible things – ideas, information, relationships.  And it is intensely interlinked.  These three attributes produce a new type of marketplace and society, one that is rooted in ubiquitous electronic networks.” (P 2)  When all is done, Kelly reduces the new economy to ten rules with some interesting titles including "From Places to Spaces" and "Follow the Free."  

Peter Ludlow (ed), High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace, The MIT Press, 1996

• a collection of essays from a wide array of authors ranging from academic scholars to unknown hackers covering a number of difficult questions such as privacy, hacking, property rights, and censorship.    

• For those thinking about owning a house, it might be a bit unsettling to read Rifkin's view of the future where he sees property being devalued.  As he sees it, the "role of property is changing radically [and t]he implications for society are enormous and far-reaching." (p3)  Rifkin sees the transformation into a service economy leading us into hypercapitalism where people own little but pay for nearly all of their experiences.  A thought provoking work from a critic of the emerging new economy.  

• A recommendation from a trusted high tech executive who thought it provided valuable insight into his world.  He was right, the authors did deliver on their promise to show that "durable economic principles can guide you in today’s frenetic business environment.”(p1)  Although it is a bit of a difficult read for a novice to economics and the discipline's jargon, it is a useful guide to the network economy. 

Dan Schiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. MIT Press 1999

• This one is downloadable to be read on the computer at a substantial discount, a fact that provides some insight into the possible impact of the net.  Schiller, a communications professor, provides a view of the internet from the dark-side and should be a good read for those buying into the internet utopia concept.   

Peter Schwartz, Peter Leyden, Joel Hyatt, The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity, Perseus Books, 1999

• For those looking for an upbeat read.  A book overflowing with positive scenarios.  Using a popular technique of looking backward, they see people in 2050 looking at the "forty year period from 1980 to 2020 as encompassing a critical shift from an Industrial Age economy to an Information Age economy, or a Knowledge Economy, or what we will simply call the New Economy.” The shift will be brought about by "megatrends-technological change, economic innovation, global integration, and spreading democratization – [that] have picked up momentum since the early 1980s…”  

• Adds an international dimension to the digital divide question.  If information is power, then the barriers to information flows are important and Wresch explores the barriers that separate the 'information-poor' from the 'information-rich.' 

Daniel Yergin & Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That is Remaking the Modern World, Touchstone 1998 

• Not explicitly related to the internet, but certainly a story worth reading for anyone interested in where the world might be headed, on how society will satisfy the basic economic questions in the future.  And it is about the world, including chapters on India, Britain, China, and America with exceptional detail about the personalities that shaped the policies.  The theme that weaves its way throughout the book is the changing balance between the market and government in allocating resources - a balance shifting increasingly toward the market.  As the authors see it, the "market forces that had seemed radical and beyond the pale [in 1979] ... has become the new consensus." p 373.