Cyberlibertarian Dreams and the Future of Civil Society
The introduction of digital technology provides an occasion for transforming
countless social practices and institutions. At present there is a strong
tendency to argue that events are moving in a particular direction, that the
future will unfold in a particular way. This view is expressed in an
emerging ideology, cyberlibertarianism, a collection of ideas that links
ecstatic enthusiasm for electronically mediated forms of living with right
wing libertarian ideas about the proper definition of freedom, social life,
economics, and politics in the years to come. But is their vision of a wired
world truly the utopia it claims to be? Is it a reliable guide to the
choices before us?