The Online Guitar Store - The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society

Why do we find ourselves living in an Information Society? How did the collection, processing, and communication of information come to play an increasingly important role in advanced industrial countries relative to the roles of matter and energy? And why is this change recent--or is it?

James Beniger traces the origin of the Information Society to major economic and business crises of the past century. In the United States, applications of steam power in the early 1800s brought a dramatic rise in the speed, volume, and complexity of industrial processes, making them difficult to control. Scores of problems arose: fatal train wrecks, misplacement of freight cars for months at a time, loss of shipments, inability to maintain high rates of inventory turnover. Inevitably the Industrial Revolution, with its ballooning use of energy to drive material processes, required a corresponding growth in the exploitation of information: the Control Revolution.

Between the 1840s and the 1920s came most of the important information-processing and communication technologies still in use today: telegraphy, modern bureaucracy. rotary power printing, the postage stamp, paper money, typewriter, telephone, punch-card processing, motion pictures, radio, and television. Beniger shows that more recent developments in microprocessors, computers, and telecommunications are only a smooth continuation of this Control Revolution. Along the way he touches on many fascinating topics: why breakfast was invented, how trademarks came to be worth more than the companies that own them, why some employees wear uniforms, and whether time zones will always be necessary.

The book is impressive not only for the breadth of its scholarship but also for the subtlety and force of its argument. It will be welcomed by sociologists, economists, historians of science and technology, and all curious in general.

His basic argument is that the seeds of our contemporary information intensive society was sown way back during the start of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, information was critical to make the transition from feudal to industrial society. The reason being that the industrial revolution (entailing mechanization, steam power, assembly line etc.) speeded up the process of production to the extent that human beings on their own physical powers would be unable to keep up with the speed of production. In feudal/agricultural based societies, the production process was slow (i.e., ploughing using ox) and it remained in control of the individual. With the industrial revolution, the production process was speeded, resulting in what he terms as "a crisis of control." This reminds me a lot of the Charlie Chaplin movie "Modern Times." Don't know if you have seen it, if you have, you know exactly what I am talking about.

In order to resolve the crisis of control emerging from the speeded-up production process, you need information. Example: Steam engine travels faster than a human being. How do you keep track of the train if you can't run faster than it? String telegraph line along the railway track connecting different stations along the way. When train reaches station, the station master informs the next station about the next estimated arrival time. Think about it, if you didn't have a schedule or an estimated time of arrival/departure, it would be impossible to operate a passenger train service or a goods service. Speed brings uncertainty which can only be resolved through the acquisition of information.

Today, just-in-time production (epitomizing the heights of efficiency and speed) would not be possible without flow of information to control this process.

This is a great book! Much recommended for people who would like to exercise their grey cells. WARNING: Business travellers nourished on Tofflerian hype may have indigestion!

I only wish the author had taken one more cut at simplifying and clarifing his basic thesis, It is also a pity that the volume was written prior to the development of transaction cost economics.