Technology plays a central role as a source of social change in the digital discourse, transforming them in a direction that reduces and even eliminates class antagonism, which dominated industrial capitalism, and that was brought under tight political control with the construction of the Fordist social compact (see Chapter 1). As the means of production are decentralized and democratized, the digital discourse presumes, so are social relations in general. Network technology provides a fix that speaks to both system and lifeword (Habermas 1984). On the one hand, it answers the systemic demands of the economy—rationality, productivity, and growth—by facilitating a mode of production that is more rational and efficient, and musters more creative and productive forces. On the other hand, network technology answers the demands of lifeword, the other half in the promise of modernity for human emancipation and liberation through life activity, through work.
In this respect, the digital discourse represents not disengagement with the traditional critique of capitalism, but a continuation thereof. In the language of Boltanski, the digital discourse shows network technology to be a means that better capitalism in two senses: it gives better responses to the internal demands inherent in capitalism (such as assuring the infinite process of accumulation), while at the same time changes how capitalism works so as to alleviate many of the humanist critiques of capitalism (such as the demand for a less alienating, more satisfying and creative work process).
Network Production
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