Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
Summary
Adam Smith never mentioned the word “capitalism.” Karl Marx used it arguably five times. The first American president to invoke it was Harry Truman. One of the most resonant terms of our modern vocabulary is thus a relative neologism. Awareness that the advent of the word occurred so recently compels us to alter our assumptions about the concept.
What Henry George wrote in 1879 about the word “capital” is also true of capitalism: “Most people understand well enough what capital is until they begin to define it.” The term is ubiquitous, but unlike similar grand historical concepts, such as feudalism or totalitarianism, whose validity historians have disputed, capitalism is assumed, by proponents and opponents alike, to be a given, like the air we breathe.
The purpose of this book is to subject capitalism to a new critical inquiry. In doing so, I will question the myths pertaining to capitalism on all sides of the political spectrum and propose an alternative to traditional definitions of the concept. The Information Nexus demonstrates that the money-based economy is not unique to capitalism – and the same holds true for many of its other supposed attributes, from commodification to wage labor. Capital is essential for capitalism, but so was it for all pre-capitalist and non-capitalist societies. In short, I do not associate capitalism with the “cash nexus,” as the Victorians first did. Rather, I locate its distinctiveness in business’ quest for information and usable knowledge. What is unique about capitalism is not that it is capital-intensive, but that it is information-intensive.
The information nexus is synonymous with capitalism. A nexus is a series of connections linking things. What this book explores is the dense web of information seeking and generating that resulted from having ready access to a complex of ever-changing information, communications, and transportation technologies. The information nexus links people in capitalist economies and expedites all investment and spending decisions by firms and individuals. It has historically thrived under political systems that value freedom of expression – not because democratic political systems have refrained from economic intervention as the mythology of laissez-faire suggests, but because these governments have tolerated the free flow of information in their societies and permitted unfettered access to commercial and other forms of socially useful knowledge.
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- The Information NexusGlobal Capitalism from the Renaissance to the Present, pp. ix - xiiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016