Nathan Newman on IP

[Doug Henwood]

[This bounced because the original was too long. Here's the URL and 
the intro. Nathan, you stuck a "Berkeley" in your email address in 
the Contact line, which I deleted.]

From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan.newman at yale.edu>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Subject: New Book on Web: NET LOSS: GOVERNMENT, TECHNOLOGY AND THE 
POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COMMUNITY IN AGE OF INTERNET
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 09:25:02 -0400

I've finally gotten around to an initial revision of my dissertation work on
the Internet economy and have it up on the Web.  This is the general summary
of the argument I am circulating, which has relevance to the whole open
source and government policy disscussion. (If folks can forward it to 
relevant lists, I would be appreciative.)

Nathan
================================================

NEW BOOK ON THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE INTERNET,

                      PUBLISHED ON THE NET AT:

              http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~newman/

    +==============================================================

                        NET LOSS:

                GOVERNMENT, TECHNOLOGY AND THE

    POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COMMUNITY IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET

    ===============================================================

                     By Nathan Newman, Ph.D.

        Contact at:   nathan.newman at yale.edu

      Where does technology like the Internet come from? Why is it so
identified with specific regions like Silicon Valley?  Why does new
technology seem so associated in the public mind with both personal
empowerment for some people and economic insecurity and growing
powerlessness for others?   And what is the best government policy for
promoting technology and equal access in the new economy?

      What confuses all these questions is the dynamic interaction between
government, technology and the regions that are shaped and in turn reshape
both technology and economic policy alliances.  And nowhere has this dynamic
been more confusing than in the case of the Internet, a technology directly
planned and funded for decades by national government in Washington, DC, yet
associated most in the public mind with garage startups in Silicon Valley.
Even as technology companies have digested billions of dollars in technology
subsidies from the government, we hear new words like "cyberlibertarianism"
coined by Internet enthusiasts.

      This book, NET LOSS: GOVERNMENT, TECHNOLOGY AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY
OF COMMUNITY IN THE AGE OF INTERNET helps make sense of this historical and
ideological jumble.   It highlights the process by which government guided
the creation of the Internet and the regions most associated with the
technology, even as the forces unleashed by the Internet have in turn
reshaped and constricted government technology policy to the detriment of
the broader public.