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dependence on foreign oil, improving education, creating better jobs,
and expanding the availability of high-quality health care.
The Real Information Age Began Long Ago
People commonly think of the information from scholarly research

and scientific discovery as far more important than the seemingly
mundane information that each of us has on our particular situations,
preferences, skills, and aspirations. But, F. A. Hayek (1945) pointed out

that scholarly and scientific information alone are not enough to inform
economic decision-makers on the best use of their scarce resources. No
economic system can function properly without utilizing what Hayek
calls the “knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place,”

which is unique to each of us, constantly changing, and impossible for
any group of authorities to know in its entirety.
Without some means of communicating all this widely dispersed

information from those who have it to those best able to use it, and
communicate it in a way that motivates those receiving it to respond in
the most appropriate ways, the level of prosperity largely taken for

granted in market economies would be impossible. Making use of highly
specialized physical and human capital, which greatly increases our
productivity, would be extremely limited if we could not communicate

information to others on the value of their specialized efforts to us and
receive in return information on the value of our specialized efforts to
them. As Hayek made clear, countless numbers of people can
communicate this information simultaneously to countless others in a

clear and compelling way, and immediately update it in response to
constant changes in the information of time and place, through market
prices which emerge from the voluntary exchange of private property.

People can communicate much of the information most important
to their well-being far more effectively through market prices than they
can through cell phones, land-line phones, faxes, e-mail, text messaging,
and other technological marvels associated with the “information

economy.” For example, if people in Iceland desire to consume more
bananas, they need the cooperation of millions of banana consumers and
producers scattered all over the globe. Banana consumers outside

Iceland would have to reduce their consumption of bananas immediately
to allow more bananas to be made available in Iceland.
The Icelanders could try to contact all these banana consumers with

email, or text messages, etc., but this is clearly impossible. Moreover, these
messages would provide no information on how much nonIcelanders should