Programmed Capitalism

Computer-mediated Global Society

Maurice Estabrooks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315493114
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythologie

Focuses on how the computer has transformed the economy into an information processing and intelligence system. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

1
Introduction:
Metamorphosis in the Making

When the history of the twentieth century is written, it will be seen as an age of revolution and transformation that, in terms of its speed, pervasiveness, and technological complexity, was greater than any in the history of civilization. That future history will record how computers transformed the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries and how they revolutionized the currency, commodity, and stock exchanges. It will describe how computerization transformed offices and factories, how it made possible the development of the “Star Wars” antiballistic missile defense system, and how it furthered the initial exploration and commercialization of outer space.

Historians will explain the dramatic effects of the new intelligent machinery on the telecommunications, retailing, and publishing industries. They will reveal how computerization changed the nature of work and management, and how it subsequently revolutionized the organization and operation of corporations, the economy, and society.

Events such as these will be seen as a metamorphosis on the grandest of scales that gave rise to a new social and economic order in which intelligent machines emerged to mediate all the essential activities of the new society. This revolution will have produced a new global society, integrated financially, economically, and politically, and historians will call this the age of programmed capitalism.

The Nature of Computerized Hyperstructures

A revolution is indeed under way but it cannot be understood without comprehending the nature of the computer. It is a machine in some respects, but it has no cogs, rotors, or moving parts. Rather, it is one incorporating considerable artificial intelligence capabilities that facilitate the management and execution of intelligence activities and enable the computer to control the physical world around it. In other respects, it is a new form of societal infrastructure, unlike those of the past that were dedicated to the production and movement of physical goods. Instead, the new computerized infrastructure collects, processes, moves, and distributes intelligence. Charles Babbage, one of its early pioneers, called it an Analytical Engine.

The new machine or infrastructure is like none other before it. It controls, coordinates, and makes decisions. It is also invisible to the eye to the extent that the instructions, programs, and flows of commands, money, and information it mediates constitute forms of artificial intelligence. If we view all the computer systems and networks as a single entity, whether they are interconnected and integrated together or not, we could call this computerized infrastructure a hyper-structure because its capabilities are so far above and beyond those of any other machine, infrastructure, or technology that has preceded it. It is able to undertake intelligence activity, to communicate, and to control activity and make decisions on its own according to programmed instructions.

The new world of intelligence must be regarded as distinctly different from the physical world and the physical economy. The physical economy comprises physical resources and products and the transportation systems needed to distribute them. Imposed on the physical world and the physical economy are a world of intelligence and an intelligent economy that order, structure, and mediate the physical world. In a seemingly mystical manner, they facilitate production processes, coordinate the interaction of units, and give the physical world purpose and meaning.

It is no accident that computers have become ubiquitous and essential to modern society and our economic system. It is no accident that they have become vital to the efficient operation of our offices, factories, and stock exchanges. It will be no accident when they quietly invade the home in large numbers, as they appear to be doing. It is all part of the transformation process that is taking place around us, and it will not stop until it is complete sometime in the next century.

At that time, literally nothing will be the same—not our work, language, culture, economic system, or society. Evidence of this transformation and metamorphosis is all around us. As the decade of the eighties draws to a close, it is becoming easier to discern the effects of computerization on our social economy at the present time, the potential effects in the future, and how the transformation might be described from the perspective of the twenty-first century.

The New Industrial Revolution

It is in the office environment, the most ubiquitous place of work activity, where computers are having their greatest impact. They have been transforming offices for several decades, and have been improving the quality of management and decision making while increasing productivity and efficiency. No matter what kind of activity one examines in the office environment, in whatever size the corporation, computers are involved one way or another. In many there will be more computers than there are people, although computers will not be as visible.

In one way or another, computers are rapidly becoming the common new medium for the management of all office activity. They are used in corporate planning, in financial planning and control, and in project management, marketing, sales, and distribution. Computers have become strategic to the control of inventory and the management of human resources and capital assets. Payroll systems and cash management systems are based on them.

