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The microchip has become--like the steam engine, electricity and the assembly line--an advance that propels a new economy. Its impact on growth and productivity numbers is still a matter of dispute, but not its impact on the way we work and live. This new economy has several features:
It's global. Money now respects no borders. With clicks of a keyboard, investors trade $1.5 trillion worth of foreign currencies and $15 trillion in stocks worldwide each day, putting errant or unlucky nations at the mercy of merciless speculators.
It's networked. Handbags from Italy and designer shoes from Hong Kong are available to Web surfers throughout cyberspace; clerical work or software programming can be outsourced from anywhere to workers in Omaha or Bangalore; and the illness of a child in Bali can be diagnosed by a doctor in Bangor.
It's based on information. In today's knowledge-based economy, intellectual capital drives the value of products. In addition, from 1990 to 1996 the number of people making goods fell 1%, while the number employed in providing services grew 15%.
It decentralizes power. As the transistor was being invented, George Orwell, in his book 1984, was making one of the worst predictions in a century filled with them: that technology would be a centralizing, totalitarian influence. Instead, technology became a force for democracy and individual empowerment. The Internet allows anyone to be a publisher or pundit, E-mail subverts rigid hierarchies, and the tumult of digital innovation rewards wildcats who risk battle with monolithic phone companies. The symbol of the atomic age, which tended to centralize power, was a nucleus with electrons held in tight orbit; the symbol of the digital age is the Web, with countless centers of power all equally networked.
It rewards openness. Information can no longer be easily controlled nor ideas repressed nor societies kept closed. A networked world facilitates free minds, free markets and free trade.
It's specialized. The old economy was geared to mass production, mass marketing and mass media: cookie-cutter products spewed from assembly lines in central factories; entertainment and ideas were broadcast from big studios and publishers. Now products can be individualized. Need steel that's tailored for your needs? Some high-tech mini-mill will provide it. Prefer opinions different from those on this page? A thousand Webzines and personalized news products are waiting to connect with you.
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