Capitalism in the "Free" Digital Economy

7/30/2019 Capitalism in the "Free" Digital Economy

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Theories of the

Information Society

WEEK 2: BELL, SCHILLER, AND

TERRANOVA

Capitalism in the Free Digital Economy

Gina Lawrence &Tiffany Palioungas


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Evolution of Societies[Bell] is inevitably endorsing a convergencetheoryof development . . . Insisting that there

are common characteristics for all industrialsocieties: the technology is everywhere the

same; the same kind of technical andengineering knowledge is the same; classification

of jobs and skills is roughly the same, Bell

necessarily contends that all societies are set on

the same developmental journey, one whichmust be followed en route to the Post Industrial

Society (46).

Webster disagrees withthis claim (52).

However, do you

believe there is an

evolution? Is this Post-

Industrial Society,indeed, inevitable?

Bell cites . . . That the service sector of the economy has expanded whileindustrial and agricultural sectors have declined as prima facie evidence of the

coming of post-industrialism (46).


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Agriculture + Industry + Service

He is arguing that services are dependent on the outputsfrom the other two sectors [agriculture & manufacturing]

in so far as services consume resources while agriculture

and manufacturing generate them. Put in more vulgar

terms, he is assuming that the wealth-creating sectors ofsociety must subsidize the wealth-consuming realms. Thisis, of course, a very familiar nostrum: for example, schools

and hospitals must spend only what we can afford from

the wealth created by industry (47).

Is this Post-Industrial society a form ofcommunism? What aboutwhen manufacturing is outsourced? What about service jobs,

such as call centers, once they are outsourced? What would Bellsay about todays global economy, which, largely, did not exist

when his thesis was written (1973)?


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The Post-Industrial SocietyThe acceptance of the growing importance of

information technology, even in informationrevolution, is one thing; the acceptance of the

idea of a new Industrial Revolution, a new kind

of society, a new age, is quite another (59).

There is no novel, post industrial society:the growth of service occupations and

associated developments highlight the

continuities of the present with the past (59)

Bell argues that the Post-Industrial Society issomething completely new, perhaps [r]evolutionary,

from previous societies. Webster blatantly

disagrees, saying it is continuous with previous

societies. Who do you agree with, and is it possible

that they are both right?


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Schillers Main Argument

[T]he capitalist systems long-establishedfeatures, its structural constituents and the

imperatives on which it operates, are the defining

elements of the so-called informationsociety (128).


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Schillers Framing Questions

Who initiates, develops and applies innovative informationtechnologies?

What opportunities do particular people haveand have nottoaccess and apply them?

For what reasons and with what interests are changes advocated? To what end and with what consequences for others is the

information domain expanding?

Why is any programming of minority interest, of difficulty, or ofcritique made available? (131)


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Market Criteria

As a rule, information will therefore be producedand made available only where it has the prospect

of being sold at profit, and it will be produced

most copiously and/or with greatest quality wherethe best opportunities for gain are evident (135).


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Commodification (of Information)

[Information] is regarded as vendible, subject to the pricemechanism, and hence a commodity to be bought and soldby one party or another. (144)

In what ways does the commodification of information challenge theownership of intellectual property?

In your opinion, is mental labor in the information society subject toindividual ownership, or should research and Intellectual work be shared

freely in the information society?

Can open source software be seen as a rebellion against thecommodification of information? Why or why not?


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SOPA and Intellectual Property


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Class Inequalities

[T]he fact that the market is theallocative mechanism means that it isresponsive to a society differentiated byincome and wealth. In other words, classinequalitiesbroadly, the hierarchicaldivisions of societyexercise a central pull

in the information age (146).

[A] pay-per societyspotlights the ability-to-pay

factor as a determinantforce in the generation or

and access to information.Bluntly, the higher one is in

the class system, the richer

and more versatile will bethe information to which

one has access; as one

descends the social scale, sodoes one get information of

an increasingly inferiorkind. (147)

What do you make of Newt Gingrichs proposal that the poor would

be better off being given a laptop computer than welfare benefits? Inwhat ways does this proposal highlight and/or challenge the digitaldivide?

What distinctions does Webster (via Schiller) make about the

information rich and the information poor?


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Corporate Capitalism

Throughout the 20th century the market economychanged from one characterized by innumerable small-

sized enterprises to one in which the major part of

economic activity is dominated by a select few

corporations which are very large, vertically and

horizontally integrated, and enjoy a large geographicalreach (150).

What role does erasure play in corporate capitalism?What are the economic risks of allowing corporations to conduct their

businesses globally with minimal concern for restrictions imposed by

nation states?

In what ways is corporate capitalism self-perpetuating?


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Consumer Capitalism

Consumer capitalism combines the theme of surveillance with an

emphasis on the class and the capitalist dimensions of the process.

Thereby it is suggested that the information of relationships is

expressed by the increased monitoring of citizens in the interests of a

capitalist class (153).

How does consumer capitalism foster civic disengagement?

What is the relationship between information surveillance and

domination?How does the cult of celebrity support consumer capitalism?


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Terranova

The internet does not automatically turn every user into an

active producer, and every worker into a creative subject.

The process whereby production and consumption are

reconfigured within the category of free labor signals the

unfolding of a different (rather than completely new) logicof value, whose operations need careful analysis (2).

In what ways does Terranova both support and refute Bell andSchiller? And how do their theories intersect in the digital

economy?


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Documents

Capitalism in the "Free" Digital Economy