Computers are also known in offices as word processors, electronic mail and message systems, and desktop publishing systems. Even the new generation of telephone systems in the office is dependent on the computer. This plethora of intelligent machinery is being used strategically in business and government and in factories and laboratories. It is governing activity in organizations from customs, excise, immigration, and air traffic control centers, to defense establishments and hospitals. It is slowly and quietly invading the home environment, disguised as television and telephone sets and home banking systems.

Computers Transform the Factory

Computers are being used throughout production and manufacturing processes in factories in the design and simulation of parts and components, as well as in manufacturing, milling, and assembly, where they constitute robots. CAD (computer-aided design), CAM (computer-aided manufacturing), CIM (computer-integrated manufacturing), and FMS (flexible manufacturing systems) are changing the language, organization, and operation of factories around the world. They have become so pervasive in some industries that few people can be seen any longer in the highly automated plants that are becoming increasingly common in the United States, Japan, and Europe, as well as in so-called developing countries.

In these most advanced plants, all the operations of the factory are under the control of an enormous computer system that monitors, schedules, and guides its entire operation. Researchers are working on future plants so automated that an engineer will only have to create a crude model of a component or device and the computer will be able to optimally design all its parts, produce all the components, and assemble them together automatically. These may be common in the next century.

Computerized Military Weaponry

It is in the defense and aerospace industries that some of the most advanced applications of computer technology have occurred. Computers were one of the critical technologies that put Americans on the moon before the Soviet Union. They have become strategic to the exploration of space and the operation of laboratories and factories in space, and could be critical to the colonization of outer space in the next century.

Computers have made it possible to monitor global military activity from anywhere in the world, to control sophisticated weapons systems, and to conduct hypothetical war games on land, in the oceans, in the skies, and in space in a completely integrated fashion.

Computers are the brains of the new generation of “smart missiles,” including the Cruise, the Silkworm, and the Exocet missiles, that have become familiar to the public around the world. To a considerable degree, the latest generation of computerized military weaponry has made existing weapons systems obsolete. Intelligent weapons are far superior to the typical weapons systems deployed today, and the next generation already under development will accelerate this trend. As it is conceived, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or Star Wars, is a sophisticated computer-, laser- and space-based antiballistic missile defense system that would make all other planned weapons systems obsolete. Its supporters claim that SDI could monitor the entire world for military activity, and take offensive and defensive maneuvers in response to enemy actions. It could also identify and destroy enemy weapons in space and on the ground using its particle beam guns.

Theoretically, computers could herald the day when a global war would take place entirely in “computer space.” The strategies would be conceived of and coded in the programs of the computer systems in space and on the ground, and the battles fought between these programs. Computers would simulate the various strategies and automatically order and initiate strike action. Such a war, however, would not affect the physical world as we know it, and it would make warfare as we know it obsolete technically, operationally, and economically.

The Transformation of Telecommunications

Computers are having a revolutionary impact on telecommunications as well. They are transforming telephone systems through their effects on switching and transmission, and have given the telephone sophisticated processing and intelligence capabilities such as voice store-and-forward, directory service, and call management. They are responsible for the enormous improvements in the quality and economics of telephone services, and are the source of the new integrated digital telecommunications services that combine voice, data, graphics, and image communications. It is these capabilities that make it possible to provide information retrieval, electronic mail, and television pictures over the telephone.

Computer technology has also revolutionized radio, satellite, and mobile telecommunications, and it is effectively turning the telephone system into a gigantic global information-processing and communications system.

Transportation

Computers are becoming indispensable to air traffic control and landing systems, and to air, sea, and land navigation and collision avoidance systems. Some of this technology has already made its way into the automobile, where it is used to control engine emissions and operations and to monitor and diagnose mechanical and electrical problems. Eventually, the navigation and collision avoidance systems will be available on the family automobile.

Computers have also found strategic applications in the airlines, railway, and shipping industries for managing reservations and scheduling, for the transportation and tracking of freight, and for customs administration and clearance.

And Communications Sectors

In the communications industries, computers are transforming publishing, film, broadcasting, and advertising. They have revolutionized publishing, for example, through the introduction of on-line databases and computerized newswire services, and have revolutionized the operations of publishing companies through computer graphics, layout, and composition. Now this sophisticated technology is being brought to the desk of every office worker and homeowner in the form of desktop publishing so everyone can become a publisher to one degree or another.

