Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age The Spirit of Networks

Wired, network work renders each worker into a more individualized, independent node, who does not have a “job” in the industrial-era sense, but rather takes part in ad hoc projects. The spirit of networks is also the spirit of workers as entrepreneurs.

It is noteworthy that by 2003, Campbell suggests this dynamic was overturned, and more old-fashioned, industrial-age relations were reinstated: “The culture of shifting alliances and temporary agreements is out; permanence and settling down is in” (Bronson 2003). From Campbell’s words it is clear that this entails a return to the idea of the “worker,” a persona admittedly less sexy than that of the digerati and one that reestablishes its relational position in the mode of production.

Technology as an Axis of Professional Identity

As we have seen thus far in this chapter, in the digital discourse on network work, the digerati are no longer industrial-type workers whose hierarchical positions are determined by inferior power relations vis-à-vis the capitalist and the capitalists, in turn, are also no longer the profit-driven industry titans commanding power and respect simply for their capital. These hierarchical and structural positions are replaced by flattened and networked relations facilitated by network technology. Network technology becomes the predominant axis in the tripartite nexus of work, technology, and class. As Daniel Bell puts it, power in postindustrial society is organized around a technological axis. This point is made even clearer in Bell’s new forward for the 1999 edition of The Coming ofPost-Industrial Society, titled “The Axial Age of Technology” (Bell 1999). The digerati’s subjective position in the workplace and the economy-at-large does not so much stem from their relational position in the mode of production. Instead, their identity and social position are now determined solely by their location on a technological scale. The axis of their identities is now constructed around the dominant force of production, network technology; their subjectivity is mediated through technology and through their engagement with it.

In the digital discourse network technology becomes the central axis of class location and class analysis. Class location is determined by how high or low a person is on a “techie” scale. In other words, dehierarchization in the workplace, and, by extension, between capitalists and workers, does not annul the making of hierarchical distinctions altogether, but these are now based on the level of individual engagement and expertise with network technology, that is, they are based on meritocracy, or better yet “technocracy,” or technological meritocracy. Thus, the digerati identify themselves as a distinct—indeed as an elite—social group. A reader of

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Wired refers to readers of the magazine collectively as “techno-intelligentsia” (Olcese 2004).

This technology scale helps separate the in-group from the out-group, but it also stratifies the network workplace from within. Within the ingroup of techno-intelligentsia, status is merit based; it is achieved through skillfulness and knowledge. But not just in any field; as “Microserfs” (Coupland 1994) reveals, reverence is held for skills and knowledge that go to the heart of network technology, such as programming. Referring to his superior, named Shaw, the narrator of the story says, “One grudgingly has to respect someone who’s fortysomething and still in computers—there’s a core techiness there that must be respected . . . My only problem with Shaw is that he became a manager and stopped coding. Being a manager is all hand-holding and paperwork—not creative at all. Respect is based on how much of a techie you are and how much coding you do” (Coupland 1994; emphasis mine). Hence, creativity—in this case, the ability to write codes well—becomes a virtue that “great men” are expected to possess. It is neither capital that commends respect, nor power, nor going up the ladder of management, nor even being a good businessman. It is not even dexterity as such that commends respect. It is only those skills that engage directly with network technology that serve as criteria for social stratification.

In that respect, it is interesting to note the figure of Bill Gates. In “Microserfs,” it is made clear that Gates is revered (at least by Microsoft workers) not for his money or power but for his high level of techiness. The protagonist of “Microserfs” talks about Gates in almost transcendental terms: “The presence of Bill Gates floats about the Campus, semivisible, at all times . . . Bill is a moral force, a spectral force, a force that shapes, a force that molds.” The aura of Gates seems to radiate to more than just technological realms; among the community of Microsoft workers he is a cultural icon as well: “I bet if Bill drove a Shriner’s go-cart to work, everybody else would, too.” Elsewhere in the story, after having the rare opportunity of meeting with Bill Gates, one of the protagonist’s coworkers reports, “People forget that he is medically, biologically, a genius. Not one um or ah from his mouth all lunch; no wasted brain energy. Truly an inspiration for us all” (Coupland 1994). According to “Microserfs,” then, Gates is such a prominent figure not because of his social power but because of his techiness. Other attributes of Gates—his being the richest person in the world, the proprietor of one of the largest, most influential global companies, and a person of global political clout—are suspended; in the lingo of the digital discourse, Bill Gates is simply a nerd. And in the Microsoft universe he is certainly the nerd of all nerds.

