Information Technology and Wealth

* PhD Thesis: Whitney-Smith, Elin. "Information Technology and Wealth: Cybernetics, History and Economics" (1991). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dissertation, Engineering Management & Systems Engineering, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/b24g-b673

URL = https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/emse_etds/162

Abstract

"Capitalism developed where and when it did because there was high information access. There was high information access because of a major advance in information technology - the press. Where the technology was not controlled by the ’’powers that be” there was economic growth and a shift in the entire social structure. Where it was controlled there was no structural change and there was economic ruin. The development of capitalism is a major step change in economic growth. It is also a major change in the way people organize themselves into groups. Major step changes in the growth and in the organization of cultures are found to be related to the introduction and use of information technology. The limit to growth is the limit of effective use of information or the variety limit. Economies are able to grow once the variety limit is raised. Information technology allows people to increase their individual variety in relation to the amount of information processed. This increase in individual variety allows the entire society to grow. Where there is high access to information through technology there is much growth and where there is less information access through control of technology there is less economic growth. When a high access economy is in competition for resources with a low access economy the high access economy will be more economically successful. A causal loop model is developed from a rich picture of the phenomena. The model is applied back to the press and forward to the telegraph and telephone and used to predict the impact of the current information revolution. One of the implications of information technology is that it allows people to model things better."

Contents

Elin Whitney-Smith:

"chapter I presents a brief summary of the history of mankind and an informal model of how major shifts in social, economic and cultural paradigms occur. It is intended to focus the reader on broad similarities of the dynamics of change.

Chapter II talks about the way the pre-press world presented itself on the basis of the "clues" in the historical record in contrast to how a post-press world presented itself.

Chapter III presents the social consequences of the changes in information access brought about by the press.

Those consequences include:

1) where economic development has occurred;

2) gender and age class of participants in economic development;

3) how we define what is part of the conversation of economics and what is not.

Chapter IV is a review of what has been said by others or literature review and how that relates to economic development and the impact of the press.

Chapter V presents the formal model - the second step in the outline of how one does science above.

Chapter VI uses the formal model to look at the impact of the press and is the third step in the scheme of how to do science above.

Chapter VII is the fourth step. It uses the model to investigate electric information technology - the telegraph and the telephone. In the course of that investigation the model is found to have some misfits. Investigation of these misfits further refines the model.

Chapter VIII is the conclusion and implications. It brings us back to the beginning in the form of a meta comment on what it means to take this stance toward historical and social science research.

I believe that there are regularities in how people shift from one way of perceiving and interacting with their world to another way of perceiving and interacting.

These regularities have to do with the perception, access and circulation of information in the society and the changes in perception have real consequences and leave trails of evidence. I have written this work as an offering to the reader in support of that belief."