In film and television broadcasting, computers are used in areas such as animation and camera control and for the creation of special visual effects and color enhancements through video processing. Who would have believed only a few years ago that a computer-based artificial personality embodied in Max Headroom would become a television star?

Computers have also become the new medium for artists, in turn affecting advertising and the graphic arts and stimulating the growth of desktop video, which brings color graphics and sound creation tools to the office worker, the homeowner, and the individual.

Education

Computers have not left any field untouched, not even education and training. Computer-aided learning (CAL) and computer-aided instruction (CAI) have been under development for several decades but their utility and productivity are steadily improving. The newest multimedia environment uses special sound effects, simulated motion pictures, and computerized imagery and control. These new computer-based education and training systems have become as important as books to universities and engineering and medical schools. They are also becoming common in flight training centers and throughout business and some day will make their way into the home, changing the way we learn and educate ourselves and our children at home and on the job.

In an advanced computer-mediated society, our machines, our buildings, and our learning systems will enable us to interact with many media. They will be programmed to respond to most contingencies, prepared to answer just about any question, capable of providing us with information and instructions on just about any subject, and able to recommend decisions for us. Humans will be occupied with learning and keeping up with the rapid pace of events and the enormous amounts of information and knowledge produced, with being creative in the interaction and mediation of social and economic activity, and with making the ultimate decisions.

Medicine and Health Care

In medicine and health care, computers are making an enormous difference in quality, comfort, and economics. They help manage hospital admissions and patient records, as well as scheduling, drug use, and food distribution. Patient well-being can be monitored by them, and they assist in the diagnosis of patient ailments. They are the basis of new life-monitoring and support systems, artificial organs, and wonder machines such as the CAT (computer axial tomography) scanner and the PET (positron emission tomography) scanner. Computers are also used in the design and production of new devices, limbs, and organs, and they serve as aids to the deaf, the blind, and the disabled.

The Sciences

Computers have also initiated a scientific revolution. They constitute the new microscope and the new telescope of science, and they enable man to penetrate the innermost depths of matter and life itself, to examine them under a microscope, to simulate them, manipulate them, and eventually synthesize them. They are behind the scenes in the materials revolution, the superconductor revolution, and the biotechnology revolution, and they are enabling man to design new materials atom by atom, and new life forms gene by gene.

Computers provide yet another means of human control over nature. They are altering all the physical and the social sciences.

The Transformation of the Natural Resource Industries

The resource industries of agriculture, mining, oil and gas, forestry, and fishing have not been left untouched by the computer. Robots are making their way into the mining industry; farmers are using computers to improve the efficiency of routine farm operations, and are finding them on traditional farm machinery. In technologically intensive fields, such as remote sensing of the environment, computers are indirectly affecting many resource-based and other industries.

Computers are used in the processing of satellite photographs to produce electronic maps and charts. These can be scanned by computer or by eye to identify information that helps farmers to spot crop diseases before they cause too much damage. Exploration companies can decide on the best place to search for mineral deposits or oil and gas reserves. Forestry officials can spot forest fires and diseases. Environmental officers can monitor the movement of wildlife and schools of fish, as well as identify sources of pollution, monitor and study changes in weather conditions, and keep track of the movement of icebergs that pose hazards to navigation. Since computers are also improving record keeping and administrative activities as well as research and development in the resource industries, they are essentially changing and improving the way our environment is managed.

The Financial Services Sector

The entire public landscape of twentieth-century society has been radically transformed by the computer in little more than a decade. Automated teller machines (ATMs) can be seen in shopping centers, on street corners, in convenience stores, and in remote locations where no bank wo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Metamorphosis in the Making
• 2 The Rise of the Computer-Based Information Infrastructure
• 3 Computerizing the Money and Payments Systems: The New Public Landscape of a Computer-Mediated Economy
• 4 The Evolution of an Electronic Trading Infrastructure
• 5 Transformation of the World Stock Exchanges
• 6 Strategically Managing Computer Systems Synergies and Integrated Service Financial Supermarkets
• 7 And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Erosion and Obsolescence of the Four Pillars of the Financial Community
• 8 The Making of a Computer-Mediated Global Economic System
• 9 Toward a Computer-Mediated Global Society
• Bibiliography
• Index
• About the Author