tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post7206475394768228405..comments2023-09-25T04:39:36.185-07:00Comments on Little Red's Recovery Room: The Liberalizing Ideology of the InternetUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-63206658686463566452008-06-15T16:22:00.000-07:002008-06-15T16:22:00.000-07:00O anonymous, come back! I love you! Can I have you...O anonymous, come back! I love you! Can I have your number? Or your URL?the unreliable narratorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02455924102326229617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-37558999637884323392008-06-05T17:59:00.000-07:002008-06-05T17:59:00.000-07:00In spite of the Internet's negatives, I'm still us...In spite of the Internet's negatives, I'm still using it because of its positives. Linh Dinh over at his <A HREF="http://wwwwsonneteighteencom.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Detainees</A> has for some while been linking to articles and speeches by writers more powerful and perhaps more committed than any of us. As it does for us, the Internet provides a stage as it were for them to share their thoughts about present crises. If you don't wish to go to Linh's blog, but haven't yet read the May 28th speech given at Furman by Pulitzer-prize journalist Chris Hedges, here's a link to his entire <A HREF="http://www.alternet.org/democracy/86973/?page=entire" REL="nofollow">"America's Democratic Collapse"</A>. Hedges, Tom Engelhardt, Mike Whitney, James Howard Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, and others are also on the boat Mark Wallace has imagined.brian (baj) salcherthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-75664838276498055572008-06-05T13:13:00.000-07:002008-06-05T13:13:00.000-07:00Responding to Jane & Anonymous before this thread...Responding to Jane & Anonymous before this thread peters out....<BR/><BR/>In answer to my question, Jane wrote: <I>Well, I suppose one might start with the inextricable twinings of Chinese "modernization," the "capitalist road" wherein the rise of internet access is part of a singular process which has at its absolute core the separation of people from their means of production, various forms of enclosure, real subsumption of labor, and so forth.</I><BR/><BR/>And Anonymous wrote: <I>Computers and networking require, create, and fuel a consumer economy. Computer equipment is made by the hands of people very far removed from the end products, and when obsolete, returns to them on very unequal terms...</I><BR/><BR/>Isn't this a rather banal point about the "capitalist road" as such? One could very well say the same thing about any aspect of our societies, any of our consumer products...cars, shoes, etc. How, specifically, does the internet differ? (I'm sure it does, but I'm still asking.) And yet, we're all still using the internet. To return to Zizek, I'm reminded of his oft-repeated formula of the Kantian fetishistic disavowal: I know very well that the [internet, cars we drive, shoes we wear] sustain and support a system of exploitation and atrocity; nevertheless I continue to [use the internet, drive my car to work, buy Nikes].<BR/><BR/>What I want to know, specifically, is how this "space of the internet," the one we are using right now, "causes some of the most extreme disenfranchisement, dispossession, atrocity and destruction in recent memory." And if it does, why are we still using it?Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12350813388072485198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-42895646623256449112008-06-05T06:34:00.000-07:002008-06-05T06:34:00.000-07:00To jump in late on this thread, I have a lot of do...To jump in late on this thread, I have a lot of doubts about holding up the Internet as a mirroring of culture; this strikes me as being about the same as holding up one's hand as a mirroring of embodiment. <BR/><BR/>It's not a question of one's particular opinion about the 'mirror,' but rather one's decision to see these things as separate (even if reflective) images. My position is closer to the idea that contemporary culture and/or the Internet do similar work in terms of orienting folks towards certain positions in terms of social relations, divisions of being, economic habits, etc. <BR/><BR/>Different strokes, of course, but my thought is that satirizing and exploring a culture that, in our moment, perpetuates itself through self-satirizing and self-exploratory (culture as 'limitless' database and constant feedback and commentary on itself) norms doesn't do much in the way of critique. I think the language and gestures of critique can be the material for interesting poetry, but I also have my doubts as to the extent that poetry can be, in and of itself, an effective tool of critique (though it can occasion powerful critique in response).