Amos U.Y.
3rd April 2012, 02:21
Marx's Computer
Computers and the internet have played a huge and extraordinarily significant role in the modern world. The computer and the even more significant internet revolution are of the same importance in production as the industrial revolution in that, instead of merely mechanising physical human labour, now even intellectual activity is slowly but surely being automatised. In this essay we shall endeavour to delve into the microcosm and see what this means for the individual and society as a whole.
Firstly we will quantitatively and qualitatively identify what the current situation actually is in technical terms. Thus we have the computer, the foundation of this revolution.
The computer is a commodity. The exchange value is thus dictated by the amount of labour power congealed therein, but the use value? Well it's use value is that of a tool and material and, well, it is in of itself a means of production that consumes only electricity as constant capital.(1)
It takes this electricity and converts it into light, this light can then be moulded into programs, websites and a host of other products which can be bought and sold on the open market. Thus in an instant every man who owns a computer has both the means to produce as well as a market composed of every other web user on the planet; an almost unimaginably large market for a single person to comprehend. So the computer is the means of production and this means of production is owned directly now, in most cases, through personal computers PCs, by the worker.
The individual user then can through his own variable capital and using the relatively low-cost constant capital, produce goods in the form of useful programs(2) or tertiary and quaternary content and thus keep for himself the entire surplus value that before was most probably taken from him.
The second element we must introduce is the internet: a huge and somewhat new market; a great barren plain ready for cultivation and the new ideas of the coming generation. In a less embroidered fashion the internet provides us with information and gives us a huge choice of potential products while offering producers an equally large market of potential consumers.
It is also a setting of inherent equality: everyone can get his place on the web no matter how rich or poor he is, whether he has anything to offer or not, the internet appear then to be the ultimate free-enterprise friendly and egalitarian creation in the history of mankind.
Returning to the hardware, a PC whether it be produced by Macintosh, or Microsoft, is as we said above, the means of production. At the beginning they were only used by companies as the initial cost was prohibitive to the general public. As time has gone by the cost of PCs has fallen and with that more and more people have been able to buy them. Not an exactly unusual pattern of events so far.
However we should be careful now to better describe and distinguish the computer for not only is it the means of production but it is also a means of consumption. It is a machine that can be used to create but it also a machine on which we buy and use the creations of others. Thus at the same time we are both the buyer and the seller and in many cases, just the buyer.
It is important to remember also the physical object which is the PC and keep in mind that it too was produced. This means of production, liberator of mankind to ever greater heights of entrepreneurial aspiration was made possible by the age old manufacturing process but with a new globalised twist.
A very short and simplified summary would be raw material leaves the Least Developed Countries (LDC) to the Developed Countries (DC) where the most complex components are produced. These are then sent back to either Newly Industrialised Countries (NIC) or even LDCs where they are put together in the finished product along with the less complex components which can also be produced in NICs. This final product contains the surplus value of the extraction of raw material, the highly mechanised Western industrial process, as well as the third world manufacturing process.
This combined rate of exploitation [surplus value(3)] enables the cheap production of PCs with a high rate of profit as the amount of variable capital to constant capital is staggeringly large as is the extent of direct surplus value extracted from employees in the third world as well as the indirect surplus value extracted through the heavy mechanisation of the Westernised industrial process.
__________________________________________________ ____________
1. Other costs include internet connection, certain programs and planned obsolescence.
2. Materially productive sectors.
3. Unpaid socially productive time.
__________________________________________________ ____________
We should thus not be surprised to see Microsoft and Apple jostling each other at the top of the capitalist dog pile as both the virgin market, the new, as well as the mode of production of the past and present have simply combined in order to strip the worker of his just due. If you feel this is unjust as you read this, think about it for a second. Think how much that Indian child worker who slotted your memory and that of hundreds of thousands of others into the motherboard saw for his indispensable efforts.
To conclude the section on PCs there are only two main operating systems(4). In regards to processors, there are basically two: AMD and Intel. Now I was under the impression that the market led to variety and was beneficial to consumers whether it would appear to be the case that in this (and many other sectors) there is a virtual monopolisation. Perhaps however this is due to having too much legislation in this area. I'm sure if we get rid of the dubious shield of anti-trust the market and the miraculous invisible hand will encourage competition and lead to a proliferation of companies.
