John Naughton’s column in The Observer today cites one of my favourite recent books, Timothy Wu’s [amazon_link id=”B004DUMW4A” target=”_blank” ]The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires[/amazon_link]. The column’s subject is the possibility that the internet as we know it has come to the end of the road of innovation, and is being locked down by large businesses through an insane IP regime and patent wars, strangleholds on infrastructure and (for most information companies) dysfunctional business models. Naughton writes:

“The biggest curb on innovation is the fact that the technologies that might serve as the springboards for next-generation surprises are increasingly closed and controlled.”

It is, he suggests, the culmination of one of the cycles of innovation and ultimately control identified in Wu’s book. His key point is this: “Industry structure…is what determines the freedom of expression,” (p155, hardback edition). These issues of competition and market power are not minor matters in markets so intimately linked to the power of ideas and thought.

Serendipitously, I also read this week a terrifically interesting article from (a new to me discovery) the Hedgehog Review, Why Google Isn’t Making us Stupid … Or Smart. It starts with a description of the intellectual debate about the effects of books. Leibniz turns out to have been the Nicholas Carr of that discussion: “the horrible mass of books keeps growing.”

Author Chad Wellman concludes:

“As we saw with Enlightenment reading technologies, knowledge emerges out of complex processes of selection, distinction, and judgment—out of the irreducible interactions of humans and technology. We should resist the false promise that the empty box below the Google logo has come to represent—either unmediated access to pure knowledge or a life of distraction and shallow information. It is a ruse. Knowledge is hard won; it is crafted, created, and organized by humans and their technologies.”

The key word in that last sentence may be ‘organized’ – the commercial and political structures we place around the information technologies determine what we know.

[amazon_image id=”B004DUMW4A” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Master Switch[/amazon_image]

An advance copy of Peter Marsh’s forthcoming [amazon_link id=”0300117779″ target=”_blank” ]The New Industrial Revolution: Consumers, Globalization and the End of Mass Production[/amazon_link] has landed on my desk, and it looks tantalizing. This dreary grey constant rain (known as a drought here in southern England) has sent me to the new Donna Leon novel, [amazon_link id=”0434021601″ target=”_blank” ]Beastly Things,[/amazon_link] for some comfort reading, but as soon as I’ve read that I’ll turn to the Marsh book.

Paging through it, I spotted a chart showing the share of world manufacturing output accounted for by the leading industrial economies. The proportions are:

China 19.4%, US 18.2%, Japan 10.9%, Germany 6.1%, Italy 3.1%, Brazil 2.7%, S Korea 2.6%, India 2.5%, France 2.4%, UK 2.3%

It was a bit of a surprise that the UK featured at all, so much do we talk down our manufacturing sector, and also that we fare as well as France, where they obviously talk up manufacturing instead. I would have expected S Korea to rank a bit higher. Italy is another surprise, ahead of France and the UK by a bit. Russia is striking by its absence, a resource-based economy. Indonesia and Turkey are presumably climbing fast from a low base. Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading it.

[amazon_image id=”0300117779″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The New Industrial Revolution: Consumers, Globalization and the End of Mass Production[/amazon_image]

With election day approaching next week in various parts of this country, and fascinating (in different ways) campaigns under way in France and the US, I started reading [amazon_link id=”0691154082″ target=”_blank” ]How to Win an Election[/amazon_link] by Quintus Tullius Cicero. This is a rather lovely book, a letter of advice to the famous Cicero from his down-to-earth brother. It has the Latin text opposite a translation by Philip Freeman, and is the perfect size for reading in those suspended moments on the campaign trail.

It is extraordinary how little politics has changed since 64 B.C.:

“The most important part of your campaign is to bring hope to people and a feeling of goodwill toward you. On the other hand, you should not make specific pledges, either to the Senate or the people. Stick to vague generalities.”

“If you break a promise, the outcome is uncertain and the number of people affected is small. But if you refuse to make a promise, the result is certain and produces immediate anger in a large number of voters.”

There is some disarmingly cynical advice on every page. No wonder brother Marcus won the election by a landslide. A highly commended self-help book for all candidates.

[amazon_image id=”0691154082″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]How to Win an Election: An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians[/amazon_image]

An interview in The Atlantic with Lawrence Krauss about his book a [amazon_link id=”145162445X” target=”_blank” ]Universe from Nothin[/amazon_link]g has been causing a bit of a stir because Krauss is rather provocatively insulting about philosophers: “Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, “those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.” And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science.” He goes on to say that philosophy hasn’t advanced in millennia.

Talk about the two cultures.

As I say, I’ve not read it, but have just finished Michael Sandel’s new book, [amazon_link id=”1846144728″ target=”_blank” ]What Money Can’t Buy| The Moral Limits of Markets[/amazon_link]. I’m reviewing for The Independent so will hold off saying much here. However, it opposes moral philosophy and economics, or at least markets; and it did remind me strongly of a number of earlier anti-market books from Ruskin’s [amazon_link id=”1599868059″ target=”_blank” ]Unto This Last[/amazon_link] to Karl Polanyi’s [amazon_link id=”080705643X” target=”_blank” ]The Great Transformation[/amazon_link]. Sandel’s book is brilliant. Recent history has given him terrific material. Yet the arguments from philosophy are familiar.

Writing about the fuss his [amazon_link id=”1107606144″ target=”_blank” ]Two Cultures[/amazon_link] lecture had generated, C.P.Snow said economics and other quantitative social science in fact formed a third culture, bridging the sciences and humanities. He grew allergic to the number two. Hmm. Actually, I think the dualism might apply here.

[amazon_image id=”184614471X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets[/amazon_image]