Class warfare in the information age

the long version

In Class Warfare in the Information Age, Michael Perelman shows how class conflict remains a contemporary issue. He challenges the notion that, with the help of modern computer and telecommunication technologies, we can look forward to life in a well-educated society in which anybody with even a modicum of intelligence and discipline can enjoy a more than comfortable existence. Perelman reveals how the efforts of business, to profit from the sale of information, will result in the reduction of rather than an increase in access to information. He demonstrates how the treatment of information as a commodity will cause it to be more regulated and less accessible. In the future, Perelman argues, it will still become a class-based privilege to access and afford information, and the rights of individuals will disintegrate as the power of the corporate sector grows.