Anti-trust however fulfils but one real role; it makes it impossible for outright monopoly. In practice however that is exactly what there is. If two companies can no longer vie to destroy each other which is competitions' prime objective – to claim the entirety of the market, then they must co-operate. It is by this quaint journey that we arrive from the dictatorship of capital to the oligarchy of capital; a situation good for no-one but for of course the capstones of the pyramids.
The fact that the same phenomenon is happening both on the internet and with software will come as a shock for no-one. Just as the Earth was once free and men could walk on it freely and till it freely and claim it freely till there was none left to freely claim, thus is happening on the internet.
That huge virtual market, that wide forum, that mirror to all facets of the human soul from urinating gang-bang donkey porn to forums devoted to the finer points of shows long gone off air and badly designed websites outlining the enigmatic figure of Socrates; from the heights to the lowlands.
Firstly then we will have a look at the commercial dimension: content that you have to pay for directly. Thus, buyers, and sellers.
The sellers are, as in the real world, generally big companies selling things directly, or those same or different big companies mediating the sale of either smaller companies or individuals. On the other hand we have small companies fighting it out by themselves enabling them to take out the expense of a shop front. Finally we have virtual manifestations of already existing physical companies which vary in size.
Now even from this very basic initial layout we see that companies vary in size, vary in virtuality and vary thus in surplus value produced. What does not vary however is the pattern that holds true in the non-virtual world. Competition is the by word at the beginning. Small companies become big companies, big companies eat up smaller companies, virtual destroys shop front, shop front goes virtual. Small niches survive the onslaught if sufficiently well advertised and popular while those who cannot swim sink.
As in the early days of modern agriculture, we have the introduction of a new means of production, this means of production, which at the start was available to most soon became more complex and costly, eliminating variable capital for constant and at the same time lowering prices. Smaller farmers were unable to compete with large landholders and eventually most agricultural land came to be held in few hands. Here instead of the engine powered tractor however we have website design, postage costs, mechanisms of payment as well as the old economies of scale and the general rules of capitalist production.
At this point the capitalist, or rather, his greatest defender; the mainstream economist, will argue that the big companies didn't become big overnight. Look at the facebook story or the amazon story; see how people with nothing worked their way to the top – anyone with the brains and skill can do likewise. Well, perhaps not the best example as in both cases these aren't exactly people with nothing: people from a certain background, with a certain technical knowledge and a certain amount of connections. Fundamentally however they also had an opportunity and each took it.
Even admitting that anyone could do it, even the poorest unconnected street urchin, it is overarchingly obvious that these opportunities are limited. At the beginning of a gold rush there are always big opportunities to be made however this is not a process of equality but of reinforcing the old inequalities. After these companies reach a certain level what happens to their workers? Are they not now exploited just as all workers are, by the capitalist system?
For every capitalist success there are many, many failures, some of which could have, like SAAB for safety, created a better product, but once again the elimination of competition. Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google. The same patterns of historical capitalism, repeated.
__________________________________________________ ______
4. Three if you include Linux.
__________________________________________________ ______
As noted above big companies not only sell things but also mediate the sale of smaller companies/individuals to consumers. For example a trading site like e-bay: for a certain percentage, let's say 15% you can sell your own goods on this market. Thus we have in this form of e-commerce the age-old usury of the landlord. The buyer of course, does not need to directly pay this fee but it may well be worked into the price the seller decides to charge all depending on what the market allows.
In any case the e-market represents a regular market with both buyers and sellers, no-one is under a compulsion to do either and most legal objects can be sold, it is thus then a free market. If you have to pay a 15% tariff, so does the other seller thus if I sell you a golf club, and with the money I buy a snooker cue from you, we have both paid the 15% tariff which is in this way nullified.
A tariff thus is imposed on this virtual market, as if by a virtual state but what does e-bay do with its money apart from upkeep and business expansion? Profit, capital made from the labour put in by the sellers of goods which already incorporates the production of the goods. And what is at the base of these ever cheaper goods, this online consumer revolution? The sweat and toil of the manufacturing third world, what else.
Surplus value again snatched from the hands of the proletariat as well as the petty bourgeoisie. Without the individual input there is no e-bay. By taking a piece of virtual land that was once so free and organising and setting up the means of production they can now reap the surplus value not only of their own workers, but also of the “customers” themselves!
This new virtual market doesn't only affect virtual competition, but also real world, or rather, physical competition as well. The cheaper cost of business entailed by avoiding rental of physical premises, the cost of certain staff and other running costs means that, just as big supermarkets do, e-commerce is able to lower prices, while maintaining the same rate of profits that traditional retail was able to offer.
