Elitist control of information technology

Privileged access to new social inventions
Technological elite
Info-elites
Concentration of access to information
Telecommunications elites
Techno-military elites

Nature

Access to the latest forms of technology is limited by high price and availability to only a small proportion of the population. Such limited control of resources makes possible the creation of new social elites and privileged opportunities for use which may disadvantage other members of society.

Incidence

This is especially true of information technology, such as happened with the early days of portable computers, fax machines, mobile telephones, and compact disc technologies. The USA controls 60 to 70% of the market for exporting information by computer and has a near monopoly on scientific-technological information.

Claim

1. Technology helps solve the problem posed by the demise of strong nationalism, which formerly provided large, motivated armies. By emphasizing hi-tech weapons, operated from safe havens, and using blitzkrieg tactics, the length of intervention is minimized, the number of casualties (on the elite side) kept low, and the need for a large, non-professional army reduced. During the Gulf War on Iraq, the USA tested an entire new generation of weaponry: precise night operations, stealth defences, guided weapons, satellite navigation, cruise missiles, bulldozers as mass-murder devices, air-fuel explosives, uranium-weighted shells and anti-nerve gas vaccinations.

2. The world is polarizing into two potentially irreconcilable forces. On the one side, an information elite that controls and manages the high-tech global economy; and on the other, a growing number of marginalized or permanently displaced workers who have few prospects and little hope for meaningful employment in an increasingly automated world.