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

To sum up, the digital discourse’s network cosmology is technologistic. By reifying technology, by suggesting a direct and nondialectic transfer between technological forms and social forms in which technology determines the shape of society, by naturalizing information technology and suggesting that it is akin to the forces of nature, by insisting that technological advance is human progress and that it is therefore benevolent, and, finally, by suggesting network technology to be one with history—a motor of change and an end in and of itself—and implying the inevitability of its impact and the futility of any human and social intervention in its affairs, this theory of technology depoliticizes and neutralizes (i.e., technologizes) what are essentially socially determined and politically contested power relations.

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Networks as the Techno-political Culture of Post-Fordism

In one of the definitive works on the network society, Manuel Castells evokes Max Weber’s essay on the spirit of capitalism to suggest that the “spirit of informationalism” is the cultural bedrock against which the network enterprise and informational capitalism operate (Castells 1996, 195–200). The tremendous economic and social transformations entailed by the rise of the network society, Castells suggests, are perhaps the result of material factors—namely, the restructuring of capitalism since the 1970s and the concurrent development and deployment of information and communication technology—but they must be accompanied by the rise of a new ethos, a new discourse to provide a general, cognitive map to interpret social life. Castells raises the question as to what the nature of this spirit might be but falls short of providing a systematic answer. This book provides a preliminary answer by analyzing contemporary digital discourse and uncovering the spirit of contemporary capitalism.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, a new “spirit of networks” has been emerging in the most advanced capitalist societies. The spirit of networks revolves around connectivity, flexibility, cooperation, decentralization, dehierarchization, spontaneous ordering, creativity and play, ad hoc assemblages, and, most prominently of course, the very notion of networks. These paradigmatic terms have become a dominant toolkit with which much of the dynamics and characteristics of contemporary society—pertaining to the economy, culture, politics, and sociability— are understood, experienced, and constructed. At the center of the spirit of networks—or rather, what holds the discourse together and binds its disparate themes—is network technology.

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The purpose of this book has been to register and interpret this new technologically centered discourse, uncover its ideological and hegemonic dimensions, and tie this new discourse to the emerging social constellation of which it is a part. This concluding chapter offers two discussions. It first answers the empirical question, What is the spirit of networks? by reiterating the main empirical findings of the book. It then answers the theoretical question, What is the sociopolitical meaning of the spirit of networks? by locating this discourse within the transformation from a Fordist to post-Fordist society.

What Is the Spirit of Networks?

The metanarratives of the spirit of networks (flexibility, decentralization, distribution, and so forth) find their particular articulation in the narratives pertaining to the network market, network work, network production, and the network human, which are all anchored in a worldview of network cosmology. The spirit of networks extols the enhanced capacity of markets to be self-regulated and self-governed. Networks are characterized by the ability to foster spontaneous order, an order (rational and benevolent) that emerges from bottom up without any centralized planning, external governance, or oversight. Power in the network is located not with any group or structure; rather it is characterized as distributed power. Its particles can therefore be assembled by individual nodes in the form of smart mobs in order to bring about a desired outcome.

Network architecture is conducive to bringing about a new form of rationality based not on the top-down projection of abstract theories or grand-narratives but rather on a swarm intelligence based on the wisdom ofcrowds and the power of the network to render dumb power into rational results. By facilitating new, bottom-up constellations of action based on disparate nodes, networks contribute to individual empowerment by allowing individuals to come together in meaningful action. The spirit of networks, therefore, asserts the greater rationality of networks twice: as means and ends. Not only are networks yielding superior results (more profit and better products), but they also deliver more empowerment and liberation to the individual in the process.

Networks are in a constant state of chaos. The lack of centralized planning and oversight yields a system that is bent, and in fact thrives, on perpetualflux. Its dynamics are inherently unstable and unpredictable, and its trajectories are nonlinear. This fluctuating movement makes the network more dynamic, allowing for more openings and more opportunities—for business, culture, and so on—to come about. The architecture of networks allows for the frictionless and streamlined flow of substance and interaction between disparate nodes relieved from the hindrance of top-down regulatory obstacles.

