What will happen when the redistributive powers of government are rendered impotent by the inability to pick our digital pockets? … Will the megacorporations really be the ones that gain? No. Because the tools used to create a symbiotic relationship between large corporations and the State will no longer be effective when turned against the entrepreneurs, the virtual corporations, and the fluid adhocracies that will thrive on the net. Cyber-organizations will know no boundaries and will keep little physical property at risk. The mega-corporations, as economic political entities, will NOT be made stronger by the Information Revolution. Quite the contrary, they will be de-fanged. They will be outflanked. They will melt down in a brain drain of historic proportions as the most productive of their employees flee to pursue free-agency on the net, released from the physical constraints that kept them bound to their jobs, while the least productive employees will hang on for dear life, bringing their employers down with them.
Predictor: Frezza, Bill
Prediction, in context:On the web site for DigitaLiberty, co-founder Bill Frezza, a telecommunications industry veteran, takes issue with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s support of the 1993 Digital Telephony bill and presents his new organization’s view of how the world will change in a networked communications age. Frezza writes: ”What will happen when the redistributive powers of government are rendered impotent by the inability to pick our digital pockets? When hungry competitors, local and international, can no longer be kept out of markets by a stifling web of regulations, labor laws, price supports, quotas, and the countless other barriers that seem to be government’s chief products? Will the megacorporations really be the ones that gain? No. Because the tools used to create a symbiotic relationship between large corporations and the State will no longer be effective when turned against the entrepreneurs, the virtual corporations, and the fluid adhocracies that will thrive on the net. Cyber-organizations will know no boundaries and will keep little physical property at risk. The mega-corporations, as economic political entities, will NOT be made stronger by the Information Revolution. Quite the contrary, they will be de-fanged. They will be outflanked. They will melt down in a brain drain of historic proportions as the most productive of their employees flee to pursue free-agency on the net, released from the physical constraints that kept them bound to their jobs, while the least productive employees will hang on for dear life, bringing their employers down with them.”
Date of prediction: December 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: DigitaLiberty
Title, headline, chapter name: The Crucible of Radical Capitalism: How the Information Revolution Will Transform the Politics of Power
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.digitalib.org/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney