Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1143
C. Fuchs
This paper asks: What can we learn from literary communist utopias for the creation and organisation of communicative and digital socialist society and a utopian Internet? To provide an answer to this question, the article discusses aspects of technology and communication in utopian-communist writings and reads these literary works in the light of questions concerning digital technologies and 21st-century communication. The selected authors have written some of the most influential literary communist utopias. The utopias presented by these authors are the focus of the reading presented in this paper: William Morris’s (1890/1993) News from Nowhere, Peter Kropotkin’s (1892/1995) The Conquest of Bread, Ursula K. Le Guin’s (1974/2002) The Dispossessed, and P.M.’s (1983/2011; 2009; 2012) bolo’bolo and Kartoffeln und Computer (Potatoes and Computers). These works are the focus of the reading presented in this paper and are read in respect to three themes: general communism, technology and production, communication and culture. The paper recommends features of concrete utopian-communist stories that can inspire contemporary political imagination and socialist consciousness. The themes explored include the role of post-scarcity, decentralised computerised planning, wealth and luxury for all, beauty, creativity, education, democracy, the public sphere, everyday life, transportation, dirt, robots, automation, and communist means of communication (such as the “ansible”) in digital communism. The paper develops a communist allocation algorithm needed in a communist economy for the allocation of goods based on the decentralised satisfaction of needs. Such needs-satisfaction does not require any market. It is argued that socialism/communism is not just a post-scarcity society but also a post-market and post-exchange society.
本文的问题是:我们可以从共产主义文学乌托邦中学到什么，以创造和组织沟通和数字社会主义社会和乌托邦互联网?为了回答这个问题，本文讨论了乌托邦共产主义作品中技术和传播的各个方面，并从数字技术和21世纪传播的问题的角度来解读这些文学作品。所选的作者写了一些最有影响力的文学共产主义乌托邦。这些作者所呈现的乌托邦是本文所呈现的阅读焦点:威廉·莫里斯(1890/1993)的《无处可去的新闻》，彼得·克鲁泡特金(1892/1995)的《面包的征服》，乌苏拉·勒奎恩(1974/2002)的《被剥夺者》，以及pm . s (1983/2011;2009;2012) bolo 'bolo和Kartoffeln und Computer(土豆和电脑)。这些作品是本文所呈现的阅读的重点，并在三个主题方面进行阅读:一般共产主义，技术和生产，传播和文化。本文介绍了能激发当代政治想象和社会主义意识的具体乌托邦-共产主义故事的特点。探讨的主题包括后稀缺的作用，分散的计算机化规划，财富和奢侈品，美丽，创造力，教育，民主，公共领域，日常生活，交通，污垢，机器人，自动化，以及数字共产主义中的共产主义通信手段(如“ansible”)。本文提出了共产主义经济中基于分散需求满足的商品分配算法。这种需求的满足不需要任何市场。社会主义/共产主义不仅是一个后稀缺社会，也是一个后市场和后交换社会。
{"title":"The Utopian Internet, Computing, Communication, and Concrete Utopias: Reading William Morris, Peter Kropotkin, Ursula K. Le Guin, and P.M. in the Light of Digital Socialism","authors":"C. Fuchs","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1143","url":null,"abstract":"This paper asks: What can we learn from literary communist utopias for the creation and organisation of communicative and digital socialist society and a utopian Internet? To provide an answer to this question, the article discusses aspects of technology and communication in utopian-communist writings and reads these literary works in the light of questions concerning digital technologies and 21st-century communication. The selected authors have written some of the most influential literary communist utopias. The utopias presented by these authors are the focus of the reading presented in this paper: William Morris’s (1890/1993) News from Nowhere, Peter Kropotkin’s (1892/1995) The Conquest of Bread, Ursula K. Le Guin’s (1974/2002) The Dispossessed, and P.M.’s (1983/2011; 2009; 2012) bolo’bolo and Kartoffeln und Computer (Potatoes and Computers). These works are the focus of the reading presented in this paper and are read in respect to three themes: general communism, technology and production, communication and culture. The paper recommends features of concrete utopian-communist stories that can inspire contemporary political imagination and socialist consciousness. The themes explored include the role of post-scarcity, decentralised computerised planning, wealth and luxury for all, beauty, creativity, education, democracy, the public sphere, everyday life, transportation, dirt, robots, automation, and communist means of communication (such as the “ansible”) in digital communism. The paper develops a communist allocation algorithm needed in a communist economy for the allocation of goods based on the decentralised satisfaction of needs. Such needs-satisfaction does not require any market. It is argued that socialism/communism is not just a post-scarcity society but also a post-market and post-exchange society.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"26 1","pages":"146-186"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72676267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1139
C. Cox
This essay is concerned with conceptualising digital socialism in two ways. First, this essay typifies digital socialism as a real utopian project bringing together the utopian potential of “full automation” as tied to socio-economic imperatives indicative of socialist aims. Second, in recognition of a critical gap between full automation and an emerging technological autonomy, this essay argues for a human-machine autonomy that situates autonomy as a shared condition among humans and machines. By conceiving of humans and automated technologies as autonomous subject aligned against capital, pursuing the aims of digital socialism can anticipate and avoid capitalist ideologies that hinders possibilities for autonomous pursuit of digital socialism.