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To survive and thrive in the ecology of networks, nodes must face the increasingly accelerated change of their realities with the highest measure of adaptability. They must do away with any claim for stability, anchors, roots, and constants and substitute them with flexibility. In the network, there are no already established groups and structures based on essentialized categories and actors. Since networks are comprised of unstable, nonessentialized nodes, nodes, too, are characterized by a high degree of flexibility. Groupings in the network are project-specific, ad hoc assemblages of nodes. In such assemblages, nodes assume no essentialist homology and no long-term commitment to their groupings. This lack of commitment is reciprocated from the direction of the ad hoc project as well.

Networks offer a more apolitical mechanism for social interaction by embedding the dynamic characteristic of markets into the very workings of technology; the hidden order of spontaneous order, self-regulation, and the invisible hand are guaranteed by the very operation of network technology. Networks are therefore freer from political considerations and the oppressive powers of centralized institutions.

But networks do not simply make the operation of markets more perfect, or more akin to the market’s ideal type; they also completely transform the activities entailed in the reproduction of society. Networks make the workplace decentralized and dehierarchized. With the de-differentiation between various echelons (workers, managers, and owners) the workplace becomes flat. Power relations are determined based on the criteria of professionalism and meritocracy, not on the ownership of the means of production or lack thereof. They are therefore not fixed and pre-established but ad hoc and changing according to the particular task at hand and the particular skills required. The multiple actors that once populated the workplace (the boss, the worker, the manager, and the CEO) are substituted by a single actor in the network workplace, which is defined first and foremost by its relations with network technology: the digerati.

The digerati construct their identity around the axis of network technology. They are characterized by being technologically savvy, nerds and geeks; being able to multitask, flexibly shifting between different projects and deploying different skills; and being entrepreneurial—not a cog in the system, but a node among competing nodes in the network. Even the most powerful of the digerati—its entrepreneurial tycoons—are essentially the same: they are passionate about technological progress and they deploy their technological expertise, not their financial prowess, to command power. The space of network work is flat and adverse to command, bureaucracy, and hierarchy to such an extent that these entrepreneurs themselves are bent on being antiestablishment, negative, contrarian, and critical.

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Networks create a space that facilitates the positive blurring of work and leisure, of productive time and free time, of office space and home space, of public and private activities. Network work is ever present and can be performed everywhere. With networks, play, joy, and passion are reintegrated into the reproduction of society; the civilizational demands of labor are eroticized, and the chasm between those demands (for productivity and self-fulfillment) is overcome. Network work does away with bureaucratic, stifling organization and creates an airy, debureaucratized, and decompartmentalized structure of work.

The spirit of networks also heralds the coming of a new mode of production, which almost completely does away with the existing structure, experience, and meaning of work. Networks create a productive space that is, in fact, defined not by “corporations,” “capital,” “labor,” and so forth but by the deconstruction of these structures and their reconstruction as homologous units of prosumption and entrepreneurship. Networks allow for each of their nodes easy access for participating in production. The spirit of networks heralds the demise of workers and in their stead come the prosumers—atomistic nodes of production and consumption that compete and collaborate with other production-consumption nodes (such as corporations) as entrepreneurs. All prosumption nodes are ontologically homologous.

Networks allow for the dealienation and reenchantment of the reproduction of society. Creativity, self-expression, personal idiosyncrasies, passion, hobbies, individualism, and particularism—all of these become not simply legitimate components of the productive process but become, in fact, assets to be harnessed into wealth creation. Network production is conducive to personal characteristics and, in that sense, allows for more individualfreedom, emancipation, and authenticity. Networks are a space of self-realization through production; they therefore entail the dealienation of the productive process. But production and work become dealienated in another way as well: networks allow individuals to encounter products not simply as producers (whose activities are prescribed and who see only a fragment of the product) and not only as passive consumer, but as prosumers, a role that entails control and deep engagement with production and consumption, epitomized by the notion of interactivity and techniques such as mass customization and socialproduction.

The spirit of networks is the spirit of perpetual nonconformism and paradigmatic antiestablishmentarianism. It is inherently contrarian, countercultural, and counterhegemonic. It holds deep disbelief in any grand project and disloyalty to any stable structures, such as “the company.” Instead, the spirit of networks upholds loyalty to the very project of the network—fleeting assemblages and ad hoc crystallizations focused on a particular outcome—and, of course, to the very notion of network technology as progressive and benevolent.

