{"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":223,"pdf_page":223,"physical_index":223,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"3ab8e0f9c8aa82cf9dd969e80715804a416bdb5b07e61c18278d9d2a7efa2b95"},"chapter":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","content":"Here, too, technology is at the throne: network technology is constructed as a facilitator of self-regulation, delivering a flat playing field and democratic access without privilege—that is, a variety of mechanisms and dynamics that at one time needed a strong polity and now demand minimum, if not a complete insulation from, politics.\n\nThis brings us back to Jürgen Habermas and to the adaptation of his thesis to contemporary political culture. Habermas was particularly concerned about the closing down of the political and critical horizons in the administration of society; the collapsing of the lifeworld into the rationale of the system (Habermas 1984). Habermas’s concern was raised—to use the conceptual framework of this book—at a time when the political culture was constructed as a response to the social critique of capitalism and, thus, was given the form of social democracy. The contemporary situation is not only different—founded on a neoliberal political culture, which is constructed around a response to the humanist critique—but also more troubling in terms of the political.\n\nFrom the point of view of political critique, I argue, not all types of critique are created equal. There is a fundamental difference between the social critique and the humanist critique in terms of the political space that they allow, a difference that Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) ignore. Those two different types of critique create not simply two different political cultures (social democracy and neoliberalism), but rather they create political cultures that are qualitatively different precisely in the space they allow for meaningful political critique and action (for a critique on Boltasnki and Chiapello see Callinicos 2006).\n\nThis point has recently been elucidated by David Harvey (2005) in his rereading of Karl Polanyi’s 1944 analysis of The Great Transformation (2001 edition). To a large extent, the demands for personal freedom—the core of the humanist critique—is in conflict with the demand for equality and solidarity—the core of the social critique (Harvey 2005). In the same vein, we can say that the response to the humanist critique, which dominates the spirit of networks, comes at the expense of responding to the social critique. Such analysis leaves us not only with the question of which critique is better—to which one can only respond with a normative answer—but also with the question of which critique is more political. This latter question can be given a theoretical response as well. A political culture founded on the social critique is inherently more political.\n\nBy its very definition and its very demands, the social critique opens up a political and critical space. The demands of the social critique are articulated in terms that are always-already society-wide, universalist, and political. Its demands for redistribution, equality, and welfare also require the embeddedness of the economy within political arrangements. The social critique cannot be responded to without strong political institutions and mechanisms. It is precisely this understanding that led the reformist (i.e., nonradical) strand of the working class to direct such enormous energies of legitimation in the direction of the state during Fordism. The response to the social critique during Fordism through a democratic process led to a political culture that is inherently more political where more aspects of society (particularly those concerning its reproduction) are embedded in the political process.\n\nNetworks as the Techno-political Culture of Post-Fordism\n\n223","previous_page":222,"next_page":224}