The cyberfrontier and America at the turn of the 21st Century: Reopening Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier

First Monday

Volumn 5, Issue 7, 2000, Pages

  Cooper, Jeffrey R ^a  

^a SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION   (United States)

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EID: 52849136426     PISSN: 13960466     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5210/fm.v5i7.768     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. John Babsone Lane Soule, Terre Haute (Indiana) Express, 1851.
2. See Francis Fukyama, "Second Thoughts: The Last Man in a Bottle," The National Interest, Summer 1999, pp. 16-33.
3. For an interpretive look at the technologies and impacts of the Information Revolution, see Jeffrey R. Cooper, The Emerging Infosphere, Center for Information Strategy and Policy, October 1997.
4. See Norbert Wiener, God and Golem, Inc. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964.
5. It is also worth recalling Arthur Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible.
6. See, for example, Mike Dash, Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused. New York: Crown, 2000.
7. However, even Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has now taken the position that the "New Economy" is real and the source of altered productivity and growth relationships. See A. Greenspan, "Is There a New Economy?" Address to the Haas Annual Business Faculty Research Dialogue, Berkeley, California, September 4, 1998,
8. reprinted in the California Management Review, Fall 1998 (volume 41, number 1), pp. 74-85.
9. Greenspan, California Management Review, op. cit., p. 76.
10. Turner is now thought to be too triumphalist and lacking respect for Native American cultures and achievements; others criticize his emphasis on emotion and ethos. See below.
11. Harold P. Simonson, ed., Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1966; cited subsequently as Simonson.
12. Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in America, In: Simonson, p. 27; cited subsequently as Turner.
13. Turner, p. 57.
14. I am indebted to Dr. Paul Strassmann for this important insight into the economic impacts of new frontiers.
15. Only within the past year has there been an acknowledgement that a "New Economy" exists. See Michael Mandel, "How Most Economists Missed the Boat," Business Week, November 11, 1999.
16. One needs only to look back twenty years to July 1979 and President Jimmy Carter's "national malaise" speech to appreciate how far we have come.
17. See section VI at p. ff.
18. Even though we are only partially there, Paul Strassmann deserves recognition for highlighting this issue.
19. The focus on Turner's appreciation of the frontier's impacts on character and affective aspects of the American experience, even if clichéd (or because of it), reveals an important truth often lost in the focus on technology issues.
20. Turner, p. 27.
21. Turner, p. 28.
22. It must be recognized that Turner wrote with a typical Nineteenth Century sensibility from a reference frame that hardly recognized indian (Native American) or minority (Black or Mexican) rights or claims, especially with respect to the vast western lands.
23. As Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad wrote, "These managers [of successful new companies] seemed to spend less time worrying about how to position the firm in existing "competitive space" and more time creating fundamentally new competitive space." Competing for the Future, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1994, p. xi. This is really frontier-style behavior.
24. These issues arose as early as colonial times and were a significant factor in debates over the Northwest Territories and Ordinance.
25. Alvin and Heidi Toeffler, The Third Wave.
26. Turner, "The Problem of the West," 1896, cited in Simonson.
27. Paul Johnson, "The Prospering Fathers," Commentary, July-August 1999, pp. 66-69.
28. The Progressive tradition, started at state level in the Midwest, became a powerful national force in response to the rising private power of corporate interests. See, for example, Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Random House, 1960. The "muckrakers" and novelists such as Upton Sinclair in The Jungle and Frank Norris in The Octopus helped to highlight widespread corporate abuses.
29. The War Industries Board headed by Bernard Baruch and the Food Administration by Herbert Hoover, both established during World War I, set the pattern for later government involvement in control of civil industries for national security purposes. Sedition acts, modeled on the earlier Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 established the model for later controls over free speech in the name of national security.
30. See Carol J. Loomis and Joshua Mendes, "Dinosaurs?" Fortune, May 3, 1993, p. 36ff. In this cover story, the authors examined the near-collapse of Sears, General Motors, and IBM, the then dominant companies in their respective industries, and questioned whether such large organizations were fit to survive.
31. The fundamental divergence in value system and outlook between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world is highlighted by American suspicions and European acceptance of non-market mechanisms, such as government sanctioned trusts and monopolies. This difference is well captured in Franco Amatori, "European Business: New Strategies, Old Structures," Foreign Policy, Summer 1999, pp. 78-89.