In a world built on rational, ordered, logical lines of code, the nerd is (seemingly the antihero, but in reality) the cultural hero, and being labeled as one is invariably a superlative (recall “nerd wealth”). To be a nerd is first and foremost a pronouncement of computer skills. Fondly referring to his brother, the narrator of “Microserfs” acknowledges, “He was way better with computers than I was. He was way nerdier than me” (Coupland 1994). He goes on to theorize the connection between a personality type and work; here the identity of the nerd is presented as intertwined with information work and technology: “Nerds,” he says, “over-focus . . . it’s precisely this ability to narrow-focus that makes them so good at code writing: one line at a time, one line in a strand of millions” (Coupland 1994). The digerati are not simply a class; they are a caste, based on a race of technologically savvy individuals, of nerds. As another passage points out, what started out as a derogatory label in the 1970s for the socially unfit, the “underdog,” came to be hip and prestigious in the 1990s, not least of all because of the fact that “now nerds run the world!” (Coupland 1994).

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The meritocratic ethos of the digerati, based on expertise in the dominant force of production, is adverse to—and even annuls—other forms of social classification, specifically those based on the relational position in the mode of production (such as class) or those based on ascription (such as racial, gender, or national identity). Tom Campbell sums up this ethos in reference to the culture of Silicon Valley, saying, “We believe in liberty. We’re comparatively non-prejudicial—in the Valley, it’s what you’ve done, not who you are. It’s what you believe, not who your family is. We believe in the ability of the individual in a country that allows us to be free” (Bronson 2003).

Conclusion: From the Bureaucrat to the Digerati

According to the digital discourse, with the integration of the traditional world of work into network technology, the boundaries between work life and personal life become blurred, and workspace and work time are intermingled with their private, personal counterparts. These novelties allow workers to bring their personal qualities of creativity and deep personal engagement to bear on their work activities and reeroticize the disenchanted world of (industrial) work. They also render the workplace flat, that is, decentralized and dehierarchized, eradicating hierarchies between workers on the one hand and managers and owners on the other. What comes in their place is a regime of meritocracy and professionalism based on one’s passion for, and proficiency in, network technology. These narratives of network work signal a radical break from the narratives of work alienation in the bureaucratized organization. Network technology is situated at the pivotal axis of rendering work—the work process, work relations, and the workplace—more humane and more liberating for the worker.

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At a more macro level, the narratives concerning network work also signal a shift from a Fordist discourse of class to a post-Fordist discourse of networks. In the discourse of networks, individuals are construed as autonomous nodes and defined by their connections to other nodes in the network; the social world is seen as a flat, decentralized sphere of ever-flowing, multiple, and ad hoc assemblages. This is a stark contrast to the Fordist conception of the social sphere as consisting of a hierarchized, stable, and category-defined arena. While the discourse of class stresses structural power relations, the discourse of networks is devoid of such a conception of power and instead associates power with the characteristics of autonomous nodes (i.e., power resulting from ingenuity, techiness, nerdiness, and entrepreneurship). The digerati, the new protagonists of network work, can no longer be defined by their position in relation to production (i.e., by their class) but are defined in purely meritocratic terms, or in terms of their relationships with the key means of production, network technology (i.e., their technical expertise). In the same vein, the central mode of social action in the network discourse is that of cooperation rather than struggle or competition, which characterizes the discourse on class. The notion of network work and its grounding in a technological reality allow for the substitution of a hierarchical, competitive, and antagonistic model of class by a dehierarchized, cooperative, agreeable, and inherently inclusive model of networks.