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For the spirit of networks, time and space have collapsed under their own weight. The spirit upholds an ethic of temporality (action over limited duration), simultaneity (multiple actions at the same time), immediacy (undelayed action), fragmentality or nonlinearity (action taking place over nonconsecutive segments of time), and acceleration (same action in less time) as positive new constructs of time. Likewise, regarding space it upholds an ethic of nonspatiality and decentralization.

The network—flat and dehierarchized, comprised of homologous nodes rather than structures—is more participatory, inclusive, and democratic. The spirit of networks upholds an ethic of open source, the paradigmatic enabler that allows individual nodes a stake in the network. The inclusive tendencies of open source and the network in general also make the network inherently populist, empowering the little guys, the underprivileged, marginalized, and off centered. The ad hoc and fleeting assemblages that characterize the network, and the lack of long-term institutional stability makes collaboration between nodes the prime mode of action, replacing competition. At the same time that networks allow collaboration around a project, they also help maintain the distinct identity and practical autonomy of nodes; nodes in the network are not pressured to assimilate into established structures and do not run the risk of losing their autonomy in the process.

The reerotization, or libidinalization, of the productive process projects on the whole human experience as well. Networks resonate with humans true essence and help reconstruct a more authentic human experience. Like networks, humans, too, are informational, multiple, and fragmented. Networks allow for a better commensurability and a deeper interaction between humans and technology. Networks, therefore, facilitate the augmentation of human potentialities and allow humans to be more authentic and uncover their true selves. Hence, through networks and through the integration of humans and technology and the construction of the cyborg, the engagement of humans with the world becomes more meaningful, allowing more degrees of freedom.

Networks free humans from their essentialization: the network proves, vindicates, and augments their nonessentialism. Humans become what humans do (specifically, what they do with network technology), and their pragmatic being becomes a defining axis for who they are. As they are integrated into networks, their selves, identities, and experiences are distributed among multiple nodes—Web sites, servers, applications, and so forth. Being part of the network, humans shift swiftly and easily between multiple tasks: they are flexible and can engage with reality based on only superficial, temporary, and fleeting encounters. The spirit of networks upholds humans as informational: they are coreless (or unessential), comprised of a network of components, which can be disassembled, distributed, and reassembled in order to create a new whole.

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Last, but not least, the spirit of networks is the spirit of network technology itself, the bedrock on which the network civilization is founded. Network technology is natural, a return to the essential characteristics and the underlying infrastructure—the “operating system”—of the cosmos: information, communication, networks, spontaneous order, adaptability, smart mobs, and so forth. The spirit of networks, hence, is an articulation of this fundamental, natural truth; indeed, it is the gospel of the transcendental powers of network technology. Network technology should not be seen simply as a human creation; instead it is essentially an asocial phenomenon, an unfolding of a teleology of increased information and communication since the dawn of creation.

What Is the Sociopolitical Meaning of the Spirit of Networks?

Technology discourse, as a key social and political construct, is not a new phenomenon; it has its roots at the dawn of modernity and specifically with the rationalization of science and technology and the emergence of capitalism and the modern state. The spirit of networks is but the latest in this lineage. The purpose of this book has been not only to register anew the old themes prevalent in the discourse on technology—utopianism, technological determinism, instrumentalization, and so forth—but also to explore its contemporary particulars.

In more theoretical terms, this book has been concerned with both a revival and an updating of Habermas’s critique of “technological consciousness” and his framework of “technology as ideology.” It employed Habermas’s framework as a theoretical model in order to explore the legitimation function of technology discourse, specifically in the context of the prevailing political culture and the structural constellation of state and market. As such, this framework served as a theoretical entry point into the discourse on technology in the contemporary post-Fordist era. In that sense, the revival of Habermas’s critical lens and its application to the changing circumstances of the contemporary era has also led to its updating. The generational transformations of the political, economic, and technological pillars of Western capitalist society that have taken place since Habermas laid out his theoretical formulation beg for such updating. This book was concerned with elucidating how technology discourse works under a particular social constellation, highlighting its contemporary hues.

