Economic Disruption Quotes
A startlingly bad prediction by a Nobel-prize winning economist particularly given it was stated in 1998 rather than a much earlier date when the potential of the Internet wasn’t already apparent. Ironically, the quote is from a Red Herring article he wrote titled “Why Most Economists’ Predictions Are Wrong” in which he asserts that most economists predictions are wrong because they overestimate the impact of future technologies. This quote is part of a longer, equally incorrect quote: “The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law' becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” See related quotes.
This incredibly accurate prediction was made before the United States had entered the War when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Nehru had been educated in England and lived there at various times where he was one of the intelligence. He virulently detested Fascism and made very careful distinctions between the level of morality of British Colonialism and the much greater evil of Hitler-Mussolini Fascism. Few anti-colonial leaders then and since were able to see the shades of grey and make such a nuanced analysis. He foresaw that devastation caused by Fascist aggression and the world reaction would be so profound that the entire world order would change radically. Few others realized that at this time.
