The first is about the nature of power. Power in the modern world rests as much on information and its control as it does on weaponry or treasure: Besides the Seventh Fleet and Wall Street, it is the networked data server, buried deep in cyberspace, that is a repository of power. And it is the rogue memory stick, the renegade photographic image, or the on-screen financial rumour, that can acquire viral velocity and at once puncture the complacencies of markets as well as the strategies of states. In this crucial sense, what were believed to be the conventional markers of power—military might, financial muscle— remain premised for their effectiveness on legitimacy, on their sustained credibility in the realm of public opinion or of markets. If that dissipates, so too does effective power. It’s a lesson that the US has learned the hard way over the past decade; and it’s a lesson that any would-be aspirant powers need to grasp early.
http://www.livemint.com/2010/12/16192555/The-spectacle-of-corruption.html
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