On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 1:09 AM, j.martin.pedersen
<m.pedersen@lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
I agree to most of what you say, on some levels, but the point here is
about what some lawyers and philosophers call starting point: It is
typical of neoliberal economics to start with the "thing" as opposed to
the social.
I don't know which philosophers you are referring to. However I would reject this approach as an unnecessary expansion of what neoliberalism stands for. Accordiong to this logic a claim such as 'Digital technologies will ultimately lead to communism' would have the thing as starting point and as such be neoliberal. Isn't this sort of absurd? One might well argue that this statement is false, even silly - fair enough, it probably is. But it is not neoliberal.
Another example: 'Digital technologies have brought about new social practices which in turn have created havoc in the creative industries.' This statement starts with the thing, moves on to the social in a determining way, and concludes with an economic situation. In my view it would be very difficult to argue against this claim. It seems to me that this is a correct statement. How can it be neoliberal?
I suppose I am reacting to strongly to this because I find myself struggling with issues regarding determinism. I have - like you and like most sociologists and anthropologists - always made a case for the primacy of the social (should we call this social determinism?), but with the rise of the information age/ the network society/the digital economy this very familiar position started to erode a litte bit. It is an interesting question why social sciences insist so stongly on the primacy of the social, or on social determinism. It is like a natural reflex. I wonder if this has something to do with a protection of disciplines. Obviously, if people concede that the social can sometimes and in some situations be determined by the thing, disciplines such as sociology and anthropology lose ground and relevance
Helpful to avoid economic determinism is Marx and his notion of mode of production, which combines technology (productive forces) and social relations (property relations, power relations etc.). Talking about a digital mode of production then refers to technologies and to the social struggles over competing economic alternatives, which are fought for between various political groups at the moment.
So, yes, you can and should distinguish between technological and
economic determinism, and in this case both are at play: firstly the
economic determinism, where the thing is foregrounded, then the
technological determinism where the essence of the thing determines how
it should be organised. Both of which background the social.
My point is merely that social aspects come first: you can easily share
a car if you don't see it as an extension of your penis or fundamentally
constitutive of your identity (both of which are promoted through
advertising), I just throw you my keys. If I am not a very selfish and
ego-centric person there is likely no problems sharing it all.
And access does matter, as far as I am concerned, as does the labour and
resources and energy that is required for cyberspace to exist: these are
enormous social actions and systems that have to continually be
sustained. Access also costs the world. So from the perspective of the
displaced peasant (where minerals are mined or a river dammed), sharing
a poem digitally is really a bummer - cyberspace is huge enterprise,
where the materiality is somewhat hidden. The same goes for the
electricity system: there is no apparent change when I flick the switch
in my house - your house still has light - so why should I not have the
light on all the time, in all rooms? Install another lamp or two? Also,
if I download your poem from your website a thousand times a second,
then noone else can share it. The similarities are striking, I think,
but not very surprising once we understand cyberspace as a huge
industrial machine and not merely some immaterial appearence.
I completely agree with this. But as you say, the materiality behind the digital world is somewhat hidden. That is why it is so hard to get an idea about the external costs (monetary costs, environmental costs, etc.) of this. How can we start to calculate and evaluate these costs?
In solidarity with labour and with an ecological consciousness, the poem
is hard work to share digitally.
Sorry I cannot engage further with this. My partner has had a little
child and I am drowning in stuff and responsbilities as well joy and wonder.
Congratulations. Enjoy the moment!