Product Description

Are the new technologies of the information age reshaping the labor force, transforming communications, changing the potential of democracy, and altering the course of history itself? Capitalism and the Information Age presents a rigorous examination of some of the most crucial problems and possibilities of these novel technologies.

Not a day goes by that we don't see a news clip, hear a radio report, or read an article heralding the miraculous new technologies of the information age. The communication revolution associated with these technologies is often heralded as the key to a new age of "globalization." How is all of this reshaping the labor force, transforming communications, changing the potential of democracy, and altering the course of history itself? Capitalism and the Information Age presents a rigorous examination of some of the most crucial problems and possibilities of these novel technologies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1528631 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-01
• Released on: 1998-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 254 pages

Review
From the Industrial Revolution to the "Electronic Republic," capitalism is on a wild ride of instant, computer-generated growth. Among all the factors that impact capitalism, the dramatic revolution in electronic communications has the widest, quickest, and most far-reaching influence. With such unrestrained technological development, the Information Age has produced both good and evil, and this collection of fourteen critical essays looks at the issue from different perspectives. The contributors include scholars, political activists, journalists, sociologists, and computer experts, all men and women prominent in their fields. Among the subjects discussed, essays include topics like the globalization of economics, communications and the politics of education, neoliberalism in cyberspace, propaganda, and socialist self-management of technology. This is pretty heavy stuff, full of scholarly prose, cyber-jargon, and mass media lingo, and clearly targeted towards a narrow audience. All agree that communication technology, especially computers, has become an indispensable part of today's capitalism and global economy, but then opinions differ on the price we pay for this advancement. The question arises over the legitimacy of ownership and control of global mass media, with grave concern over the possibility of a global oligopolistic corner on the market. Have computers and television created a captive audience ripe for propaganda manipulation? Some pundits believe that the Information Age has actually shifted economic power from institutions to individuals, while others suggest just the opposite is occurring, disenfranchising millions of people and increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. Certainly provocative, this book asks many questions, but offers few answers. -- From Independent Publisher

About the Author

Robert W. McChesney is professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy and Our Media, Not Theirs, and co-editor of Monthly Review.

Ellen Meiksins Wood is co-editor of Monthly Review; author of many books, including The Pristine Culture of Capitalism (1991) and Democracy Against Capitalism (1995); and co-editor of In Defense of History (1995).

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review. He is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and author of The Ecological Revolution, The Great Financial Crisis (with Fred Magdoff), Critique of Intelligent Design (with Brett Clark and Richard York), Ecology Against Capitalism, Marx’s Ecology, and The Vulnerable Planet.

Customer Reviews

Uninformative Essays about the Information Age
In such a fast-moving field like information technology, it is not fair to criticize a five year-old book for being outdated. That is an issue for some of the essays here, such as the submission by Nicholas Baran from the mid-90's, in which some inaccurate predictions about the development of the Internet are made, like an incorrect perception of how wireless access technologies would develop. While that's an issue that can be mostly forgiven in hindsight, this book suffers from a more timeless problem of lack of usefulness. The most successful essay here is the introduction from editor Robert McChesney, with serious ideas about the future salience of capitalist markets in light of the cyber revolution. This is purported to be the focus of the other essays in the book, but the results prove otherwise. Submissions range in an uninspired fashion from ivory-towered theoretical exercises (Ellen Meiskins Wood) to non-analytical economic or technological histories (Jill Hills and the aforementioned Baran). A conversational lecture from Noam Chomsky is out of place, while his colleague Edward Herman merely summarizes his book that should be read in its entirety for any true insights. The submission from Michael W. Apple on the Channel One network in school classrooms comes quite close to a very important analysis, but ends abruptly with a diversion to the author's previously published works. In the end, a few informative essays on globalization issues (Peter Golding) and grassroots politics on the Web (Ken Hirschkop) can't save this book, as it does not accomplish the goals implicit in its title and introduction. [~doomsdayer520~]