The greater part of manufacturing has already left Western countries (with a few minor exceptions) long ago, now it seems that even the quasi invented jobs in the tertiary sector are under threat and with the resulting greater unemployment – where only a few are employed in the same industries – we begin to see a more malevolent picture. How long before algorithms replace human labour, not just on the lower employment scale, but also in the so-called professions?
If machines can now not just work for us, but think for us as well, what place does modern man have in the capitalist system? As always such advances, which should be advances for society, are only advances for a very small percentage of the population – the capitalist class. But how can companies not do it? The only way that there seems to be was if the government demands that companies hire a certain amount of people which would be wholly ridiculous, especially in today's globalised market, and even if at a stretch it could work, would change nothing in the long run.
The motive force of capitalism is to extract the highest amount of surplus value as possible, due to both competition and thus survival, as well as the inherent lust for capital. The trickle down effect however is a sad myth in that the modern capitalist enjoys splashing their wealth about(5) as well as paying (as little as possible - as is only right) taxes and thus the masses are kept happy and enthralled on the crumbs of the gilded table of capitalism.
As things get more technical and more costly for individuals to be able to undertake, so the capital will be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Once companies like Amazon have shut down their physical high street counterparts how can the market allow prices not to go up, or at least be pooled entirely in the hands of the few creating a huge political power base that can easily threaten and dictate to whole countries as many American companies do today(6) in the third world(7).
Next and finally we will discuss the freedom of the internet from the non-commercial perspective. At the moment, it is seen by many as a free place. A place that even governments cannot exert control over thus creating a globalised community which apart from allowing extremist views to thrive in the virtual forum (which is necessary otherwise it wouldn't be free) is a beacon of liberal values and freedom.
__________________________________________________ _______________
5. Early students of capitalism will be surprised at the trickle down because wasn't it the very prudence of the capitalist that entitled him to capital and the labour of other men?
6. Aided of course by their governments and a variety of INGOs such as the WTO amongst others.
7. In fact through the funding of political campaigns where the man with the greatest financial and mass media backing almost invariably wins, it could be argued that private companies are already, if not in control, then at least disproportionately and undemocratically powerful.
__________________________________________________ _______________
However notwithstanding the fact that governments can and do ban access to certain websites(8) there is another form of censorship at play. For in the virtual world it does not pay to get on the bad side of Google and other search engines which have to power to remove websites from their search, assign them rankings and sell ad-space to the highest bidder.
But no, it is free though. You can go on Youtube and watch videos for free, I can download torrents, videos, pornography, games, music and a whole host of other things for free. Then all of a sudden the recent talks in the US (that dear capitalist trendsetter) of making people pay different sums of money for different content as well as the cracking down on torrents as seen throughout the world, thus little by little the free internet is beginning to be be closed in on, from all sides.
Yet we're not there yet, but about this free content, why is it free? Nothing is free. And this is no exception: advertisements which work their way into your mind day after day, ever more tailored and personalised to catch your eye, paid subscriptions to premium content, a whole host of other schemes and ever more quickly choice disappears and options are narrowed.
Another reason for free internet content is illegality which in this case however, as it assaults capitalism, is in fact a good, if not great thing. Capital out of the hands of the capitalist is always better than capital in their hands and in a system of corruption, under the shroud illegality may be the only moral way in which to operate. How long however, until police begin to clampdown on the totally free, free movement of goods?
In conclusion then we see all the previous traits of the capitalist mode of production applied to this novel means of production. We saw how the monopolistic tendency of capital had already reduced the PC market to an oligarchy, and that the same seemed to be happening on the internet and in software. Other than that we saw how it was parcelling off virtual plots, cornering virtual markets, replacing jobs with algorithms and driving physical competition from the market.
As always then, the question must be raised, that as unemployment rises and the problems and contradictions inherent in the system become ever worse, could this lead to revolutionary change? The answer, as it always is, is yes, of course it could, but that does not mean it will.
Throughout history there have been countless missed or botched opportunities, where all that was needed was an actualisation that never came. There needs also be a willingness in the people to be able to step back, in this case from narcotic consumerism, to then be able to stride on forward.
