Spontaneous Order and Chaos in Neoliberal Theory
The digital discourse presumes to decipher contemporary society in terms of the revolution of network technology. Dumb nodes, spontaneous order, smart mobs, decentralization, flexibility, adaptability, chaos, and flux—all these underlying characteristics (or rules, in Kelly’s terms) of the network economy are presumed to be predicated on and flow from the dominant technological form. In this sense, these characteristics are also presumed to be a technical, neutral, and apolitical representation of the network market. But as we delve deeper into the digital discourse’s representation of the network society, another source emerges as its conceptual toolkit. The digital discourse on the network market has an uncanny resemblance to the dominant political culture of post-Fordism: neoliberal theory.
This part of the chapter explores this resemblance, highlighting both similarities and differences between the digital discourse and the neoliberal discourse. The purpose of such comparison is to delineate in clearer terms the political sources, or the “political unconscious” (Jameson 1982) of the digital discourse on the network market. In other words, it points to the homology of the digital discourse’s technologistic discourse and neoliberalism’s economic discourse.
SPONTANEO<sub>U</sub>S ORDER
The scope of neoliberal theory is wide, from its roots in neoclassical economics (Adam Smith) and liberal thought (David Hume), through its reincarnation as neoliberalism in the 1960s (Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman), and its political implementation as Thatcherism and Reaganism, to its current popular articulation in the context of globalization (Thomas Friedman and Francis Fukuyama). At the risk of oversimplification, let me present some of the core tenets of neoliberalism through the concepts of spontaneous order and chaos, especially as these are developed in the work of Friedrich Hayek, arguably the most distinguished figure of this school. More forcefully than other key concepts, spontaneous order and chaos seem to bridge neoliberal theory and the digital discourse and can serve as points of entry for our discussion here of the mediation of neoliberal theory into digital discourse in particular and the mediation of politics through technology in general.<sup>5</sup>
Network Market
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