<BR/><BR/>Word,<BR/>TTTThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15765857872778493229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-13654705534767625722008-06-05T01:32:00.000-07:002008-06-05T01:32:00.000-07:00"The Internet" is not a unitary entity. It is, in ..."The Internet" is not a unitary entity. It is, in all senses, a collection of substrates and forces. To refer to The Internet as a singular object is a naive but sadly common fallacy. "The Internet" is in fact a metonymy for "some techno thingy about I really have no idea but feel something, i guess, whatever, lol." <BR/><BR/>To clarify your discussion, I suggest replacing every reference to "The Internet" with "Language." Or if your prefer to express your solidarity with the Worker, you might try replacing it with "people talkin' bout stuff." This replacement of your ill-chosen referent should help untangle your ideology from the mirror trap of commercialized lingo.<BR/><BR/>Regarding Marx on the nature of electronic reproduction, I refer to his famous quote upon first experiencing the cinemaograph: <BR/><BR/>"OH DEAR GOD THE TRAIN IS COMING RIGHT AT US!!!"superbunkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00399966293685232327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-66593130710592519732008-06-04T18:49:00.000-07:002008-06-04T18:49:00.000-07:00Mark's right that there's a lot of unacknowledged ...Mark's right that there's a lot of unacknowledged common ground here; in fact, a lot of my frustration stems from the fact that Jasper is ignoring elements of the "Editor's Statement" that reflect positions similar to his own. This makes me feel that Mat and I are being made straw men, because Jasper is so eager to set himself up as the wise man chastising us for worshiping the internet and (by extension) being "neo-liberal." But the truth is I've written an extended critique of Thomas Friedman and am alarmed and angered by the hypocrisies of the neoliberal stance. And the truth is that I use the internet as a mimetic tool, a device to hold up a mirror to our culture, but I don't idolize the mirror. Also, the text in question isn't about the internet at all; it's about appropriative writing strategies--plagiarism and copying. These are excellent mimetic strategies for use in exploring and satirizing the culture. And if the internet is a workspace that alienates my labor, then I'm using it because I want to bring that alienation into my writing. . . we live in an alienating society, so literary work can express that alienation as part of a critical stance.<BR/><BR/>Having gotten the common ground out of the way, I don't necessarily agree with the kind of Marxism Jasper and Jane are espousing. . . Marxism is historical and its argument that violence is the only authentic tool for social change is alarming. . . Plenty of socialists before Marx understood the limits of violence as a liberatory tool, and when we look at, say, the outcome of (failed) Marxist revolutions in the 80s in Central America, we see an immense waste of human potential and effort. Violence radicalizes and produces sectarian extremity; sectarian extremity is a paranoid mindset not conducive to empathetic communication. Of course, I think violence is justified in lots of situations, but the implication in Jane's most recent comment that only violence is an authentic approach ("imagining [the internet] as resolving capitalism's contradictions without imagining first the destruction of the spine...that's just already old-fashioned cyberpunk stuff, yeah?")--that is just ridiculous. No one can destroy the spine of capitalism; we're all going to be, as Jane puts it, "parasitic" on that infrastructure. Whatever future is coming down the pipe is going to be developing upon that infrastructure. And, since imagining the resolution of present contradictions is the goal of dialectic reasoning, the effort to do that is exactly the kind of mental work we should be trying out, the kind that never goes out of style. I guess for you, Jane, people's mental work isn't valid unless it has some sort of fantasy appeal to violence as a, what, a genre marker? Since I think your allusions to violence are strictly rhetorical, I find you to be an unconvincing writer in this genre, i.e. your use of Marxism is escapist, as or more escapist as the stances Jaspar incorrectly believes me to be holding.Stanley Bishop Burhanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04844082750285483221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-62805567308196873492008-06-04T12:31:00.000-07:002008-06-04T12:31:00.000-07:00I'm trying to see if I can boil this down.Stan and...I'm trying to see if I can boil this down.<BR/><BR/>Stan and Joseph believe Jasper missed the ironies, ambiguities and contradictions of the piece in question, and perhaps he did. But perhaps that's because he doesn't think of those kinds of literary twists as important enough to the issues he's raising. I'm not sure about his stance on that.<BR/><BR/>Then the question comes up of whether the internet is developed in the context of, and supports, the hegemonic functions of capitalism. And yes, everyone seems to agree that it does, although there are a few differences and questions of information regarding in what way specifically it does.