The digital discourse on network work is understood in this book as an ideational structure that supports the transformations of work under post-Fordism. Specifically, the narratives of network work should be seen as an articulation—through mediation and naturalization of a technologistic language—of a response to the critique of Fordist capitalism centered on industrial technology and built on authority, hierarchy and centralization. The digital discourse tells of a radical break from industrial-age order, and network work and the digerati are seen as the complete opposite (and in fact rejection) of their industrial counterparts. The work process is seen as a site of emancipation and personal freedom rather than of alienation, and network technology is rendered an axis through which social tensions are alleviated.

DEHIERARCHIZATION AS CONTRO_L

While capitalism, and the market in particular, is said to thrive on spontaneous order—the decentralized mechanism that self-regulates the actions of individuals—corporations, the staple of capitalist markets, have grown throughout most of the history of capitalism to rely on centralized, planned order. The technology of the bureaucratic organization was imported by capitalist corporations and the modern state from the military. It is there, specifically in Bismarck’s Prussian military, that an organization based on impersonal ranks (or offices), hierarchy, clear orders, and record keeping was implemented on a large scale (Sennet 2006, 18–37), bringing about the “militarization of civil society” (Sennet 2006, 20). Planning, centralization, and control were seen as indispensable tools for capitalist organizations to achieve economic rationality. The bureaucratic, economic organization achieved better efficiency, control, and predictability through the construction of a hierarchical architecture and centralized control mechanisms.

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In the last thirty years, however, corporations have gone through a dramatic transformation in their mode of operation, from a model of “vertical integration of departments within the same corporate structure” to one of “vertical disintegration of production along a network of firms” (Castells 1996, 158). Within the corporation, this has led to a paradigm shift from vertical bureaucracies to the horizontal corporation (Castells 1996, 164), which Castells terms the “network enterprise” (see Castells 1996, chap. 3) and which is characterized by decentralization of production processes and dehierarchization of management practices.

However, as hierarchy went out the window, control was decentralized, and work processes flowed horizontally rather than vertically, the underlying rationale remained very much the same. According to critical perspectives on work and technology, network work was not simply an effect of network technology but entailed a violent practice of reengineering, “which was used to flatten organizational hierarchies, redefine required skills, and introduce new technology” (Greenbaum 1995, 92). Joan Greenbaum argues that the incentive for collapsing hierarchies in the workplace was to increase the flexibility of organizations. Measures, such as the elimination of titles, were meant to have “workers . . . assume more functions and be more ‘flexible’” (Greenbaum 1995, 100). Like Sennet (2000), Greenbaum, too, argues that this demand to shift between tasks and positions within organizations resulted in undermining workers’ ability to construct long-term, stable, and meaningful careers (Greenbaum 1995, 101).

Another measure in the construction of the new network workplace was the adoption of “the ‘entrepreneurial’ ideal—where workers would fend for themselves” (Greenbaum 1995, 92). According to Greenbaum, this meant that workers had to absorb the “anxieties” of a freer, more volatile market (Greenbaum 1995, 92). Even within the workplace, work was privatized so that workers and teams often compete among themselves in an “internal market” (Sennet 2006, 52). This new enterprise workplace (Greenbaum 1995), where workers were encouraged to think of themselves as entrepreneurs and act accordingly, also impacted the position of workers as a social class. Robert Reich, secretary of labor under President Clinton, coined the term “the anxious class” to account for the “millions of Americans who no longer count on having their jobs next year, or next month” (Uchitelle 1994, cited in Greenbaum 1995, 82). Simon Head adds that “the harsh and unstable work regime of the New Economy undermine[s] the security of employees and weaken[s] their bargaining power in the workplace” (Head 2003, xiii). A more decentralized and dehierarchized workplace, one that increases personal freedom and decreases alienation, is also a workplace that transfers risks from the company to individual and where working lives are more privatized and precarious.

