Cyberpunk is a very difficult entity to analyze, I would neither call it a style, nor a literary movement, it's, in my opinion more like a rebellion against the way we guide our own life and future. Many people, even famous critics, have confused cyberpunk with science-fiction and vice versa. We should not make such a simplification of a very complex relationship. I believe cyberpunk is the logical consequence of a world that has been obsessed by sci-fi since the beginning of time. If we stop for a minute and think about what sci-fi has become recently, we will realise that probably reality has evolved in a faster and more dangerous way than the most daring writers or producers of sci-fi products. In the last two decades, humanity has gone through changes that many of us would have considered impossible not very long ago. The way the internet has become the most powerful tool on earth, the way information has become the principal source of power, countless medical and technological experiments that day after day make discoveries of the past obsolete antiquities. These and many more things have made the line that separates what can and what cannot be a very very thin line… And the worst is still to come.
So nobody should be surprised that "something" like Cyberpunk would appear, when the clash between what is possible and what isn't looks more like a blurry mixture, we find ourselves in dire straits. One of the principal points I would underline in Cyberpunk is the loss of individuality, the loss of essence of the human being. And not only in USA, also in other countries like Spain, where the Cyberpunk movement was soon developed and reached incredible extents that few people would have imagined, as an example we have this wonderful page
where you can find information about the Spanish Cyberpunk movement, and the most important of all, regular articles about politics and society, seen from the point of view of a Cyberpunk writer. Agnostic, sceptical and often not willing to believe "the official version of things".
It is funny how technological advances are initially conceived to better our lifestyle and help us to live, but if we take these "helps" to the extreme, we will find that they limit our action possibilities and enslave our freedom. Spending 10 hours a day in front of a computer is one of the enslaving processes I can think of nowadays, or making a trip to the mountains unnecessary because we can just put on a "landscape dvd" on the television (this will be used soon, doubt it not) are a couple of examples.
I would call Cyberpunk the "underground Star Wars syndrome". I've got copyright on that one, and I'm quite proud of it actually. However, my reasons would be many. Among others the fact that historically, in sci-fi novels and tales, technology or the use of an item to achieve a goal, is focused from the point of view of aid, the object (in this case technology) is the one that helps the protagonist to solve his difficulties and to "walk the path of victory". But if you really want to understand the Cyberpunk movement, I would recommend you read this article
http://www.ciberpunk.com/indias/enredadera.html
, called "Like a creeper and not like a tree", where you will be shown the opinion and the origins of the Spanish Cyberpunk group I mentioned earlier, truly a very good way to understand the feelings that lead people to believe in themselves rather than in other people's promises. On the other hand we have a very different situation, in Cyberpunk technology is usually one of the reasons why the protagonist has a problem that needs to be solved, and though he tries to do it through the use of technologically enhanced procedures, his problem would not exist if it weren't for that electronic evolution.