In responding to your questions I see my role as not giving you answers, but highlighting what I see as the thinking behind this eEurope document and then asking questions about whether it is appropriate to this new information age. We make sense of our world through rituals and institutions. For example, take the emphasis on the information society. Across the Atlantic they talk about the information economy and they have a totally different emphasis on what is going on. I am convinced that the American Dream is going to win against what I call the collectivist sentimentality of the information society that pervades such European documents.
Governments hate it because it means they lose control of their economy, but it is going to come.
The real issues are not there. It is a form of sentimentality if you actually look through it. It is full of truisms, which are mostly false. Success in the new economy depends on the consumer's ability to take full advantage of the opportunities. Success depends on the creators of the product.