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Charles
Lipson
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E-mail: c-lipson@uchicago.edu Voice: 773.702.8053 Fax: 773.702.1689
Charles Lipson Professor of Political Science University of Chicago 5828 S. University Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 |
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What’s
New
About the New Economy?
The Third Industrial Revolution
The First Industrial Revolution,
based in Britain in the early 1800s, was about iron, textiles, and the
new steam engine.
The Second Industrial Revolution,
based in Germany and the United States, was about the development of heavy
industries such as steel, chemicals, and petroleum. Its power sources
were electricity, the internal combustion engine, and the gas turbine.
The Third Industrial Revolution, based in the United States, is in "high knowledge" industries, primarily
- computers and software,
- telecommunications, and
- biotechnology.
In these high-knowledge sectors, a few key
innovations have had wide-ranging effects on all production and
consumption.
In
the process, they have dramatically raised income and transformed the
economy, society, and politics.
All three
industrial revolutions were grounded in secure legal rights to make contracts
and own property, including intellectual property in new ideas. There
is a strong continuity, then, from the early days of textile manufacturing
to today's industrial robots building the latest generation of electronic
circuits.
What differed in each case were the characteristic ways that production and distribution were organized—on the factory floor, in the firms, and in sales to consumers.
