> /* Written 2:42 AM Mar 22, 1998 by Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk in igc:misc.activism. */ > /* ---------- "Book: Class Warfare in the Informat" ---------- */ > > Michael Perelman's new book, Class Warfare in the Information Age has > come to hand. It fills an important need as a corrective > to the now almost universal Net-hype. > > Net-hype ranges a broad spectrum from the pompous (and often vacuous) > theorising of Manuel Castells (Tony Blair's favourite philosopher) -- > to the Wired hysterias of Kevin Kelly -- to the imbecile moral panics > (net-crime, net-gambling, net-pedophilia, net-surveillance) which the > mass media manage to mix with uncritical enthusiasm (the Net as the > future of post-human, genetically-enhanced humankind, immortalised in > virtual worlds; the Net as improbable panacea for Third World poverty; > the Net facilitating Athenian-style direct democracy; the future as > a permabulation through virtual malls, etc.) > > Net-hype even extends to Net-Insurrectionaries, Harry Cleaver's espousal > of sub-comandante's virtual Zap revolution being a prime example. > > All this hype needed a god debunking. So it is useful to be reminded, as > Perelman does, that 'the reality of the information age falls considerably > short of the futuristic vision of the information age. In fact, the imaginary > dystopias of science fiction seem to be closer to the truth than the > fantasies of the champions of the coming information age.' > > His critique does not stop there. > > There has been much recent research to suggest that informatics has > not exactly been the productivity boon the corporations had expected. > Nor has labour fared any better: the much-heralded workless society > has coincided with speed-up, longer hours, casualisation and the > three-job anti-social family. > > So what is going on? What's behind the hype? > > Perelman wants 'to make sense of this welter of conflicting claims and > accusations in the context of the information revolution.' > His conclusions: that the information revolution is 'overblown', that > in any case we are not educating people to make sense of it, that most > new employment is not connected with it, and that its most useful > attribute is to perfect capitalism's command and control. According to > Perelman, what informatics really creates is the Panopticon society, > after Bentham's notion of the perfect prison. > > The real subordination of labour to capital is the true name of the > game, even when it comes at the expense of the massive glitches and > crashes which the emphasis on command-and-control instead of decentred > networking often entails. > > A major theme of Perelman's book is the privatisation of society's > knowledge-base which, like DNA and even the carbon in the atmosphere, > is one of the last great commons capitalism has left to enclose. What > the information age will bring may actually be a lack of information. > Knowledge will still be power, and access to it will be strictly > controlled. Information will be commoditised, regulated and rendered > much less accessible. > > All this will surely be true to some degree, despite the generalised > promise of the Net and of things like Project Gutenberg. Yes, it will > bring an ocean of culture, books, art, knowledge and as bandwidth > grows, moving images, into everyone's lives, as television once did > and movable type before that. But the apparent plethora will conceal a > drastic diminution of opportunity, a reduction in the democracy of > knowledge which robber barons like Dale Carnegie once tried to extend > to the masses. The really important things will be more inaccessible > than ever, shut away behind strong cryptography, archived on orbital > satellites beyond the ken of governments. > > Class Warfare in the Information Age is more extended essay that > kilometric, Castells-style exposition. It is portable. But as a tour > d'horizon it's as good as they come. Perelman's strength is that his > overview is historical as well as social. > > Frances Yates' great book, The Art of Memory, described how the > invention of alphabets and writing in antiquity, displaced an > attribute of civilised discourse which had taken generations to > develop. It thereby privileged the masses against the leisured class > which had time to develop such skills, expressed in phenomenal > memory-feats by poets and orators from Homer to Cicero -- and > even Shakespeare. > > Non-coincidentally, these were mostly cultural conservatives. Perelman > reminds of this but his conclusion is not the obvious one that the > Information Age presents similar subversive possibilities to writing. > Conservatives from Plato to TS Eliot were fearful of the consequences > of massifying knowledge, objectifying it and making it available to > the unscrupulous masses. According to Perelman, they would be less > fearful of the 'information revolution' which may have the opposite > effect, making knowledge (as opposed to information) less accessible, > reinforcing authority and hierarchy. > > The meat of Perelman's extended essay is his discussion of corporate > strategies for privatising the gold in people's minds. Quoting Kenneth > Arrow: 'embedded information... [as] capital depends on slow mobility > of information-rich labor', he reminds us of the infamous treatment > meted out to researcher Petr Taborsky, who invented, in his own time, > a form of sewage-purification of potential value to his employer, > utility holding company Florida Progress. Taborsky patented his ideas > and was rewarded by being convicted (in 1990) of grand theft of trade > secrets, for which he was sentenced to a year's house arrest, a > suspended prison term of 3 1/2 years, probation, 500 hours community > service .. and when he continued to insist on his right to his own > ideas, Taborsky was assigned to a chain gang for two months. > > Be warned, knowledge-workers, you are the feudal servitors of the > Information Age. > > Mark Jones |