Abstract
This article presents the hypothesis that perestroika, the restructuring of the Soviet economic system, and perestroika's companion glasnost, or openness, are primarily a consequence of the development of information technology. Perestroika is fundamentally a first order consequence of preceived inadequacy in the traditional mechanisms for structuring Soviet economic activity. In turn, the principal reason for that inadequacy is the rate of development of information technology and the resulting shift of comparative advantage from hierarchical economic systems to market based economic systems. If this hypothesis is correct, then it has ramifications for the permanence and stability of perestroika, and for the analysis of Soviet policy.