Tell me more about how your planning of a revolution goes, or how accelerating towards it will surely work this time and won't bring us yet again a Hungary or a Third Reich again!
I’ve noticed serious political discussion on the relationship between technology and society has been extremely lacking, and articles like this one are sorely needed. For that reason, it is even more disappointing that it has been done so poorly.
A lot of the reasoning and arguments in the piece are muddled, in part because the reference point for those arguments, like Engels’ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm, are famously off-mark. Some refutations were magically written before Engels whet his pen, like God and the State in 1871, which clarifies the Engels’ intentional muddling of the anarchist position on authority, and incidentally, correctly identifies the State as a technology.
This is approximately where I stopped reading - any discussion of the nuclear bomb as a technology associated with authority that doesn’t reference Eric Arthur Blair’s writing shows a shocking lapse in scholarship. For a discussion of the relationship between technology and authority, https://orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb is a better place to start.
It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.
I am not sure I get what you are trying to say. The two texts you have quoted are arguing the same idea. Is your objection that the earlier text isn’t mentioned as prior art of the same idea?
Overall I found the article quite ok, some smaller nit-picks aside that can be partially explained by how old it also is.
Edit: The text by Engels is used as an example for one possible view and the author makes it very clear that they just retell it and not that this is true or the argument they are trying to make themselves.
The two quoted texts are arguing the atom bomb is a hierarchical technology, but for different reasons. I think it’s instructive to compare the two - because the reasons given in the classic aren’t addressed in the recent discussion. I’ve since looked up Langdon Winner and apparently he’s a well respected scholar. I’m glad I’m not punching down here, but I realize this also makes me sound really pompous.
Winner claims atomic weapons are a special case, and they are hierarchical because the internal social system for using them is hierarchical. His basis of criticizing technologies is based on their apparent or expected social effects, and not the conditions and requirements of their manufacture. This is obviously flawed, as the social effect of a new technology depends on the society that adopts it. A tomato harvester in the hands of an anarchist society would be open-source hardware, and the increased productivity would increase leisure time for everyone working in the field rather than the profits of a capitalist owner.
Blair claims that atomic weapons are an extreme example of a general case, where a weapon is hierarchical because its expense and complexity limits access and thus the focus of power to the few, regardless of its internal social system. While his focus was on military application, a tomato harvester would probably be close to neutral tool given this basis - it is a difficult but reasonable thing for a community of working people to manufacture, especially compared to the scale of expense and complexity of a nuclear bomb. For Blair, it is a spectrum of technology giving democracy or authoritarianism the edge in a fight, progressing from bicycle to battleship and beyond. His rubric doesn’t include the modern computer, which is both extremely complex and expensive to produce but also ubiquitous and inexpensive to own - and the mixed role digital technology has played in the struggle between authority and freedom. But I would argue Blair’s work is the better place to start the discussion.
I think you are mis-representing or misunderstanding Winner’s argument. The atom bomb he says is unique because of the unique security requirements to not allow it to fall into the wrong hands (and as a result this distorts society toward authoritarianism), but elsewhere in the text he argues similar to Blair for nuclear reactors compared to renewable energy for example.
He also explicitly mentions that technology like the tomato harvester could be put to more equitable use in an anarchist society, but argues that this technology has a certain tendency to disempower farm-workers and thus shift the power balance towards capitalists, which is similar to the argument the Luddites had with certain types of weaving machines.
I may be misunderstanding his argument. I admit I only partially read the 17-page paper, and missed any acknowledgement of an anarchist contribution to the discussion.
I’ve also altered my comment since you replied but before I received your reply, so I apologize for any confusion this adds to the discussion.
He mentions/cites Kropotkin and talks about “decentralized, democratic worker self-management” which I think is code for Anarchists without mentioning the word itself.
Surely you get to the same essential idea by simply combining the whole Kuhn-style paradigm and paradigm shift idea with the basic fact of capitalism’s ideological dominance since WWII.
Where for me, the striking statement from Kuhn about paradigm shifts was that communication across the boundary between two paradigms isn’t possible. A claim of hard relativism, at least at the practical level that seems to me very true, especially once you recognise the finiteness of the human mind and its predilection for group think.
So the excerpt from the abstract quoted below struck me as kinda summarising my built up disappointment with the fediverse (which, to be clear is rather influenced by mastodon).
That is, I like these noticesmotives, hoped to find tools for them in the fediverse when I came here, and feel like the fediverse and its fundamental design might be ill equipped to operate at this level. I often wonder how much I’m just grumpy about the place or on to something.
