LONDON -- Ask a total stranger about his or her sex life and, though he may be taken aback, he is likely to take it in stride. For what's so secret about sex? Ask a total stranger about his or her income, and she is likely to biff you for your impudence. Money is all secrets and lies.

This seems a straight reversal of where the boundaries of privacy and modesty lie. There was a long phase in capitalism -- dubbed Fordism for its mass standardized procedures -- when most people's income was negotiated by a trade union and this income was public knowledge. Sex, however, was furtive, embarrassing and only talked about by teenage boys in bus shelters.

After Fordism has come the knowledge-based society, open government, information technology. In theory, there are no longer any secrets or taboos. Everything can be spoken about. Everything can be known. Famous people talk about the sexual abuse visited on them as children. Proud women write about the horrors and shame of having been raped. People are glad to be gay and flaunt it in gay pride demonstrations.