<BR/><BR/>Then the question is raised of whether despite that fact, some activities on the internet can work against its capitalist uses, and if so, how that might work. That is, can capitalist technologies be used in ways that resist capitalism or not? I would think yes, as can radio and television also, but not necessarily obviously, and to what degree and in what ways of course remains speculation until it happens.<BR/><BR/>I would add that resistance and especially large scale resistance seldom operates on a singular theory about what it's up to, and by no means requires being right in any pure sense, in which case there may be room for all you guys on the boat.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-30297481848240860052008-06-04T11:20:00.000-07:002008-06-04T11:20:00.000-07:00Thank you for allowing anonymouscomments. Comment...Thank you for allowing anonymous<BR/>comments. Comment #11 should be<BR/>seriously pondered.brian (baj) salcherthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-17085280871209249212008-06-04T08:40:00.000-07:002008-06-04T08:40:00.000-07:00The internet is in the service of capitalism not l...The internet is in the service of capitalism not least because you need a computer and various kinds of networks to access and use it. Computers and networking require, create, and fuel a consumer economy. Computer equipment is made by the hands of people very far removed from the end products, and when obsolete, returns to them on very unequal terms (that is: it poisons poor people in particular and the environment in general). It also presumes literacy, which is expensive and unequal. There is no such thing as equal access.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-7412809108996012952008-06-03T08:37:00.000-07:002008-06-03T08:37:00.000-07:00Quoting Joe, responding to Jasper: What I object t...Quoting Joe, responding to Jasper: <I>What I object to is the broad generalization that "the spaces of the internet [should be considered as] ones of enfranchisement and access which sit next to, and cause/are caused by, some of the most extreme disenfranchisement, dispossession, atrocity and destruction in recent memory." As the engineers at work say, "Show me the data."</I><BR/><BR/>Well, I suppose one might start with the inextricable twinings of Chinese "modernization," the "capitalist road" wherein the rise of internet access is part of a singular process which has at its absolute core the separation of people from their means of production, various forms of enclosure, real subsumption of labor, and so forth. The insistence on seeing these as <I>separate facts</I> is exactly the mistake of seeing "distribution" as something that can be discussed (and modified) independent of the relations of production with which it shares a mutual determination.<BR/><BR/>But why not just mention the glaring fact that "the internet" (and the larger complex of information technologies ascendant in the last decades) isn't really a distribution network, anyway? It is a literal space of work, and not just in the representational or incidental ways that Jasper mentions. It's a set of technologies for allowing the extension of the workday in space and time — telecommuting, editing, designing, conferencing, and on and on (for Thomas Friedman, this is the tech's greatest achievement: the equal access to market competition it brings to all peoples. Yeay!) And the forces that drive us into these new work spaces are not forces of distribution at all; they're forces of labor markets.<BR/><BR/>Sure, in our decreasing off hours we might hope to do some cool parasitic stuff on this new spine that work has grown, but imagining it as resolving capitalism's contradictions without imagining first the destruction of the spine...that's just already old-fashioned cyberpunk stuff, yeah?janehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746332414326413360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-50591795718338837172008-06-03T07:41:00.000-07:002008-06-03T07:41:00.000-07:00Hey Joseph, Sorry, that was messy pronoun use in m...Hey Joseph, <BR/><BR/>Sorry, that was messy pronoun use in my comment. By "we disagree" in that sentence I meant Stan and me, not all three of us. I didn't mean to imply that you held the same views as Stan (nor, by the way, that you hadn't read Zizek; just pointing to something similar for corroboration).<BR/><BR/>As for the logic of causation you flag, well, it's probably not articulated correctly there. These kinds of determination are difficult to prove. In any case, it has to do with the argument about political immobilization, if you buy that, and then also the fact that the internet is a big advertisement, and the destructiveness of that, etc. <BR/><BR/>Some day, perhaps, I'll write something about this with "facts."UCOP Killerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15593713553275884570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-55145672196956354662008-06-03T00:53:00.000-07:002008-06-03T00:53:00.000-07:00I'm sure Stan and I disagree about many things bes...I'm sure Stan and I disagree about many things besides, say, the merits of Flarf and importance of Fassbinder; so I'm not sure why you assume we agree about the meaningfulness of the internet and distribution. I was simply making a point about the nature of the text he and Matt Timmons wrote.