From the abstract:
Three of the many insights I will substantiate and examine in the talk are:
that online communities have the potential to create deep changes in people when they are built in ways that foster deep relationships, criticality and conflict transformation, and emergent leadership;
that changing socio-political structures must go together with joyful, liberating practices that can help us unlearn harmful cultural patterns that get in the way; and
that perhaps we should be less interested in becoming experts, and rather find the courage and open hearts allowing us to be fearlessly and fiercely present to the world, with all its shit, its wonder, and its uncertainty.
So if I understand right we are now finally approaching ‘Haha one day a computer will be president’ territory for real! What I find lacking in the article is a more in-depth explanation what is the exact purpose of Open Source Technology in government - I don’t quite understand what the tech is supposed to accomplish that we absolutely cannot do with pencil and paper as well. Maybe it’s clearer when you come from a programming perspective?
Then the bit about DAOs - them being more cooperative and regenerative? ? ? First time I read about DAOs, and ‘decentralized autonomous’ sounds great! So off to wikipedia, where one of the first sentences is 'The precise legal status of this type of business organization is unclear." - that sounds rather foggy. Then it goes on with sth sth blockchain - and to be honest, in my limited experience everything around blockchain has turned out to be some kind of scam. Again, I’m not even smart enough to understand how these scams work, but at this point I am happy to believe that ‘blockchain’ is just a new term for ‘emperor’s new clothes’. If that isn’t so I’m happy about further explanation, but until that I don’t want society run by an algorithm (however that is supposed to be accomplished in practice).
I guess that one of the problems with a government run by computers is that it would easily end up being an IT-cracy, or at least would quickly be perceived as one.
Free information. If it is just a piece of paper you have to go to the government office, which is supposed to have it and ask for it and it might very well be in use somewhere. That is you actually know it exists. If all of it is digital, it is easy to put it online, which makes it much much easier to find and use.
Collaboration. By having meetings online, it becomes easier for people to comment on it and take part in the meetings. That is especially true for people with disabilities, but also for say parents, who can not leave their children alone at home just to go to a public meeting.
More democracy. Elections are hard to do with pencil and papers. It is much easier to have a vote online, which makes direct democracy easier. Same for stuff like petitions.
Ease of use. Having government services online, allows you to use them everywhere. So you do not have to go and hand in the form. That is just quicker and easier. Also things like names and so forth can be easily filled in automatically.
The key here is to use open source software as a tool, rather then have an AI overlord.
None of the points on your list really needs technology to work. You can even have exchange of text instead of in-person-meetings. Switzerland, for example, had a lot of direct democracy going on before tech could be harnessed to support it. Of course I love how tech makes it easier to transmit information and talk to others around the globe, but it doesn’t enable something that couldn’t exist before. The only difference I can see in building a more direct democracy without tech would be that decisions take longer, and that might actually be a good thing.
Mind you I’m not arguing to remove all tech from government. I was busy dealing with government services the other day and was very glad to not have to go and see anyone in person. But I don’t buy that the tech just by itself will bring us any closer to a fair anarchist society. Adding a layer of tech (or anything else that the majority of the population doesn’t understand) means adding a layer of possible corruption that will have to be kept under check.
The problem is scale. You can do all of it on paper or in person, but that scales awfully badly. On a country level a referendum takes years to set up and organize. That is a huge problem for Switzerland as changing anything can take ages. Womens suffrage took Switzerland until 1971 on a federal level and 1990 on a canton level. Just as an example. That is for what really is a small country. Just think about something the size and compelxity of India for example. Switzerland only has four languages, India has hundrets and happens to be much bigger.
Part of the problem with all the “blockchain” stuff and even DAOs is that it is invariably used as a vehicle for wealth accumulation.
In theory you can distribute tokens for a DAO without the need to pay for them. Say a community decided to use a DAO they could accumulate tokens equally and then set a rule to not trade them. That then means no one person can accumulate a larger vote share.
The benefit of a blockchain in this scenario is an immutable, distributed record of decisions and votes by a community. Not the accumulation of wealth.
You are going to need tools and other resources to start a company and that is capital. So the question should propably be how to get those. In Italy the cooperatives run combined funds to start new cooperatives with. If you get money from that you have to pay money back in. That works. Then there is the option of spin outs. So you have a large company maybe even specializing in starting new companies and let them go. A lot of universities, start up hubs and so forth do that right now. If that is owned by a non capitalist owner, that might work pretty well. Obviously government grants are an option too. Then you also have cooperative banking, which might offer some less capitalist deals. Also stuff like presales might be an option, like you see with crowdfunding.