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Hence, behind the flattened and more humane workplace still lurks the dialectics of forces of production and relations of production presented at the beginning of this chapter. In a study on corporate culture in high-tech industries, Gideon Kunda (1992) concludes that the dehierarchized management style prevalent in this setting elicits more, not less, control over workers. These corporations, argues Kunda, employ a set of managerial policies “designed to minimize the use and deemphasize the significance of traditional bureaucratic control structures . . . and to elicit instead behavior consistent with cultural prescriptions. Thus, Tech’s jobcategory and compensation systems . . . are grounded in the unchanging bedrock of traditional employment practices. However, they are complemented by additional policies specifically designed . . . [among other things] to remove some of the symbols, and realities, of status, supervision, and formal control” (Kunda 1992, 218–19). Formal control in the high-tech corporate environment, Kunda maintains, is substituted by a “softer” normative control (Kunda 1992).

TECHNO_LOGY AND C_LASS CONSCIO_USNESS

The digital discourse juxtaposes two sets of narratives: On the one hand, there are the emancipatory narratives that highlight the individual empowerment of the digerati resulting from the decentralization, dehierarchization, and the flattening out of relations within the workplace. On the other hand, there are the narratives that stress the extent to which the integration of these new characteristics into the capitalist corporation makes its workings more beneficial. For example, mobility increases the freedom of both workers and organizations by facilitating flexibility. The Archimedean point for both of these processes is network technology, which makes work not only more humane (from the point of view of the process) but also more rational (from the point of view of the end result of accumulation). This argument has been most eloquently articulated in the work of Daniel Bell.

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Bell’s theory regarding The Coming of Post-Industrial Society makes similar assertions regarding the depoliticized nature of technology and the corollary emergence of a meritocratic, classless society, one that is flat and networked. Bell’s analysis essentially takes out the element of power from the conflictual framework traditionally applied to the analysis of the labor process by arguing that the emergence of information and technology as the prominent forces of production brings about a new social order that invalidates the classical Marxist analysis of society. According to Bell, Marx’s concept of the “mode of production” is problematic and, in fact, conceals two independent variables: social relations and technological development (Marx’s relations of production and forces of production, respectively). Contrary to Marx’s fundamental assumption regarding dialectical and conflicting relationship between relations of production and forces of production, Bell argues that they do not necessarily correlate. The shift from slavery to feudalism to capitalism has a history independent of the shift from preindustrial to industrial and then to postindustrial society; after all, communist states were no less industrial than capitalist states (Bell 1999, xxix–xxx; see Figure 4.2. Also compare with Figure 4.1).

Bell, therefore, is able to depict a society where the most acute social tensions—between capital and labor—are alleviated in a way that is not only nonrevolutionary but where the triumph of capitalism does not drift toward a ruthless market society and the dictatorship of the capitalist class.

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Bell substitutes the rise to eminence of a new class of professionals and technocrats for the dichotomy of capitalists and proletariats; instead of the dichotomous alternatives of either a market society or a proletariat dictatorship Bell identifies a society, the axis of which is based on the new force of production, knowledge, information, and information technology. Hence, Bell is able to envision the coming of a social order in which technology replaces class struggle. Andrew Ross summarizes the thrust of Bell’s argument as “a dream in which technology, rather than class conflict, would usher in a new realm of freedom for workers” (Ross 2003, 11).

What Bell and the digital discourse suggest is a technological overcoming of what Marx saw as the source of conflict in society: the dialectics of productive forces and productive relations. According to the digital discourse, these dialectic relations—and the type of economy and society they produce—are now being transformed by network technology. The social, this argument goes, is now predicated not on the tension between the two but on the triumphant powers of the forces of production in the form of information technology.

The most promising of these transformations, according to Bell, is the emergence of a technocratic elite (comprised of professionals at the forefront of the information and knowledge sectors) and the technical administration of the capitalist economy. The postindustrial society, he therefore predicts, is a society characterized by the substitution of class struggle by rationalization brought about by technical and technological means and championed by the technocratic elite, which has an inherent tendency to act rationally. The most decisive social ramification of the coming of postindustrialism is the subordination of the market economy to political and technical rationale. Further bureaucratization and technocratization of postindustrial society means that the defining social division is no longer based on property relations between those who own the means of production and those who do not, but “the bureaucratic and authority relations between those who have powers of decision and those who have not, in all kinds of organizations, political, economic, and social” (Bell 1999, 119).