<BR/><BR/>I don't think anyone harbors any illusions about the democratic nature of the internet; I've read my Zizek, thank you very much. I am aware that the internet, as currently configured, is a marketplace, that it was "supposed to bring us all together into a Global Village" and what we have instead is "particular identifications at our choice" -- those choices primarily being an ever-expanding array of consumer products. What I object to is the broad generalization that "the spaces of the internet [should be considered as] ones of enfranchisement and access which sit next to, and cause/are caused by, some of the most extreme disenfranchisement, dispossession, atrocity and destruction in recent memory." As the engineers at work say, "Show me the data."<BR/><BR/>I actually agree with your point about the internet as work; sure, these very words I'm typing may be read by an Adwords bot resulting in an ad for "wholesale distributors" being placed at the top of the page; three years from now, when this blog is defunct, these words might be chopped up and boiled down into spam text that will be sent to the inbox of a Clinton intern. That likelihood doesn't negate the value of the conversation we're having right now. Nor does it render useless the community organizing that is possible through blogs and email. The point, as even you concede (and Zizek too, in his book on Totalitarianism where he asks us not to retreat but rather to fight for the "socialization of cyberspace") is the <I>potentiality</I> of the internet. The operational structure here is similar to the potentiality of Marxism, isn't it? Even during the worst atrocities committed in its name there was still something of value in its critique.<BR/><BR/>Further, it's a bit disingenuous and condescending of you to lecture Stan about waste, overconsumption and "lots of iPhones [and] much less medicine for things like malaria" when you quote him at length but fail to include the phrase Stan uses immediately preceding your selection: "inequitable distribution." I can't speak for Stan, but I suspect that the key words in relation to his notion of distributive efficacy here are "imitation" and "differently," as in <I>not the same</I> as the current conditions of neo-liberalism.<BR/><BR/>Incidentally, it's strange that you lump Stan in with conceptual writers like Kenny Goldsmith when Stan is closer in temperament to the Flarfists; in fact he's read at at least one of their festivals and is a member of their listserv, and has written at least one chapbook that might be described as Flarf. If anyone can be said to partake in profane illumination it is the man who wrote the poem "The Christmas Party."Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12350813388072485198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-32631306385468872812008-06-02T21:41:00.000-07:002008-06-02T21:41:00.000-07:00Hi Stan, Hi Joseph—In a longer essay, I would have...Hi Stan, Hi Joseph—<BR/><BR/>In a longer essay, I would have had more time to devote to the statement’s (or non-statement’s) complexity, and if I do something with the piece, I plan on that. I apologize for not having had the space to account for its many-facetedness. In an earlier draft, I looked at some of the remarks you’ve made at your blog, Stan, particularly those re: hegemony and eclecticism, which I think will bear out my sense of the position of the statement. Because, in the end, I do think that in the aggregate there is something like a position there (and lots of positions are excluded from it). This is substantiated by the fact that you’re taking this exact same position here. If you and Joseph agree that we disagree about the meaningfulness of the internet and distribution, then that’s all that needs to be said, really, since it was the main point of my piece. Have we reached the point at which noting that something was written via collage is like saying it was written in words? <BR/><BR/>In any case:<BR/><BR/>>My "thought experiment," as Jane >called it, was to emphasize >capitalism's distributive efficacy >as its worthwhile element, the >element worth imitating, albeit >differently. Ie. >getting everyone >what they want, rather than only >getting specific subjects what >they want. Experiments in micro- >finance are trying to do this at a >starter level.