Word: gilders
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...such apocalyptic visions justified? Not at all, argues conservative pundit George Gilder in his new book, Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology (Simon & Schuster; $19.95), a lively look at the history and prospects of the U.S. microelectronics industry. Gilder, author of the best-selling Wealth and Poverty, thinks that as computer-chip technology advances, America will widen its lead...
...heart of Gilder's argument is the notion that the breakthroughs in quantum physics in the early 20th century, which provided the theoretical basis for microelectronics, also laid the groundwork for sweeping changes in the world's economy. In the past, a nation's wealth sprang from its natural resources and its ability to fashion raw materials into manufactured products. But the computer has put a premium on information, not raw materials or manufacturing prowess...
...their total expense. As chips are incorporated into everything from furnaces to cars, the value of these products resides increasingly in the "intelligence" stored in their electronic components. In the future, industrial might will depend less on mass production and more on the creative use of information technology. Gilder calls this phenomenon the "overthrow of matter" by ideas...
...book uses this theoretical framework to focus on what has happened in the semiconductor industry. In particular, Gilder's analysis attacks the conventional view that the U.S. blundered in letting Japan take over the market for mass-produced memory chips. As he points out, the key component for a computer is not hardware but software, the instructions that make the machine work. When programs like Lotus 1-2-3 made the personal computer a runaway success in the early 1980s, IBM and other firms made a strategic decision to let Japan supply the demand for memory chips that U.S. chipmakers...
...books, constituting a series called The Larger Agenda, will be business- oriented analyses of 100 or so pages, written by such authors as David Halberstam, John Kenneth Galbraith and George Gilder for fees of about $60,000. Each book will be initially distributed free to some 150,000 opinion leaders, including executives and politicians, and later sold in bookstores. The advertising income will finance the giveaways and help keep the retail price of the books relatively low, while still ensuring a healthy profit margin for Whittle, which is 50% owned by the Time Inc. Magazine Co., the publisher of TIME...