The Information Explosion, Technological Innovativeness and the Competitive Ethic.

The information explosion is frequently characterized as the hallmark of, and even the driving force behind, recent cultural change. The fact that a good number of social ills stemming from the presence of monopoly and monopsony power in the political economy are handled by subsidies in the market for information stands as mute testimony to the pervasiveness of this phenomenon. Subsidies in the information market have an enormous impact in affecting the participatory revolution manifested in all forms of social protest, including ecological protest, simply by changing the attitudes of consumers, voters, and lawmakers. While the benefits of new technology are heralded in modern folklore, there persists at the same time a residue of romantic, pastoralist hostility to technological change. The Competitive Ethic is a lable attach to the set of shared values that legitimacy to the modern corporate state and supercorporation. The information explosion simultaneously increases the ability to learn to cope with the stresses of technological change as man adopts new ways of satisfying his basic needs for privacy, participation, relaxation etc.