<BR/><BR/>See, Stan, this is why you’re much closer to someone like Thomas Friedman, and the bourgeois economists with whom Marx is arguing in the Grundrisse, than you are to me or to any anticapitalist who hasn’t, basically, thrown in the towel. Capitalism doesn’t have any distributive efficacy; distribution is actually where it’s weakest, its virtues being its unleashing of powerful productive forces; capitalism, by its very nature (the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value, broadly) requires that there will be massive waste, overproduction, needless competition, and lots of iPhones but much less medicine for things like malaria that can be wiped out for pennies on the Iraq war. <BR/><BR/>I don’t have any position toward technology as a whole. I’m friendly toward fire, wheels, vibrators and the electric guitar. My problem is with the social relations that the internet supports and is supported by. In a different world, the internet would be a different thing. However, I think I address the claim you make for the a-capitalist activities that occur on the internet—that is, they are a-capitalist activities that are, mostly, in the last instance, in the service of capitalism. Will this always be true? Perhaps not. Is it necessarily true? Certainly not. But it is today, and to the extent that people offer aesthetic and philosophical positions that deny this, they are contributing to a profoundly destructive lie. I’m not saying to stop using the internet. I’m telling people to stop harboring illusions about it. Paolo Virno is actually good on this point when he talks about the “communism of capitalism,” as is Zizek in his book on Deleuze.<BR/><BR/>Because here’s the thing, Stan, and this gets back to point about the internet being better than capitalism at moving values around, the big secret is that the internet doesn’t really move things around. We do. What the internet moves around is representations. And then people move around the things that are represented. These representations don’t become values until they can compel certain forms of behavior.UCOP Killerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15593713553275884570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-3583944746092386152008-06-02T20:47:00.000-07:002008-06-02T20:47:00.000-07:00Mr. Bernes,This topic is highly complex, and Iam n...Mr. Bernes,<BR/><BR/>This topic is highly complex, and I<BR/>am not sure anyone knows what future<BR/>awaits us, but for me thoughts about<BR/>it go back to at least 1976 and these<BR/>lines from my "July: Year-day 202":<BR/>Soon <I>Machina sapiens</I>, crying loud,<BR/>may demand more praise than we now expect.<BR/>-<BR/>Bill Knott has had similar thoughts<BR/>and Kenneth Goldsmith, unless he is<BR/>fibbing, thinks humans will be superseded by (or morphed into) machines.<BR/><BR/>I did what Joseph suggested, and read<BR/>The Editors Statement for Fold. I<BR/>also read Stan's last comment as it<BR/>wasn't here when I was last here.<BR/>With that in mind, these quotes:<BR/>"Distribution is the new production."<BR/>" . . . capitalism is simply the <BR/>recognition that the connections<BR/>between people are more important<BR/>than the information or objects<BR/>they exchange."<BR/>"The model of the writer as 'transmitter' <BR/>will invalidate the concerns of a<BR/>culture of commodity fetishists."<BR/>And about K G: " . . . that play is<BR/>the most economically efficient<BR/>mode of creative work."<BR/><BR/>I know you and Jane here addressed<BR/>the distribution issue, but Apps<BR/>and Timmons also say more about it.<BR/><BR/>Back to me, and then again to K G:<BR/>Capitalism is a worrisome thing in<BR/>that it cannot exist without consumers<BR/>and yet it strives to co-opt whatever<BR/>would seek to destroy it and in so<BR/>doing tends to destroy all that it<BR/>needs for its survival. However, I<BR/>am not confident it can be replaced.<BR/><BR/>In Silliman's May 31, 2008 links is<BR/>one to "The Young Hate Us {3}" by<BR/>Donato Mancini in which among <BR/>many thought-provoking statements<BR/>is that publication is a power stance. Another link (also in <BR/>Joseph Hutchison's blog) is to an<BR/>interview by Radhika Jones of Mr.<BR/>Kenneth Goldsmith. Of interest <BR/>to me there is: 1) Goldsmith is a<BR/>collector of certain literary,<BR/>musical, and other works.<BR/>2) He is a family man.<BR/>3) He favors "texts that court their<BR/>readers least".<BR/><BR/>Is the Internet liberating or<BR/>imprisoning? Both. Will the <BR/>Internet survive? Only if those<BR/>entities which rule and support it<BR/>have the tools required. What<BR/>about nanotechnology? Read today <BR/>that research on long-chain carbon<BR/>nanotubes has revealed they pose a<BR/>danger similar to asbestos. You<BR/>are right about the biofuel scam.<BR/>Also read today there is a 1 in 10<BR/>chance of Earth being hit by an<BR/>asteroid in the comparatively near<BR/>future. Good inventions occur <BR/>daily, but one mishap could wipe<BR/>out humanity.<BR/><BR/>About the author: Until that point<BR/>at which humans as biological entities<BR/>no longer exist, the author will<BR/>continue to exist, and so will the<BR/>ego, and so will the drive to be read <BR/>and remembered. Yes we are all<BR/>complicit in the evils of capitalism, but unless we find ways <BR/>to modifiy ourselves away from it, <BR/>it will ever be part of our DNA.<BR/><BR/>Again the quotes from The Editors<BR/>Statement for Fold.