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Simply put, the answer to the question “what is the sociopolitical meaning of the spirit of networks?” is twofold. First, the spirit of networks is the discursive “facilitating shell” (Fraser 2003), the “cultural logic” (Jameson 1991), or the legitimation discourse of post-Fordist society. The spirit of networks is understood in this book not simply as a description of contemporary techno-capitalism but also as central to the constitution of the novel ways of life, institutional arrangements, and social power relations that it entails. The spirit of networks is central to how contemporary life is understood, experienced, and practiced. It is the connective tissue between two key transformations of the last four decades: the shift to a post-Fordist society and the rise of network technology. It is the discourse that legitimates and enables these transformations.

A N_EW TRAD_E-OFF B_ETW_EEN A_LI_ENATION AND EXP_LOITATION

Second, the spirit of networks has been constructed as a response to the humanist critique of Fordist society. It transcends the technological, institutional, and social pitfalls that prevailed during Fordism—which were the subject of the humanist critique—and therefore marks a watershed in the shift of legitimation function of technology discourse from Fordism to post-Fordism. During the Fordist phase of capitalism, technological discourse gave legitimation to a socioeconomic regime of accumulation that responded to a social critique of capitalism while it downplayed, and even ignored, the humanist critique. Industrial technology, the assembly line, the bureaucratic corporation, the statist regulation of the economy, and the provision of welfare were all conceived in the technology discourse during Fordism as technologies and techniques that respond to concerns put forth by the social critique, such as the need for social security, stability, and equality, that is, those geared toward mitigating exploitation.

The critique of Fordism, to which the spirit of networks responds, therefore, targets precisely the oppressive nature of the administered state and the bureaucratic corporation, the loss of personal authenticity, and the deeroticization of the productive process, that is, the harmful ramifications of Fordism in terms of alienation. Their amelioration has, in fact, become the centerpiece of the spirit of networks that emerges in the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. With post-Fordism, technological discourse has come to legitimate a new socioeconomic regime that responds to the humanist critique of capitalism while it downplays the social critique. Network technology, the lean and flexible corporation, and flexible modes of employment and production are all conceived in the discourse on network technology during post-Fordism as technologies that respond to concerns put forth by the humanist critique, such as the need for individual empowerment, authenticity, and creativity, that is, those geared toward mitigating alienation.

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While industrial technology during Fordism was used to legitimize the social compact between capital, labor, and the state, network technology during post-Fordism legitimizes precisely the decomposition of this compact and the constitution of its alternative: privatized relations within the context of a global market and of civil society. While Fordism extolled the power of the old technology in the name of social equity and stability as a public and political project, post-Fordism extols the power of the new technology in the name of individual authenticity and liberation as a private and apolitical (or postpolitical) enterprise.

The new legitimation discourse of networks is woven along the axis of the critique of the techno-political culture of Fordism, that is, its paradigmatic technological forms and the organizational, institutional, occupational, social, cultural, political, and personal constellations that are assumed to stem from it. The responses to the pitfalls and shortcomings of the Fordist techno-political culture are now integrated into the new techno-political culture of post-Fordism. To put it in terms of the framework that had Daniel Bell worry at the turning point between those two phases of capitalism: with the spirit of networks, The Cultural Contradictions ofCapitalism (1976) have now been resolved; the new capitalism does not reject, but quite the contrary—it harnesses self-realization, personal expression, and hedonistic impulses into its mode of operation.

In that context, network technology is constructed in contemporary technology discourse as amending the pitfalls of Fordist production by responding to concerns regarding individual emancipation and harnessing those human facets that have been suppressed during Fordism—individualism, authenticity, creativity, personal expression, and so forth—into the productive process. However, at the same time that network technology is constructed as responding to these individual demands, it is also construed as requiring the downplaying, and even rejection, of the concerns for social emancipation, the response for which has been epitomized by job tenure, employment security, embedded markets, and the provision of welfare and social security, which characterized Fordist society. The spirit of networks offers a new trade-off between the societal and the individual, between socially backed security and individual opportunity, between long-term stability and liberating flexibility; in short, between the social safety net that was the ideological underpinning of the Fordist, Keynesian, welfare state and the promise of the Internet, so to speak, for personal liberation and dealienation (Fisher 2007). The dynamics of the new capitalism powered by network technology—flexibility, adaptability, temporality, spontaneity, and so forth— are constructed in contemporary technology discourse as characteristics that both promise individual emancipation and negate the possibility for social emancipation.

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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.

THE SPIRIT OF NETWORK AND THE LEGITIMATION OF CAPITA_LISM

The 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.

The 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).

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