IP: Freedom, Economics and the Internet

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 10:56:25 -0800
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> From: Bert Shaw <bshaw () catsco com>
>
>
> The New York Times OpEd today features a piece by Robert Wright about
> freedom and the Internet.  An interesting anology between printing and the
> attempted suppression of books and ecomomic advances and freedom.
>
>             WASHINGTON, DC.  At the end of the 20th century, American
>            foreign policy acquired a new premise: history is on the side of
>           freedom as never before. The basic idea is that economic and
> political
>           liberty -- which always had a fairly close relationship -- are now,
>           suddenly, joined at the hip. What joined them is information
> technology.
>           As President Clinton said in 1998, justifying his policy of 
> economic
>           engagement with China: "In this global information age, when
> economic
>           success is built on ideas, personal freedom is essential to the
> greatness          of any modern nation."
>
>           Or, to put the argument in less gauzy terms: These days, for
> markets to
>           work well, microcomputers and modems must cover the economic
>           landscape. As a side effect, state control of information is
> eroded and
>           citizens are empowered. So governments that want prosperity must
>           sooner or later tolerate political freedom.
>
>           <snip>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Bert W. Shaw, M.A.
> CATSco, Inc.
> Developers and publishers of HELP-Software(TM)
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