The New Economy is Simply Capitalism on Steroids

In the recent years, the “New Economy” has been a popular discourse and buzzword especially during the 1990s. Many people wondered what exactly “New Economy” (NE) really means since this is, as so to speak, how our economy is being transformed and contemporarily described as. Broad and Antony describes NE as “a series of changes in the economic landscape that resulted from industry’s massive investment in new information and communication technologies (ICT) over the past ten years or so” (Broad and Antony, 2006: 22). The phenomenon of NE goes hand-in-hand with two important growing trends. The first trend involves globalization where there is a rapid increase in the spread of capitalism in the world such as introduction of market forces, freer trade, and widespread of deregulation of financial and labour markets. On the other hand, the second trend includes the revolution in the information technology where one can observe how the industrial revolution is driven by computerized production of goods and services.

In addition to this, one can observe the overwhelming increase dependence of society on technologies such as the Internet, personal computers, machines, and so on. With the introduction of NE the last decade, it can be argued whether or not the NE is really a phenomenon that is something new. This essay will discuss the two articles by Nakamura and by Broad and Antony regarding the issue of the NE. In this paper, I will argue and address the existence of NE as nothing new but simply capitalism with a new face mainly because globalization and capitalism associated with NE has existed earlier before the introduction of the NE.

According to Nakamura, he strongly believes that the NE is a new event that has been occurring until today. He proves his statement by illustrating the apparent shift from...