From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 26

In the 1970s the concept of worker democracy was popular as a means
of tapping into the tacit knowledge of skilled workers; as one way to combat
what was viewed as pervasive workplace alienation, especially among young
workers; and as a means of extending participation from the electoral
arena into the modern workplace. Experiments in workplace democracy
and worker control were taking place at the time in numerous locations,
including prominently in the United States, Israel, and in what was then
Yugoslavia (Hunnius, Garson, and Case 1973). With worker democracy
in the air, experts in the new technology of computer communication
thought about how to apply their technical skills to what was becoming
a global movement. As Beer said in 1972, “In Chile, I know that I am
making the maximum effort towards the devolution of power. The govern-
ment made their revolution about it; I ind it good cybernetics” (Medina
2011, 3). Allende and his government agreed that cybernetics would
enable them to build a computer system that would help “to create a new
political and technological reality . . . , one that broke with the strategic
ambitions of both the United States and the Soviet Union” (ibid., 3).
Limited computer resources and the short life span of the Allende
government did not permit implementation of Project Cybersyn, but it
remains important in the history of cloud computing for several reasons. It
demonstrated that the history of the cloud contains an important chapter
from outside the United States, the Soviet Union, and other centers of
world power. Audacious as it was, Project Cybersyn was proposed and
designed primarily by engineers and planners in what was then called a
third-world country—in the minds of some, a backward nation that should
have been concentrating on mining copper for transnational corporations
instead of experimenting with computer-assisted planning. Moreover,
Cybersyn was consciously designed as an alternative to standard models
of economic development on offer from the United States and the Soviet
Union. Beer sought a balance between centralized and decentralized
control, and between the overall needs of a irm and the autonomy of its
component parts. His work tapped into a line of thinking that has found
its way into discussions of the cloud. How can we create computer systems
that bring about eficiencies through centralization without sacriicing
local autonomy? Will big data in the cloud facilitate democracy or over-
whelm it? Beer's thinking lined up well with the Popular Unity govern-
ment's interest in promoting national development without sacriicing