If there was ever a good reason for pre sales I think that’s that. The problem I see with start up hubs college based is that they are limited in terms of help and mostly lead to companies falling into VCs hands. At least in my country. I think the most “anarchist” way of doing it may be just crowdsourcing mostly because it’s the potential clients that actually fund the venture. I think it’s probably a pain mostly because it turns into a marketing campaign but at least the funding is honest. No VCs, no angel investment, no quarterly projections. A company could actually aim to be sustainable instead of infinite growth based.
This is a very good discussion topic. I think it fits here just fine. My comment is kind of a definitional quibble, but I think the point is relevant to your last questions.
Capital of some kind is absolutely needed - by definition - to start any enterprise under any system you can name. Capital is surplus value from labor. If your labor doesn’t produce any excess value beyond your mere survival, you have no capital. If every waking moment is spent securing what you need to survive another day, well you are completely bereft of any significant capital. However, if you can satisfy your needs and get adequate rest and still have some time left in a typical week? That free time is a form of capital. Money is also a form of capital, but my point is it is more than just money.
If I understand what you mean, I would suggest that a more expansive definition of what constitutes ‘capital’ is what many small businesses need. Capital is so much more than money. When you don’t have money, you have to be extra clever. Any idiot can get their rich dad to write a check. The real genius is in figuring out how to grow a small pile of capital into a bigger pile without having a lot of cash.
For instance, say I have two free afternoons a week where I don’t have to work to survive. That is a form of capital. I could use that time to work on my business.
I don’t strive to eliminate reliance on ‘capital’ because capital is value-neutral. ‘Capital’ is just the name we give to the fruits of labor. It’s the capital-ists who hoard a disproportionate share of the capital we all produce by our collective labor, these guys are the problem, not the monetary wealth, infrastructure and free time that capital produces. Fuck capitalists and fuck those who elevate them to such a privileged position. Capital is ok by me, though. I want more of it, mostly in the form of my own free time. A bit of money helps too, but part of the sickness in our global culture is the thinking that the only form of capital that counts is money.
So to sum up, I’d say the alternative we need is an alternative to capitalism, not an alternative to capital. Capital comes in alternate forms beyond cash money and we all have at least a little capital we might be able to leverage. Creativity is key.
That’s a good point. Capital is surplus value which can have multiple forms. I see what you mean creativity and I agree. If the whole could think like this we could start to build something like a post capitalist society without actual parting with capital. Thank you for your comment!
There would have to be some system to allocate limited resources, mostly real estate and materials. A command economy type system might say a local government gets a proposal and if it looks good allocates what is in their discretion to allocate: “your business is assigned to this address and up to X resources a month”. There are more democratic ways to do that as well, you could do a community vote to allocate community resources.
Capital abstracts resource allocation, without capital you need to really dig into who is getting what and why.
So some sort off central government resource allocation? Would it be possible in another way? I think crowdsourcing is a basic example that alternatives exist even if that in particular is highly dependent on a globalized economy. The main problem I see with central government is that it’s much more susceptible to corruption, even if it’s on a local level.
Crowdsourcing is basically the direct democracy version of what I described. I show off my business plan and everyone gets a vote on if it goes through. In this case they’d need to vote with their collective share of local resources though. You can’t allocate more rice than exists locally, no matter how many burrito stands you want in town.
I think you’d want to avoid any system that relies on how many resources a person personally has accumulated. That’s the libertarian nightmare state where rich horder-preppers rule the world with their stash of toilet paper.
“Everyone” might be a bit hard to organize, but you rarely start in a vacuum. For example there could be an agricultural cooperative that you are already a member of, or someone you know is. That cooperative might be willing to sponsor your burrito stand if that is beneficial to their members, either because you buy maize from them and/or because they would like to have a tasty food shop near their shared warehouse or so.
I think I see your point. Getting investment from the parties directly affected makes sense and would also create a sustainable business model as it proves the need for it. It could also create some synergy if the created business is also a co-op itself that may in turn eventually do the same for something else. Basically investment without rent seeking.
True, completely agree with your final part. I think I see your point. But your set still needs a post money society. What about a middle ground? Would for example funding also come from the community?
Sounds good. The quicker the world collapses into techno-barbarism, the quicker the God Emperor will reveal himself and unify humanity in a new great crusade.
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