Re: Maybe we _should_ ban some books...

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had a run-in with Esther Dyson in New York a while back, at a conference
at Columbia. She's ferociously pro-business and took nasty exception to my
critique of the commercialization of the web and to my suggesting that
Russia peasants were right to be wary of privatization because the history
of private farming in capitalism was that of enclosure and people being
forced off the land. She was offering contacts for anyone "wanting to do
business in Russia" and was introduced as one of the most influencial
Westerners there when it comes to high-tech. A guy who runs the local
progressive bookstore with losts of stuff on high-tech, communications etc
commented that he thought her new book had "near-zero" informational
content.

Harry

On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, R. Anders Schneiderman wrote:

> >From the latest Salon Magazine:
>
>                             - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>                             E S T H E R__D Y S O N_ DISCOURSES ON MICROSOFT,
>
>                             INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA -- AND
>
>                             WHY SHE BANISHED HER TELEPHONE.
>
>                             - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> Two quick excerpts:
> ---------------------------------------------------
> ( #1: yet another example of people who have not used the bus in a long,
> long time...)
>
> I:                       This, I guess, is what you mean in "Release
>                        2.0" when you talk about how the Net erodes
>                        the separation between work lives and
>                        personal lives.
>
> D:                       It's not just a matter of time. You know, when
>                        you're in a steel mill, you make steel and you
>                        leave and that's it. But when you're online, if
>                        someone meets you downtown or someone
>                        e-mails you, let's face it, if you're a jerk, it
>                        affects Salon, in a way that it wouldn't if you
>                        were making steel. This is a big social issue;
>                        again, the problem here is people.
>
>                        You can't be paternalistic and get upset if your
>                        employee goes drinking Saturday night, but at
>                        the same time, now, your company consists of
>                        the people. They're much more visible. And so
>                        what do you do if your employee not only goes
>                        drinking Saturday night but says your company
>                        sucks on his private e-mail account?
>
> I:                       Even when you try to keep a healthy
>                        separation between work and personal time,
>                        the technology of the Net encourages people
>                        to expect that you're available 24 hours a
>                        day, seven days a week.
>
>   D:                     In addition to that, it's pretty sad if you're
>                        working for a company doing intellectual work
>                        and you don't identify with the company. Which
>                        is why I'm so cheerful about the notion of
>                        smaller companies. One way or another people
>                        are there by choice, and there's more personality.
>
> ------------------------------------------------
> ( #2:  in response to those who say Jerry Brown is too bizarre to be put
> into a position of any responsibility--say, the mayor of Oakland...)
>
>   I:                     A lot of companies keep getting bigger,
>                        though. "Release 2.0" argues that the Net is a
>                        great decentralizing force, yet today we're
>                        seeing more power concentrated in the hands
>                        of companies like Microsoft and WorldCom.
>
> D:                       These big things are getting more and more stuff,
>                        and obviously hardware is different from
>                        content. So yes, with hardware or the
>                        infrastructure or Microsoft -- there are benefits
>                        there to size and economies of scale. But in
>                        content, in intellectual work, there are really
>                        disadvantages of scale. So you see these
>                        divergent trends. But I think the value is
>                        increasingly at the edges, even if the physical
>                        bulk is in the middle.
>
>   I:                     You mean, one reason the physical assets of
>                        the network get collected is that they're worth
>                        less?
>
>     D:                   To some extent. They are commodities.
>                        WorldCom will tell you, "Our customer service
>                        makes us unique." I'm just not sure about that.
>
> I:                       So where do small companies fit in?
>
>                        I don't know the statistics, but if you took all the
>                        insects on the earth and weighed them, they'd
>                        weigh a lot more than all the people.
>
>
>
>
> Anders Schneiderman
>

.............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cleaver homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
.............................................................................