March 26, 2002

The Coming Economic Boom

Business 2.0 offers a long and very worthwhile essay comparing the information revolution with past technological revolutions such as the Industrial Revolution, the railway revolution, the steel and electricity revolution and the great era of mass-production. Noting that "all threads of thought on technology revolutions lead back to Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, a single figure writing in the first half of the 20th century" who often is cited by business gurus for his idea of innovation bringing "gales of creative destruction," the essayist details the emergence, growth and end of each of these technology and business revolutions and finds that in every case, it wasn't the revolution itself but the "build-out" that powered great economic progress. "The information revolution is not radically different from previous revolutions. The Internet has had its boom and crash, and there is no reason to suppose that history will be negated: Full use of the technology will arrive eventually. It always has."