Lifts in singapore are monitored on-line from western Australia; students in Sri Lanka are taught on-line from Milton Keynes; and US army surgeons operate by remote control on wounded patients in the field. These are the typical images of the outer reaches of the communications revolution. But will it produce a new impersonal world of increasingly isolated individuals, or will it lead to a better and more satisfying style of life?
Frances Cairncross is optimistic. Her book makes bold predictions: first, more home-working; second, more small companies; third, less inequality between countries, and more inequality within countries; fourth, less international migration; fifth, more dominance of English worldwide, but a revival of local culture; sixth, less privacy and less unsolved crime; seventh, lower taxes and a weaker state. Finally, fewer wars.
How reasonable are these predictions of the effects of almost costless communications? Take home-working. Easier communications certainly make it simpler to work from home, but they also help to operate giant businesses. When the telephone was invented, you might have thought that workplaces would become more dispersed, but it was the telephone which made possible the skyscraper and the concentration of work in city centres. Before the telephone, messages had to be carried by messenger boys and the number of lifts which were needed made skyscrapers uneconomic. But the telephone did away with most of the messenger boys and created the modern city centre. So there are always contrary forces at work. However, it is probably true that commuting costs are now so horrendous that better electronic communications will lead to greater physical dispersion of workplaces. This is certainly true of standard footloose industries such as computer software and data-processing, simple accounts, insurance and the handling of calls.
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