Phillip Kenneth Salin (1950-1991) was an American economist and futurist, best known for his contributions to theories about the development of cyberspace and as a proponent of private (non-governmental) space exploration and development.
Salin was born in Hollywood, California and raised in San Rafael, California. Salin's father was Lothar Salin, a printer and public interest activist in San Rafael, and part of the General Semantics movement. His grandfather was Edgar Salin, an historian/economist/philosopher at Basel, Switzerland and a leader of the so-called "Historical School" of political and social philosophy. Salin earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from UCLA in 1970, and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University. He did postgraduate studies with James G. March at Stanford University.
In 1984 Salin founded the American Information Exchange (AMIX), a network for the buying and selling of information, goods and services. Salin pioneered the concepts of buying and selling which are now considered standard ecommerce. [1]AMiX did not patent their inventions. Therefore the inventions of buying and selling electronically - ecommerce - entered public domain and became the basis for other enterprises such as eBay, Priceline and Amazon.
AMIX struggled to create the infrastructure required to establish an online exchange in an era before the web and the ready availability of online tools, higher bandwidth and graphic interfaces. The enterprise folded in 1993. In 1999 Doc Searls told Salon about the challenges Salin faced, "Phil had to create his own Internet. In hindsight, it couldn't be done ... The time really is now. It wasn't then, much as we wanted it to be." [2]
in the 1980s, Salin recognized that the growth in the power of computers and telecommunications, and the reduction in costs would reduce the transaction costs of exchanging knowledge, with strong attendant benefits to humankind. Salin opposed patents on software because of the limitations on free speech and the restrictions patents posed to the growth of knowledge by stopping competition between ideas. [3]
Politically, Salin was a libertarian and Austrian economist. He was a science fiction fan, and his major influences and favorite writers included Robert A. Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, [von Mises] and other Austrian economists and political philosophers. He enjoyed fantasy, collected comic books, and read voluminously in all areas of fantasy and science fiction. He was also a fan of classical music.
Salin died of stomach cancer in December 1991.[4]