{"title":"Rising With the Robots: Towards a Human-Machine Autonomy for Digital Socialism","authors":"C. Cox","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1139","url":null,"abstract":"This essay is concerned with conceptualising digital socialism in two ways. First, this essay typifies digital socialism as a real utopian project bringing together the utopian potential of “full automation” as tied to socio-economic imperatives indicative of socialist aims. Second, in recognition of a critical gap between full automation and an emerging technological autonomy, this essay argues for a human-machine autonomy that situates autonomy as a shared condition among humans and machines. By conceiving of humans and automated technologies as autonomous subject aligned against capital, pursuing the aims of digital socialism can anticipate and avoid capitalist ideologies that hinders possibilities for autonomous pursuit of digital socialism.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84677485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1127
James Ranger
Hartmut Rosa argues that three systems of social acceleration (technical acceleration, the acceleration of social change and the acceleration of the pace of life) have emerged as fundamental to the human experience of late modernity. It is here argued that the digital imaginary, specifically curated by the “universal” social media platforms causes what Dominic Pettman has dubbed the “hypermodulation” of the subject, which contributes to the reproduction of the capitalist status quo. Consequently, I here argue that a socialist approach to the digital must commit to what Rosa would term an ideological (oppositional) deceleration to counteract such tendencies.
{"title":"Slow Down! Digital Deceleration Towards A Socialist Social Media","authors":"James Ranger","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1127","url":null,"abstract":"Hartmut Rosa argues that three systems of social acceleration (technical acceleration, the acceleration of social change and the acceleration of the pace of life) have emerged as fundamental to the human experience of late modernity. It is here argued that the digital imaginary, specifically curated by the “universal” social media platforms causes what Dominic Pettman has dubbed the “hypermodulation” of the subject, which contributes to the reproduction of the capitalist status quo. Consequently, I here argue that a socialist approach to the digital must commit to what Rosa would term an ideological (oppositional) deceleration to counteract such tendencies.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"42 1","pages":"254-267"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80625356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1130
N. Dyer-Witheford
This paper contextualizes and analyses the policy proposals of new “left populisms” (Mouffe 2018) for the regulation and reform of the “platform capitalism” (Srnicek 2017) that increasingly organizes digital communication. The era of the 2008 crash and subsequent recession saw the emergence in North America and Europe of new left-wing electoral initiatives, either as new parties or fractions within older parties. These include, in the USA, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Democrats; in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party; in Spain, Podemos; in Germany, Die Linke; in France, La France Insoumise. While many of these groupings might be described as socialist, or democratic socialist, they often also distinguish themselves from older socialist or social democratic formations; so, for lack of a better term, we call them left populisms. Left populisms are connected in contradictory ways to the appearance of platform capitalism, a corporate model exemplified by Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Uber, deploying proprietorial software as a launch-point for user activities accessing commodified or advertising-driven goods and services. The rise of left populism correlates with the ascent of platform capitalists. Left populist parties emerged from the anti-austerity movements (Occupy in the USA, the Indignados in Spain, student campus occupations in the UK) organized with the help of social media platforms. However, it is also the failures and scandals of platform capitalism have been important to left populism. Edward Snowden’s revelations of ubiquitous surveillance and the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica-Russian hacker imbroglio around the 2016 US election have fuelled a “techlash” against giant digital corporations that is now an important component of left populist sentiment. Drawing on policy documents, manifestos, speeches, position paper, this paper analyses the policy platforms in which left populist parties confront platform capitalism around issues of content regulation; concentration of ownership; the rights of digital workers; alternative ownership models; and proposals for a hightech driven transition to “postcapitalism” (Mason 2016). It considers the similarities and difference between and within left populist parties on these issues; the extent of their departure from neoliberal policies; and their differences, and occasional erratic similarities, with right-wing populisms, such as that of Trump. It then reviews critiques of left populism made from Marxist and ecological anti-capitalist positions, with particular reference to technological issues. The paper concludes with a summary of the opportunities and problems for a left wing “data populism” (Morozov 2016) in the current political conjuncture.
