"The first global computer networks began among cooperative capitalists, not competing socialists. Borrowing from the language of Hannah Arendt, it recasts the Soviet network experience in light of other national network projects in the latter half of the twentieth century, suggesting the ways that the Soviet experience may appear uncomfortably close to our modern network situation.
That said, let us begin with a slight twist on the conventional cold war showdown: the central proposition that this book develops and then complicates is that although the American ARPANET initially took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments, the comparable Soviet network projects stumbled due to widespread unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and other key actors. The first global civilian computer networks developed among cooperative capitalists, not among competitive socialists. The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists."
Excerpts from How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet | Peters | First Monday
That said, let us begin with a slight twist on the conventional cold war showdown: the central proposition that this book develops and then complicates is that although the American ARPANET initially took shape thanks to well-managed state subsidies and collaborative research environments, the comparable Soviet network projects stumbled due to widespread unregulated competition among self-interested institutions, bureaucrats, and other key actors. The first global civilian computer networks developed among cooperative capitalists, not among competitive socialists. The capitalists behaved like socialists while the socialists behaved like capitalists."
Excerpts from How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet | Peters | First Monday
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