New Technologies

This book deals with the social and economic origins and effects of the new technologies, and with the role of public policy in shaping their development. Incessant technological change is the single most important factor distinguishing advanced market economies. New technology produces manifold problems and threats - social, ecological and military - but they also underpin sustained rising standards of living and income growth. The main determinant of economic success, as the performance of Japan shows, is the rate of technological innovation in the race to create new processes, machines and even gimmicks. This ties in with important political questions: does the free market encourage innovation (as the right believe) or does the scale of investment demand heavy government intervention (as the left and the Japanese believe). This book investigates these issues.