In the end, the internet is a tool. A marvellous creation that can pool the resources of society together in an instant and as all tools, the way you use it is vital. Correctly used, and in some cases it has been(9) it can be a tremendous source of progress for mankind. If improperly used however it will only lead to ever more dominance of man by capital, ever more poverty and ever greater unemployment.
__________________________________________________
8. Neither positive nor negative, they can. Whether it's child pornography or dissident political parties, there is the ability.
9. Crowd sourcing initiatives, rather than clicktivism.
__________________________________________________
Note: This is something I wrote a month or two ago and is my first offering on this site (that I joined an hour ago.) I read through it and am highly unsatisfied and it is for aid that I post it here (being new to this site perhaps this was the wrong area in which to place it, if so I apologize.) In any case, any and all criticism would be highly welcome. Ideally, if anyone has the time a red ink "marking" or a point by point analysis or at least a more comprehensive critique than "Good" or "Infernally bad, you reactionary dog, a thousand suns will burn your heart out should I ever have the opportunity to roast you on a spit." If you do of course feel so strongly I humbly ask in relation to my relatively youthful inexperience that my heart be burnt by nine hundred and ninety nine suns as opposed to the full one hundred as I doubt I could bear it...
A.
Computers and the internet have played a huge and extraordinarily significant role in the modern world. The computer and the even more significant internet revolution are of the same importance in production as the industrial revolution in that, instead of merely mechanising physical human labour, now even intellectual activity is slowly but surely being automatised. In this essay we shall endeavour to delve into the microcosm and see what this means for the individual and society as a whole.
Firstly we will quantitatively and qualitatively identify what the current situation actually is in technical terms. Thus we have the computer, the foundation of this revolution.
The computer is a commodity. The exchange value is thus dictated by the amount of labour power congealed therein, but the use value? Well it's use value is that of a tool and material and, well, it is in of itself a means of production that consumes only electricity as constant capital.(1)
It takes this electricity and converts it into light, this light can then be moulded into programs, websites and a host of other products which can be bought and sold on the open market. Thus in an instant every man who owns a computer has both the means to produce as well as a market composed of every other web user on the planet; an almost unimaginably large market for a single person to comprehend. So the computer is the means of production and this means of production is owned directly now, in most cases, through personal computers PCs, by the worker.
The individual user then can through his own variable capital and using the relatively low-cost constant capital, produce goods in the form of useful programs(2) or tertiary and quaternary content and thus keep for himself the entire surplus value that before was most probably taken from him.
The second element we must introduce is the internet: a huge and somewhat new market; a great barren plain ready for cultivation and the new ideas of the coming generation. In a less embroidered fashion the internet provides us with information and gives us a huge choice of potential products while offering producers an equally large market of potential consumers.
It is also a setting of inherent equality: everyone can get his place on the web no matter how rich or poor he is, whether he has anything to offer or not, the internet appear then to be the ultimate free-enterprise friendly and egalitarian creation in the history of mankind.
Returning to the hardware, a PC whether it be produced by Macintosh, or Microsoft, is as we said above, the means of production. At the beginning they were only used by companies as the initial cost was prohibitive to the general public. As time has gone by the cost of PCs has fallen and with that more and more people have been able to buy them. Not an exactly unusual pattern of events so far.
However we should be careful now to better describe and distinguish the computer for not only is it the means of production but it is also a means of consumption. It is a machine that can be used to create but it also a machine on which we buy and use the creations of others. Thus at the same time we are both the buyer and the seller and in many cases, just the buyer.
It is important to remember also the physical object which is the PC and keep in mind that it too was produced. This means of production, liberator of mankind to ever greater heights of entrepreneurial aspiration was made possible by the age old manufacturing process but with a new globalised twist.
A very short and simplified summary would be raw material leaves the Least Developed Countries (LDC) to the Developed Countries (DC) where the most complex components are produced. These are then sent back to either Newly Industrialised Countries (NIC) or even LDCs where they are put together in the finished product along with the less complex components which can also be produced in NICs. This final product contains the surplus value of the extraction of raw material, the highly mechanised Western industrial process, as well as the third world manufacturing process.
This combined rate of exploitation [surplus value(3)] enables the cheap production of PCs with a high rate of profit as the amount of variable capital to constant capital is staggeringly large as is the extent of direct surplus value extracted from employees in the third world as well as the indirect surplus value extracted through the heavy mechanisation of the Westernised industrial process.
