ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at new information technology (NIT) in relation to political economic structure. There are many ways in which NIT appears to be causing change in the world political economy. NIT has played a direct part in disorganization, as with the "Big Bang" of 1986, when London financial institutions became instantaneously connected to their counterparts in other capitalist nations. In a disorganized situation, the consequences of any major development, such as a technological change like computerization, are less controllable by normal public policy than might otherwise be the case. The chapter examines some contemporary academic theories of world political economic change and analyzes the Sheffield situation in terms of them. It discusses the interactions of political economic, technological, and social changes. The technology changes the political economy by itself becoming the center at which profit tends to accumulate.