<BR/>-<BR/>" . . . the connections between people"<BR/>are essential, and this is (if it<BR/>is allowed to be) the greatest good<BR/>of the Internet<BR/>-<BR/>" . . . the writer as 'transmitter'" is problematical<BR/>but may be inevitable<BR/>-<BR/>" . . . play . . ." is not a new<BR/>thought since all art is a kind of<BR/>play, but it is a vital thought if<BR/>it undermines self-importance - I<BR/>don't think it has - further, I <BR/>think those who make the most of<BR/>being at a distance from the "I"<BR/>are often those who are most "I-<BR/>full". But such is the human<BR/>condition.brian (baj) salcherthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-25374525381673108702008-06-02T17:19:00.000-07:002008-06-02T17:19:00.000-07:00The distribution of good and resources is not only...The distribution of good and resources is not only a capitalist activity; it is a problem for human society in general. Capitalism, as we all know, is good at distribution, and particularly good at inequitable distribution. My "thought experiment," as Jane called it, was to emphasize capitalism's distributive efficacy as its worthwhile element, the element worth imitating, albeit differently. Ie. getting everyone what they want, rather than only getting specific subjects what they want. Experiments in micro-finance are trying to do this at a starter level.<BR/><BR/>Distribution is primary because there is already enough stuff in the world to supply everyone; production was primary in an earlier era of scarcity.<BR/><BR/>Another issue I have with Jasper's thesis is: the internet is a technology, something that works. It is more than merely a manifestation of an economic ideology, and more than an outreach of any particular effort at hegemony. While capitalist practices are articulated through the internet, the technology is not limited by that, and can be used in ways that are anti-capitalist, acapitalist or post-capitalist. I mean, are you seriously arguing that there's something intrinsically bad about instantaneous communication? Is there something intrinsically bad about fire too?<BR/><BR/>Last, I resent being characterized as a naive idealist by someone who reads an appropriated collage text as an expository essay. The Editors Statement for Fold is at least 95% copied, and many of the idealisms expressed are no more than the idealisms that are "in the air" at this moment. Many of the sentences are not things I agree with; the piece is intended to provoke thought. I am sad that in this case, rather than enabling speculation, the piece has been foreclosed upon and made to seem so simplistic. Thanks to Joseph for helping to clarify this.Stanley Bishop Burhanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04844082750285483221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-70667641019893835862008-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:002008-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00I too am puzzled by the phrase “operating with sys...I too am puzzled by the phrase “operating with systems at full efficiency,” not least because I can't tell what "full efficiency" might mean in a non-capitalist situation, and so the term seems to presume the very condition it claims to challenge. <BR/><BR/>But mostly I am puzzled by the idea that distribution is primary now. This can no more be true <I>or</I> false than the claim that "consumption is the new production" — i.e., these are simply thought experiments for examining from different perspectives the complete process of <I>production>>distribution>>consumption.</I> <BR/>Distribution, as Jasper notes, has been developed as a way of converting labor into capital when that labor is distant in space or, largely, time. It isn't isolable from the production chain in any way whatsoever. It is, among other things, <I>exactly</I> one of capital's solutions for a crisis of over-accumulation, when capital can't take the necessary profit via reinvestment in production materials. But it always stands in relation to production and consumption; it has no independent meaning, and thus no independent possibility, whether involving the internet or not.janehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14746332414326413360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-8369569367003560702008-06-02T11:05:00.000-07:002008-06-02T11:05:00.000-07:00Jasper, I think you're seriously misreading Stan a...Jasper, I think you're seriously misreading Stan and Matt's text. You write that they have "the virtue of being so clear about their own intentions." Really? There are at least a dozen contradictions deliberately written into the text. You're reading it as an attempt by Stan and Matt to argue a specific point; there are many points, some of them in opposition to one another, hence your exasperation with the text when it doesn't seem to add up. It's a collage poem, not an expository essay, and to that extent it contains various voices and points of view (some of which Stan and Matt may be in agreement with, others they may be in disagreement with). I'm sure a large part of it is appropriated. Obviously you've picked up on a point about distribution that you and Stan do disagree on; it's an interesting conversation to have, but appealing to their essay is not going to clarify the arguments. And since the essay under discussion is online, shouldn't we link to it so people unfamiliar with it can read it?