{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02188427299703264, 'fraction_numerical': 0.002967359050445104, 'mean_word_length': 5.31615925058548, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Volume I: The Rise of the Network Society

In this series, Professor Castells combines a French structuralist Marxist perspective with twelve years of empirical research in the United States, Asia, Latin America, and Europe in order to develop a systematic theory of the "information society." The first volume of this trilogy deals with the logic of the "Net." The second volume will analyze the formation of the "Self' and the clash between the Net and the Self in the patriarchal family and the national state. The third volume will attempt to interpret current historical transformations that have occurred because of the dynamics outlined in the earlier volumes. Those who are unfamiliar with the various strains of Marxist thought might be inclined to believe that the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 should have been a death blow to Marxism in the same way that the fall of the Bastille in 1789 was a death blow to the medieval concept of the "Divine Right of Kings." However, Castells (p. l) argues that the collapse of the Soviet Union has actually "rescued the political left from the fatal attraction of Marxism-Leninism." His overall objective is to explain how advances in artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, materials processing, robotics, and other types of information technology are reshaping our economy and society in the same way that Karl Marx tried to explain how the steam engine transformed feudalism into bourgeois capitalism. The Marxist theory of history is materialistic, meaning that the economic substructure of productive activities and their relationships ultimately determines the cultural superstructure that consists of art, law, morality, philosophy, and even religion. Therefore, Castells begins by describing how recent technological changes have created a new type of economy organized around global networks of capital, management, and information. Each network consists of a set of interconnected nodes. Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street are all examples of nodes from different networks in which information, capital, and cultural communications are produced, exchanged, and consumed at nearly instantaneous rates. This network-based social structure is appropriate for an innovative, globalized, and decentralized form of capitalism. What distinguishes this new economic system from previous ones is that technological knowledge rather than physical labor or energy is at the root of productivity and competitiveness. Consequently, power accrues to those who control the switches connecting one network to another rather than to those who own the means of production.