The Printing Press Is the Most Liberating Technology Ever Existed

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I believe that the printing press was the most liberating technology that ever existed in the long run. I don't believe you could find 100 Californians and put them in a room and say, do you want to not be Americans anymore and just be Californians? Don't believe it's ever going to happen. We're now in the short run of the digital tsunami. And it looks horrible. It looks like the 30 years war only. Not nearly that bad. There's no easy way to fix this problem for America. But there are many threads that mean we're still Americans. You have to come from the outside to see the many, many things.

Author Martin Gurri, Visiting Fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center, talks about his book The Revolt of the Public with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Gurri argues that a digital tsunami--the increase in information that the web provides--has destabilized authority and many institutions. He talks about the amorphous nature of recent populist protest movements around the world and where we might be headed politically and culturally.