{"title":"Left Populism and Platform Capitalism","authors":"N. Dyer-Witheford","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1130","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1130","url":null,"abstract":"This paper contextualizes and analyses the policy proposals of new “left populisms” (Mouffe 2018) for the regulation and reform of the “platform capitalism” (Srnicek 2017) that increasingly organizes digital communication. The era of the 2008 crash and subsequent recession saw the emergence in North America and Europe of new left-wing electoral initiatives, either as new parties or fractions within older parties. These include, in the USA, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Democrats; in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party; in Spain, Podemos; in Germany, Die Linke; in France, La France Insoumise. While many of these groupings might be described as socialist, or democratic socialist, they often also distinguish themselves from older socialist or social democratic formations; so, for lack of a better term, we call them left populisms. Left populisms are connected in contradictory ways to the appearance of platform capitalism, a corporate model exemplified by Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Uber, deploying proprietorial software as a launch-point for user activities accessing commodified or advertising-driven goods and services. The rise of left populism correlates with the ascent of platform capitalists. Left populist parties emerged from the anti-austerity movements (Occupy in the USA, the Indignados in Spain, student campus occupations in the UK) organized with the help of social media platforms. However, it is also the failures and scandals of platform capitalism have been important to left populism. Edward Snowden’s revelations of ubiquitous surveillance and the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica-Russian hacker imbroglio around the 2016 US election have fuelled a “techlash” against giant digital corporations that is now an important component of left populist sentiment. Drawing on policy documents, manifestos, speeches, position paper, this paper analyses the policy platforms in which left populist parties confront platform capitalism around issues of content regulation; concentration of ownership; the rights of digital workers; alternative ownership models; and proposals for a hightech driven transition to “postcapitalism” (Mason 2016). It considers the similarities and difference between and within left populist parties on these issues; the extent of their departure from neoliberal policies; and their differences, and occasional erratic similarities, with right-wing populisms, such as that of Trump. It then reviews critiques of left populism made from Marxist and ecological anti-capitalist positions, with particular reference to technological issues. The paper concludes with a summary of the opportunities and problems for a left wing “data populism” (Morozov 2016) in the current political conjuncture.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"47 1","pages":"116-131"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76632212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1140
D. Boucas
Digital capitalism is guided by the organising principles of digital automation, information processing, and communication. It rests on the consolidation of relations of exploitation of digital labour based on flexibility and generating precarity. It makes profit from user data under conditions of surveillance. What would an alternative paradigm look like? This paper aims to sketch a possible socialist society resting on digital technology but organised on a different logic, namely that of autonomous production, leisure, and social engagement. It draws on relevant theories of the Left, evaluates them against the reality of digital capitalism, and suggests structural and user practice alternatives that can pave the way towards a digital/communicative socialism. This paper engages with the works of Czech philosopher Radovan Richta (1924-1983) and Austrian-French philosopher Andre Gorz (1923-2007). It shows that their ideas on the scientific and technological revolution and post-industrial socialism are highly relevant for the analysis and discussion of digital/communicative socialism.
