ABSTRACT
New technologies and services constitute the two core activities in the new economy as it is presented to us. However, they are extremely hierarchised. The new information and communication technologies (ICTs) form the main driving force, creating innovation, growth, productivity gains and skilled jobs in all sectors, starting with those sectors specifically given over to producing them (software, systems analysis, on-line networks and databases, Internet, etc.). Other services to households and firms, dragged along by the growth and purchasing power produced by this ‘information revolution’, are then able to create the large number of varied jobs that characterise the new economy. This portrayal of the new economy is more than debatable: whether we are dealing with the supposed driving force, the other activities following in its wake or the relationships between the two, the points at issue are not primarily technological. Rather, they are social, and alternative development models exist. Let us begin with the miracle of ICTs.
