ABSTRACT
The past twenty years have been difficult ones for most advanced capitalist countries. Among the symptoms of these difficulties, three trends warrant particular attention. First, average rates of economic growth and of productivity growth have slowed down. The slow growth of productivity is particularly remarkable as it coincides with developments in information and communications technologies that amount to a technological revolution and that seem to offer the possibility of dramatic increases in the productive potential of human societies. Clearly, advanced societies have so far failed to realize this potential of new technologies, as the American economist Solow (1987) indicated when he made the remark that T can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.’ 1
