From Publishers Weekly
The computer revolution, in the authors' dire scenario, will subvert and destroy the nation-state as globalized cybercommerce, lubricated by cybercurrency, drastically limits governments' powers to tax. They further predict that the next millennium will see an enormous decline in the influence of politicians, lobbyists, labor unions and regulated professions as new information technologies democratize talent and innovation and decentralize the workplace. In their forecast, citizenship will become obsolete; new forms of sovereignty reminiscent of medieval merchant republics will spring up; electronic plebiscites will decide legislative proposals; mafias, renegade covert agencies and criminal gangs will exercise much more behind-the-scenes power. Davidson and Rees-Mogg, who publish Strategic Investment, a financial newsletter, present an apocalyptic exercise that is unconvincing. Appendices offer advice to "Sovereign Individuals" (members of the information elite) on how to invest, find tax shelters, avoid criminals and list one's business on the World Wide Web.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Following up their equally visionary Blood in the Streets (LJ 5/1/87) and The Great Reckoning (S. & S., 1993), the authors offer a sweeping analysis of the implications, especially financial, of the information age. According to Jupiter Communications, a research firm specializing in emerging technologies, in the year 2000 online transactions will total about $7.3 billion, and new payment methods such as electronic money will be used for almost half of that amount. The authors explain that such developments are driving a "megapolitical" level of societal transformation similar in scope and significance to the end of the Roman Empire or the 15th-century gunpowder revolution. The key result of this information revolution will be the advent of the "sovereign individual" and the death of mass democracy and the welfare state. The authors are serious, conservative thinkers whose advice will attract attention on Wall Street. A major work; strongly recommended for academic libraries.?Dale F. Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.