{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781349379743","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","id":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","uuid":"8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks","normalized_title":"mediaandnewcapitalisminthedigitalagethespiritofnetworks","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781349379743","isbns":["9781349379743","9780230106062"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":258,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Media%20and%20New%20Capitalism%20in%20the%20Digital%20Age%20The%20Spirit%20of%20Networks","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/8a3d8546-8fbb-485e-b423-37bc08c3284a/search"},"page":{"printed_page":219,"pdf_page":219,"physical_index":219,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"7f82a86d1238c509b14d37cfff5224a930044dae506d6bcbc91a6a54ca1332a6"},"chapter":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","content":"To sum up, this book has argued that the emergence of a new capitalism and a new technology has been accompanied by the rise of a new technology discourse that offers a new type of legitimation to capitalism. During the Fordist phase of capitalism, technology discourse extolled the capacity of technology to enhance social goals of security, stability, and equality by mitigating the exploitative nature of capitalism. In contrast, during the contemporary, post-Fordist phase of capitalism, technology discourse extols the capacity of technology to enhance individual goals of personal empowerment, authenticity, and creativity by mitigating the alienating nature of capitalism. By moving from the mitigation of exploitation to the mitigation of alienation, I further suggest, contemporary technology discourse legitimates new constellations of power entailed by the new capitalism, at the heart of which is the weakening of labor and the state vis-à-vis capital, the liberalization of markets, the privatization of work, and the increased flexibility of employment.\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF NETWORK AND THE LEGITIMATION OF CAPITA<sub>L</sub>ISM\n\nThe legitimation function of the spirit of networks has been studied here primarily as it pertains to economic life (e.g., employment, the market, production, consumption) and as a general template of political culture. Since the legitimation scope of the spirit of networks pertaining to the particulars of economic life have been discussed extensively in the previous chapters, let me sum them up briefly and then move to a more abstract and general discussion regarding the significance of the spirit of networks as the techno-political culture of contemporary post-Fordist society.\n\nThe spirit of networks legitimizes the withdrawal of the state from the planning, management, and regulation of the economy and from its welfare obligations (Chapter 3); the move from a national protective economy to a globalized, deregulated, and unitary market; the privatization of work (Chapter 5); the eradication of “work” and “working class” as viable social categories (Chapter 4); the insulation of the economy from the democratic political process, or the disembeddeness of markets from society (Chapter 3); new employment schemes that are more precarious and flexible (Chapter 5); a new, decentralized disciplinary regime; a shift to a placid political discourse of a classless society, devoid of antagonism and contradictions (Chapter 4); a reorganization of working life and of labor processes, which are more flexible (Chapters 4, 5, and 6); the depolitization of economic affairs as technical, technological, and instrumental; and the construction of contemporary social constellations as postideological, representing the end of history (Chapter 7).\n\nNetworks as the Techno-political Culture of Post-Fordism\n\n219","previous_page":218,"next_page":220}