High technology, we are told, is pulling the planet toward a new stage of civilisation characterised by the omnipresence of computer and communication systems, unprecedented rates of scientific innovation, and a knowledge-based economy.
The socialist bloc's ignominious collapse is attributed to irretrievable archaisms in a Marxist world-view hopelessly out of step with this emergent reality - price of adherence to a 'labour theory of value' in an era of smart machines; of a 'base/superstructure' model blind to the material significance of symbolic data; or of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' dependent on the repression of ever-proliferating electronic media (e.g. Brzezinski 1988; Toffler 1990; Ohmae 1991). Conversely, the advanced capitalism of North America, Japan and Europe is seen, by virtue of its enterprise, openness and democracy, as the societal form uniquely fitted to sowing and reaping the cornucopian benefits of the information age (e.g. Eastbrooks 1988; Halal 1986; Ohmae 1990).
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