As illustrated in this chapter, the identity of the digerati is constructed around the axis of the forces of production, while production relations are mostly ignored, downplayed, or plastered over. This reformulation helps reconceptualize technology as an axis of change and transcendence of social relations and a tool of personal and social emancipation rather than the alternative, mostly Marxist formula, where technology is always embedded with capitalist social relations and is therefore more likely to reproduce rather than transform them.

The digerati are the carriers of a new spirit, a new subjectivity, which embodies the core characteristics of a classless society. The digerati construct an (occupational) identity based on the separation of technology from social relations. Network technology is substituted for social relations of power as an axis of class composition, class structure, and, ultimately, a sense of identity. The digital discourse features a split between technology and power or, more theoretically, between forces of production and relations of production, with the latter receding into the background and the former constituting the central axis of the social sphere. In the context of this chapter, work, class, and identity are rearticulated as a derivative of technology, and power is taken out of the equation.

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CRITI_QUE IN THE C_ULT_URE OF THE NEW CAPITA_LISM

This formulation of a classless society, where social power is determined not by ownership over the means of production but by technological dexterity, can partially explain the oddity of referring to the digerati entrepreneur with such a plebeian demeanor as we have already seen, as was the case with Andy Grove. But there is another facet of the digerati entrepreneur that must be elucidated: his contrarian, antisystemic, critical posture vis-à-vis the very social order of which he is integral and most significant part. To understand this oddity, it is important to point out here the historical sources of what I am calling in the book the “humanist critique.” In the context of its historical sources the name that Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) are using—the “artistic critique”—is more telling. This type of critique of capitalism emerges from artistic and bohemian circles of Europe’s nineteenth century and is closely linked with the values and aspirations of artists in that era: authenticity, self-expression, noninstrumentality, and critical distance from the prevailing social order, particularly from its most systemic structures: the market and the state.

This culture of critique, the negation of and resistance to prevailing bureaucratic and capitalist norms and to the “system” at large, has found its way into the spirit of networks, most noticeably in the presentation of the digerati, particularly the digerati entrepreneur. An antihero hero, a persona of resistance and negativity, a contrarian and revolutionary, this “great man” is at one and the same time a pillar of contemporary social structure and an emblem of its critique. Put differently, negativity and critique have become part of the culture of the new capitalism. More than that, they have become essential forces of production, that is, features of the counterculture that became part of the digital culture, a contrarian “cool” that is now part and parcel of work life for the informational worker. Writes Alan Liu in The Laws ofCool (2004), “Increasingly, knowledge work has no true recreational outside. Cool therefore arises inside the regime of knowledge work as what might be called an intraculture rather than a subculture or counterculture. Cool is an attitude or pose from within the belly of the beast, an effort to make one’s very mode of inhabiting a cubicle express what in the 1960s would have been an ‘alternative lifestyle’ but now in the postindustrial 2000s is an alternative workstyle” (Liu 2004, 77–78). In the same vein, Richard Lloyd speaks of “the bohemian ethics and the spirit of flexibility” (Lloyd 2005, 235) as characterizing the new postindustrial social category of informational workers, Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (1997) lament the commodification of dissent, and Naomi Klein (1999) has persuasively shown the co-optation of countercultural symbols by corporations in contemporary, informational capitalism.

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The “artistic” undertones of critique and negation in the spirit of networks—the backbone of The New Culture ofCapitalism (Sennett 2006)— renders the humanist critique also the “critical critique,” at the heart of which is a requirement for critical distance from the system and from its effects (power, comfort, and privilege). It is this type of critical distance that critical theory attempted to advance in theory and in practice. And it is precisely this type of critique that we now see at the heart of the spirit of the new capitalism, “from within the belly of the beast” in Liu’s words (Liu 2004, 77). Chapter 8 will ponder the significance of the incorporation of negation and critique into the spirit of network capitalism and will assess its viability as a substantive critical stance.

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