internet & social control

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 from ... Manuel Castells: The Rise of the Network Society, massachusetts/oxford 
 1996: blackwell, pp. 58f:

 "similarly , the entrepreneurial model of the information technology revolution 
 seems to be overshadowed by ideology. not only are the japanese, european, and 
 chinese models of technological innovation quite different from the american 
 experience, but even this leading experience is often misunderstood. the role 
 of the state is generally acknowledged as decisive in japan, where large 
 corporations were guided and supported by MITI for a long time, well into the 
 1980s, through a series of bold technological programs, some of which failed 
 (for example, the fifth generation computer), but most of which helped to 
 transform japan into a technological super-power in just about 20 years, as 
 michael borrus has documented. no start-up innovative firms and little role for 
 universities can be found in the japanese experience. strategic planning by 
 MITI and the constant interface between the  k e i r e t s u  and government 
 are key elements in explaining the japanese prowess that overwhelmed europe and 
 overtook the US in several segments of information technology industries. a 
 similar story can be told about south korea and taiwan, although in the latter 
 case multinationals played a greater role. india's and china's strong 
 technological bases are directly related to their military-industrial complex, 
 under state funding and guidance. 

  but so was also the case for much of the british and french electronics 
 industries, centered on telecommunications and defense, until the 1980s. in the 
 last quarter of the twentieth century, the european union has proceeded with a 
 series of technological programs to keep up with international competition, 
 systematically supporting 'national chanpions', even at a loss, without much 
 result. indeed, the only way for european information technology companies to 
 survive technologically has been to use their considerable resources (a 
 substantial share of which comes from government funds) to make alliances with 
 japanese and american companies, which are increasingly their main source of 
 know-how in advanced information technology. 

  even in the US it is a well-known fact that military contracts and defense 
 department technological initiatives played decisive roles in the formative 
 stage of the information technology revolution, that is, between the 1940s and 
 the 1960s. even the major source of electronics discovery, bell laboratories, 
 in fact played the role of a national laboratory: its parent company  (ATT) 
 enjoyed a government-enforced monopoly of telecommunications; a significant 
 part of its research fund came from the US government; and ATT was in fact 
 forced by the government from 1956, in return for its monopoly on public 
 telecommunications, to diffuse technological discoveries in the public domain. 
 MIT, harvard, stanford, berkeley, UCLA, chicago, john hopkins, and national 
 weapons laboratories such as livermore, los alamos, sandia, and lincoln, worked 
 with and for defense department agencies on programs that led to fundamental 
 breakthroughs, from the 1940s computers to optoelectronics and artificial 
 intelligence technologies of the 1980s 'star wars' programs. DARPA, the 
 extraordinarily innovative defense department research agency, played in the US 
 a role not too different from that of MITI in japan's technological 
 development, including the design and initial funding of the internet. indeed, 
 in the 1980s, when the ultra-laissez-faire reagan administration felt the pinch 
 of japanese competition, the defense department funded SEMATECH, a consortium 
 of american electronics companies to support costly r&d programs in electronics 
 manufacturing, for reasons of national security. and the federal government 
 also ..." (male voice with a spanish accent, slowly fading out) 


kfl