[P2P-F] sharing, essence of things, technological determinism, economic determinism, and neoliberalism

[Andreas Wittel]

Hello Martin,

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 1:09 AM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at 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!

andreas
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