{"title":"Theory, Reality, and Possibilities for a Digital/Communicative Socialist Society","authors":"D. Boucas","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1140","url":null,"abstract":"Digital capitalism is guided by the organising principles of digital automation, information processing, and communication. It rests on the consolidation of relations of exploitation of digital labour based on flexibility and generating precarity. It makes profit from user data under conditions of surveillance. What would an alternative paradigm look like? This paper aims to sketch a possible socialist society resting on digital technology but organised on a different logic, namely that of autonomous production, leisure, and social engagement. It draws on relevant theories of the Left, evaluates them against the reality of digital capitalism, and suggests structural and user practice alternatives that can pave the way towards a digital/communicative socialism. This paper engages with the works of Czech philosopher Radovan Richta (1924-1983) and Austrian-French philosopher Andre Gorz (1923-2007). It shows that their ideas on the scientific and technological revolution and post-industrial socialism are highly relevant for the analysis and discussion of digital/communicative socialism.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"97 ","pages":"48-66"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72427616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1136
Christopher C. Barnes
This essay focuses on members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) political organisation in the US and the ambivalence of using social media as a primary means of communication for socialist information and culture. Relying on in-depth interviews with fifteen active members and leaders in DSA, this essay asks: How does socialist communication on social media encourage both cohesion and fragmentation for activists within the DSA? Locating and analysing key tensions felt by DSA members in response to their use of Facebook and Twitter, this project sheds light on the ways in which socialism is presently communicated to publics and counterpublics and identifies important challenges for the expansion of the so-
{"title":"Democratic Socialists on Social Media: Cohesion, Fragmentation, and Normative Strategies","authors":"Christopher C. Barnes","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1136","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1136","url":null,"abstract":"This essay focuses on members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) political organisation in the US and the ambivalence of using social media as a primary means of communication for socialist information and culture. Relying on in-depth interviews with fifteen active members and leaders in DSA, this essay asks: How does socialist communication on social media encourage both cohesion and fragmentation for activists within the DSA? Locating and analysing key tensions felt by DSA members in response to their use of Facebook and Twitter, this project sheds light on the ways in which socialism is presently communicated to publics and counterpublics and identifies important challenges for the expansion of the so-","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"47 1","pages":"32-47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84826309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1134
S. Harikrishnan
Communism arrived in the south Indian state of Kerala in the early twentieth century at a time when the matrilineal systems that governed caste-Hindu relations were crumbling quickly. For a large part of the twentieth century, the Communist Party – specifically the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – played a major role in navigating Kerala society through a developmental path based on equality, justice and solidarity. Following Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of (social) space, this paper explores how informal social spaces played an important role in communicating ideas of communism and socialism to the masses. Early communists used rural libraries and reading rooms, tea-shops, public grounds and wall-art to engage with and communicate communism to the masses. What can the efforts of the early communists in Kerala tell us about the potential for communicative socialism? How can we adapt these experiences in the twenty-first century? Using autobiographies, memoirs, and personal interviews, this paper addresses these questions.
{"title":"Communicating Communism: Social Spaces and the Creation of a “Progressive” Public Sphere in Kerala, India","authors":"S. Harikrishnan","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v18i1.1134","url":null,"abstract":"Communism arrived in the south Indian state of Kerala in the early twentieth century at a time when the matrilineal systems that governed caste-Hindu relations were crumbling quickly. For a large part of the twentieth century, the Communist Party – specifically the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – played a major role in navigating Kerala society through a developmental path based on equality, justice and solidarity. Following Lefebvre’s conceptualisation of (social) space, this paper explores how informal social spaces played an important role in communicating ideas of communism and socialism to the masses. Early communists used rural libraries and reading rooms, tea-shops, public grounds and wall-art to engage with and communicate communism to the masses. What can the efforts of the early communists in Kerala tell us about the potential for communicative socialism? How can we adapt these experiences in the twenty-first century? Using autobiographies, memoirs, and personal interviews, this paper addresses these questions.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"218 1","pages":"268-285"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86854959","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-18DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1146
M. Spence
Marx’s Fragment on Machines is sometimes held up as a creative departure from orthodoxy, and a prescient harbinger of a knowledge economy. In particular the concept of general intellect, which appears uniquely in the Fragment, is celebrated as a key theoretical innovation. This article presents a close reading and critical interpretation of the text of the Fragment to argue, firstly, that its primary theme is not general intellect, but fixed capital; secondly, that its emphasis on fixed capital is unduly narrow and productivist, leading to an equally narrow treatment of labour and value; and finally, it seeks to explain why Marx produced this odd work, so much out of step with the main current of his thought, at the time and in the way that he did.
