{"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":65,"pdf_page":69,"physical_index":69,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"66dc54ec8432cff01947146ab885952156769ece5b277a1de4a37837ad1cc841"},"chapter":"Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age","content":"The digital discourse does not simply reiterate neoliberal tenets but digitize them, so to speak—that is, render them technological. Thus, the comparison of the two discourses can be likened to laying two nearly identical slides on top of each other, thereby revealing both similarities and differences. This is evident, for example, in the discussion of the status of individual nodes vis-à-vis the network. In the digital discourse, individual nodes are perceived as inherently inferior in rationality and smartness compared with those of the network as a whole. It is only through the decentralized, self-regulated interaction of “dumb nodes” within a network that superior rationality can emerge. In the digital discourse spontaneous order is inextricably linked with the limited rationality of nodes vis-à-vis the rationality of the network as a whole.\n\nThese ideas receive a similar articulation in neoliberalism, where markets and ignorant individuals substitute for technological networks and dumb nodes, respectively. However, in the absence of technologistic argumentation, the underlying explanations for the same surface assertions are somewhat different in neoliberalism. According to Hayek, the key reason that the market ends up yielding the most rational results stems from the status of knowledge and information in society. Like computer chips or nodes in networks, so is each individual in society—dumb; more eloquently, Hayek refers to the “constitutional limitations of the human mind” (Petsoulas 2001) or to individual’s “constitutional ignorance” (Sally 1998, 19): “Knowledge of relevant facts for market exchange is highly fragmented and highly dispersed among millions of individuals in complex societies” (19). No one person has the capacity to muster the complete knowledge required to come up with an intelligent design of the economy. Spontaneous order is the means by which dispersed and tacit knowledge, fragmented among millions of individuals, is processed and rendered so that it yields the most rational results: “Compared to designed orders, spontaneous social orders are more complex, and utilize knowledge which no single individual or even a group of individual minds would ever be able to grasp, let alone control. Such knowledge would be impossible to centralize because it is of a practical nature, depending on the particular circumstances in which individual participants find themselves” (Petsoulas 2001, 2). For Hayek, the problem of fragmented and partial knowledge of each individual in the marketplace—the “epistemic problem” in his words—is answered best by reliance on “the spontaneous ordering forces of the market” (2).\n\nNetwork Market\n\n65","previous_page":64,"next_page":66}