Business in The Computer Age

The new high-tech age, a.k.a. as The Computer Age, is not a new Industrial Revolution. It is merely an expansion of it. It is, in a way, similar to the coming of jet airplanes to make journeys faster. While there has been much promise that the computer will spark an entirely new and improved economic system, there is little proof that this is happening. We are in an age where each day new "dot.com" companies are being formed, making instant millionaires out of ordinary computer nerds (and seeing many of them lose all those millions when the companies fail to perform or even earn a fair profit).

Rather than think of this new high-tech infusion in the world's economic institutions, one should consider this the age of a new type of entrepreneur. As Thorstein Veblen wrote: "The material framework of modern civilization is the industrial system, and the directing force which animates this framework is business enterprise." (Veblen 1) Business enterprise, as we enter the 21st century is nothing more than creating an acceptable combination of product or service availability matched to consumer needs.

What is interesting in this new system of business enterprises is that human capital- always thought of as one of the most precious and valuable sources of a company's success and dominance has been reduced to computer programmers and customer service representatives. In essence, the "new" human capital represents an avid consumer population which is more demanding an

e is now as archaic as fly paper for the modern eager entrepreneurs. Today's economic language not only includes the binary computer systems but the stock market language of IPOs and leveraged buy-outs. Whereas the "original" Industrial Revolution counted on some daring capitalists to invest money in new factories and machinery, and meager pay for those who operated them, today's "capitalist" tends to be a quick-buck artist whose ideas are worth millions for which he has put up or risked not one single penny of his own, other than his time and his ideas. Today's economic system, fueled by the high-tech innovations is mostly a plaything or an advantage for the wealthier population. Even Ayres understands this, though in a slightly different, and earlier, context: "As every economist knows, the basic truth is that in our society, as in medieval and ancient societies, the upper classes get more than the lower classes. It is also true, and of vital importance, that the class structure of modern industrial society is very much more fluid than its forebears were."(Ayres 7) As has been pointed out on previous pages, the new wealth is not merely the traditional "born with a silver spoon" wealth, but those "born with computer k