32. Governor Ed Shafer (R-North Dakota), quoted by David Broder, "Despair and Hope on the Farm," Washington Post, August 15, 1999, p. B7.
33. Kevin Rivette and David Kline, "Surviving the Internet Patent Wars," Industry Standard, December 13-20, 1999, pp. 180-181.
34. Heather Green, "The Curious Culture of Silicon Valley," Business Week, August 9, 1999, p. 16.
35. A review of Po Bronson, The Nudist on the Late Shift.
36. Alan Deutschman, "The Sand Hill Road Gang," GQ, June 1999, pp. 124ff.
37. This and the next section are derived from Jeffrey Cooper, Towards A National Information Strategy: Aligning Responsibility, Authority, and Capability to Provide for the Common Defense, SAIC, Center for Information Strategy and Policy, Revised Edition, 1 September 1999.
38. It is interesting to note that Bell and other early developers of the telephone system believed that each business would only have one telephone instrument. This misconception was repeated in the early years of computer development when IBM thought the entire market would number in the hundreds. In both cases, the developers failed to foresee the widespread proliferation and diffusion of these technologies. Important to note, it was not the invention itself but the widespread diffusion throughout society that triggered the cultural adaptations, and, therefore, the broad social consequences of these technologies.
39. A variant was the appointment of a U.S. Marshal who held authority from the territorial leadership.
40. One element that distinguishes the American political system from most others is that powers not explicitly delegated remain with the people, rather than authority flowing to the people by grant from a sovereign power.
41. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter 12, ttp://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/home.html
42. McCulloch v Maryland, 17USC316.
43. Charles Fried, "Good Cause Make Bad Law," New York Times, Thursday, April 27, 2000, p. A31.
44. The Economist, Canadian Survey.
45. John Perry Barlow, "Declaration of Independence," Davos, Switzerland, February 8, 1996. http://www.eff.org/~barlow
46. Mandate usually implies a coupling of authority and responsibility.
47. ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the new effective governing institution for Internet membership replacing the solely U.S. IANA, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
48. Abraham Lincoln, "Second Annual Message to Congress," December 1, 1862.
49. The eight Critical Infrastructures recognized in PDD-63 are telecommunications, electric power, transportation, oil and natural gas storage and delivery, banking and finance, water, emergency services, and government services.
50. See John Pomfret, "China Ponders New Rules of 'Unrestricted Warfare'", Washington Post, August 8, 1999, p. A1.
51. See Jeffrey R. Cooper, Seizing the "New High Ground," Center for Information Strategy and Policy, SAIC, McLean, Va., forthcoming.
52. This is an argument fundamentally about values and may be "out-of-sync" in a world that now demands econometric analysis of policy issues.
53. Many, if not most, Americans would further argue, rather convincingly, that centralized decision-making is, in fact, less efficient as well as more dangerous. See David Brin, The Transparent Society. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1998.
54. The reader will recall that the Seventh Cavalry operated in the transmississippi West. Five companies under the direct command of George A. Custer were decimated at Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876. Leaving aside the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the attack, the incident reminds us that law enforcement occurs after the fact. In some cases, hoping that the cavalry will save the day is insufficient and some reasonable pre-emptive or defensive policy is necessary. For enthusiasts, http://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/history/ Documents/War/America/Indian/1876-BigHorn-Times.htm offers transcripts of contemporary accounts of the event.
55. At the same time, civil society should demand that governments facilitate, not hinder, appropriate self-help measures. Unconsidered actions (such as the legislation (H.R. 2281) to conform U.S. copyright law to the new World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) standards) can prevent private actors from carrying out legitimate and necessary information protection activities.
56. Moreover, there will be some who are unwilling to accept the concept of sharing risk collectively and others simply unwilling to particiapte in collective defense.
57. Turner, p. 57.
58. Turner, p. 33.
59. Wendy Moonan, "Predicting a Defining Moment, " New York Times, July 29, 1999, p. B37.
60. Turner, p. 28.
61. Turner, p. 28.
62. Turner, p. 33.
63. Turner, pp. 57-58.
64. Simonson, p. 12.
65. Timothy Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York (1821-1822); quoted in Simonson, p. 3.
66. Turner, p. 57.
67. Simonson, p. 11.
68. Turner, p. 29.
69. Simonson, pp. 10-11.
70. Turner, p. 51.
71. Turner, p. 57.
72. Turner, p. 57.
73. Turner, p. 28.