{"title":"Marx against Marx: A Critical Reading of the \"Fragment on Machines\"","authors":"M. Spence","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1146","url":null,"abstract":"Marx’s Fragment on Machines is sometimes held up as a creative departure from orthodoxy, and a prescient harbinger of a knowledge economy. In particular the concept of general intellect, which appears uniquely in the Fragment, is celebrated as a key theoretical innovation. This article presents a close reading and critical interpretation of the text of the Fragment to argue, firstly, that its primary theme is not general intellect, but fixed capital; secondly, that its emphasis on fixed capital is unduly narrow and productivist, leading to an equally narrow treatment of labour and value; and finally, it seeks to explain why Marx produced this odd work, so much out of step with the main current of his thought, at the time and in the way that he did.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"55 1","pages":"327-339"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2019-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76995369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-12-17DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1107
Eran Fisher, B. Fisher
Drawing on Luc Boltanski's work on capitalist transformations we argue that recent hi-tech unionising features a new model of critique which combines tenets from both the social and the artistic critique. Hi-tech workers – cultured in the ethos and achievements of the artistic critique that protests the inhibition of creativity, and the lack of personal expression and authenticity prevalent in capitalism – seek to resurrect the social critique that protests the inequality, poverty, and egoism that capitalism entails. This creates an interesting dynamic of protest discourse since the social critique partly stands in contradiction to the artistic critique: responding to one entails ignoring the other. The analysis of interviews with leaders of unionisation efforts in global hi-tech firms elucidates the tension between the two clusters of critique and the attempts to overcome it. It also allows us to engage theoretically with Boltanski by highlighting the particular characteristics of the agents voicing the critique.
{"title":"Shifting Capitalist Critiques: The Discourse about Unionisation in the Hi-Tech Sector","authors":"Eran Fisher, B. Fisher","doi":"10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1107","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on Luc Boltanski's work on capitalist transformations we argue that recent hi-tech unionising features a new model of critique which combines tenets from both the social and the artistic critique. Hi-tech workers – cultured in the ethos and achievements of the artistic critique that protests the inhibition of creativity, and the lack of personal expression and authenticity prevalent in capitalism – seek to resurrect the social critique that protests the inequality, poverty, and egoism that capitalism entails. This creates an interesting dynamic of protest discourse since the social critique partly stands in contradiction to the artistic critique: responding to one entails ignoring the other. The analysis of interviews with leaders of unionisation efforts in global hi-tech firms elucidates the tension between the two clusters of critique and the attempts to overcome it. It also allows us to engage theoretically with Boltanski by highlighting the particular characteristics of the agents voicing the critique.","PeriodicalId":45788,"journal":{"name":"TRIPLEC-Communication Capitalism & Critique","volume":"1 1","pages":"308-326"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2019-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88639495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v17i2.1137
Manfred Knoche
The goal of this article is to explain long term restructurations and transformations of the media industry. In order to do so, the article uses theory elements of a critique of the political economy of the media. The paper is a contribution to the development of theoretical approaches that provide a theoretical analysis of the media in capitalism based on Karl Marx’s concepts. The capitalist mode of production is the primary driving force of media corporations‘ strategic action and of the media economy’s structural transformations. Factors that are of particular relevance in such structural transformations include profit orientation, capital accumulation, capitalist crises, state policies, behaviour of producers and consumers, private property, class relations, the antagonism between productive forces and relations of production, the antagonism of variable and constant capitalism, the antagonism of use-value and exchange-value, and competition. Competition, capital’s need to survive, and capitalism’s immanent crisis potentials force corporations try to create innovations such as new digital technologies. Informatisation, which includes the use of the computer as universal machine and the Internet, is the provisionally latest stage in the development of the productive forces that has affected media technologies and the media industry. The capital-driven structural digital transformation of the media industry has resulted in the convergence of production, distribution and consumption, the creation of a variety of non-tangible digital products, digital rationalisation and automation, and the universal real subsumption of labour under capital. These developments have also created the potential potentials for overcoming the capitalist character of the media economy and advancing decommodification based on the emergence of a universal digital media system.
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