<BR/><BR/>http://insertpress.net/index.php?s=foldJosephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12350813388072485198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-70243685021179942382008-06-01T20:58:00.000-07:002008-06-01T20:58:00.000-07:00Well, I’m a bit perplexed, Stan. Elsewhere in the ...Well, I’m a bit perplexed, Stan. Elsewhere in the piece you seem to indicate that overabundance of cultural products makes them immune to commodification—something you identify with the internet—so I assumed that the “Capitalism has no understanding of what to do. . .” quote referred to that kind of saturation. If you meant something like the commodities markets, then I apologize for misreading. But why follow the sentence with “Writers do [know what what to do in conditions of overcapacity]. Writers know what to do with the overproduction of foodstuffs? Really? I’d like to know what this means. . .<BR/><BR/>A profit is a profit for capital—those strategies (subsidies, futures speculation, etc.) are the way that it’s done now, and you’re right to note that it has more to do with gaming the market than in investment in production, Perhaps this wasn’t clear from the paper, but I agree that distribution is primary now. My point is that these strategies are plenty adequate for capital. The internet is one of these strategies, and the poetics of distribution, far from being anti-capitalist or “operating with systems at full efficiency” (whatever that might mean), bears an uncanny resemblance to these strategies of distribution. Not to mention that the internet is also the world’s best advertising vehicle, which helps keep up effective demand. For instance, the scam known as biofuel that is currently helping to starve the world’s poor to death? Where did that catch on? <BR/><BR/>The main thing, though, that’s wrong with your argument is that you seem to imply that economic justice can be had if we find a better way to distribute goods. But this is what liberals say and think, and it was (and still is) the ideology behind neo-liberalism (the spectral twin of the “information wants to be free” people). It’s true that capitalism is massively inefficient and wasteful. Its contradictions are legendary and almost any other system could distribute goods in a better manner. But the problem is with the hierarchical and uneven relations of production that happen outside of the realm of circulation (even for the people who work in circulation). Any alternatives need to aim there, and not just at the marketplace. In this sense, I probably disagree about what the primacy of distribution means. Most people on this planet still work producing food and goods. Capital may need fancy ways to export capital/goods, to gamble on future surplus-extraction, but ultimately those forms of distribution are still counting on some exploitation happening in the real economy of production somewhere—in the future, in other countries. The fake gift economy of the internet rests upon the people who lay the cables and build the chips and service the machines and program the codes. And that shit ain’t free. <BR/><BR/>And you still oppose the internet to capitalism! It’s unbelievable.UCOP Killerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15593713553275884570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9674688.post-83754022912560742222008-06-01T16:08:00.000-07:002008-06-01T16:08:00.000-07:00Hi Jasper.Interesting. Your reading of my collabo...Hi Jasper.<BR/><BR/>Interesting. Your reading of my collaboration with Mat Timmons is, from my point of view, an unfortunate one, in that it eliminates the humor and indirections of that work, in order to turn it into a kind of simplistic piece of pro-internet propaganda. Whereas, in fact, its collage structure is meant to discourage such reductive interpretations. for example, you quote a reference to a "100% saturated marketplace" and read that as the internet, but the internet is actually an emerging marketplace as we all know; a classic example of a saturated marketplace is agriculture, and indeed capital doesn't know what to do to achieve significant profits in agriculture (other than destructive strategies such as hoarding and dumping of subsidizied product.) In other words, capital is good at making saturated marketplaces less effecient, to achive profit, but doesn't know how to interact with them at full efficiency.<BR/><BR/>As for the "primacy of distribution," who can doubt that now? If you want a political or economic alternative to work out, it has to be as adept as capital at moving things around to the people who want them. Ideally, it should be better at moving products around than capital is--to me, indeed, the internet is moving in the direction of finding better ways than capital to move value around.<BR/><BR/>More on this later, when I have more time. . .Stanley Bishop Burhanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04844082750285483221noreply@blogger.com