Earth shaking as the events of the last quarter of the 18th century were, there is far more to celebrate in Philadelphia. Increasingly, I think, many people would agree with Thomas. The cover story in this week's New York Review of Books is a lengthy article by the well-known journalist and NPR commentator, James Fallows, who describes the extraordinary impact of the computer in terms of the amazing new wealth it has created.
Fallows perceives the digital revolution as arriving in waves.
Hardware was the first wave and made the fortunes of the Hewlett and Packard families, and more recently, of Gordon Moore, one of Intel's founders and of Michael Dell and of Theodore Waitt of Gateway. And don't count out the other software companies. Lawrence Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, is now the eighth-richest man in America. Fallows's third wave, of course, is the result of the Internet and the World Wide Web. The value of companies which have yet to turn a profit may be only temporary, but in terms of instant creation of legitimate wealth nothing can compare to this in American history.