__________________________________________________ ____________
1. Other costs include internet connection, certain programs and planned obsolescence.
2. Materially productive sectors.
3. Unpaid socially productive time.
__________________________________________________ ____________
We should thus not be surprised to see Microsoft and Apple jostling each other at the top of the capitalist dog pile as both the virgin market, the new, as well as the mode of production of the past and present have simply combined in order to strip the worker of his just due. If you feel this is unjust as you read this, think about it for a second. Think how much that Indian child worker who slotted your memory and that of hundreds of thousands of others into the motherboard saw for his indispensable efforts.
To conclude the section on PCs there are only two main operating systems(4). In regards to processors, there are basically two: AMD and Intel. Now I was under the impression that the market led to variety and was beneficial to consumers whether it would appear to be the case that in this (and many other sectors) there is a virtual monopolisation. Perhaps however this is due to having too much legislation in this area. I'm sure if we get rid of the dubious shield of anti-trust the market and the miraculous invisible hand will encourage competition and lead to a proliferation of companies.
Anti-trust however fulfils but one real role; it makes it impossible for outright monopoly. In practice however that is exactly what there is. If two companies can no longer vie to destroy each other which is competitions' prime objective – to claim the entirety of the market, then they must co-operate. It is by this quaint journey that we arrive from the dictatorship of capital to the oligarchy of capital; a situation good for no-one but for of course the capstones of the pyramids.
The fact that the same phenomenon is happening both on the internet and with software will come as a shock for no-one. Just as the Earth was once free and men could walk on it freely and till it freely and claim it freely till there was none left to freely claim, thus is happening on the internet.
That huge virtual market, that wide forum, that mirror to all facets of the human soul from urinating gang-bang donkey porn to forums devoted to the finer points of shows long gone off air and badly designed websites outlining the enigmatic figure of Socrates; from the heights to the lowlands.
Firstly then we will have a look at the commercial dimension: content that you have to pay for directly. Thus, buyers, and sellers.
The sellers are, as in the real world, generally big companies selling things directly, or those same or different big companies mediating the sale of either smaller companies or individuals. On the other hand we have small companies fighting it out by themselves enabling them to take out the expense of a shop front. Finally we have virtual manifestations of already existing physical companies which vary in size.
Now even from this very basic initial layout we see that companies vary in size, vary in virtuality and vary thus in surplus value produced. What does not vary however is the pattern that holds true in the non-virtual world. Competition is the by word at the beginning. Small companies become big companies, big companies eat up smaller companies, virtual destroys shop front, shop front goes virtual. Small niches survive the onslaught if sufficiently well advertised and popular while those who cannot swim sink.
As in the early days of modern agriculture, we have the introduction of a new means of production, this means of production, which at the start was available to most soon became more complex and costly, eliminating variable capital for constant and at the same time lowering prices. Smaller farmers were unable to compete with large landholders and eventually most agricultural land came to be held in few hands. Here instead of the engine powered tractor however we have website design, postage costs, mechanisms of payment as well as the old economies of scale and the general rules of capitalist production.
At this point the capitalist, or rather, his greatest defender; the mainstream economist, will argue that the big companies didn't become big overnight. Look at the facebook story or the amazon story; see how people with nothing worked their way to the top – anyone with the brains and skill can do likewise. Well, perhaps not the best example as in both cases these aren't exactly people with nothing: people from a certain background, with a certain technical knowledge and a certain amount of connections. Fundamentally however they also had an opportunity and each took it.
Even admitting that anyone could do it, even the poorest unconnected street urchin, it is overarchingly obvious that these opportunities are limited. At the beginning of a gold rush there are always big opportunities to be made however this is not a process of equality but of reinforcing the old inequalities. After these companies reach a certain level what happens to their workers? Are they not now exploited just as all workers are, by the capitalist system?
For every capitalist success there are many, many failures, some of which could have, like SAAB for safety, created a better product, but once again the elimination of competition. Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google. The same patterns of historical capitalism, repeated.
__________________________________________________ ______
4. Three if you include Linux.
__________________________________________________ ______
As noted above big companies not only sell things but also mediate the sale of smaller companies/individuals to consumers. For example a trading site like e-bay: for a certain percentage, let's say 15% you can sell your own goods on this market. Thus we have in this form of e-commerce the age-old usury of the landlord. The buyer of course, does not need to directly pay this fee but it may well be worked into the price the seller decides to charge all depending on what the market allows.
In any case the e-market represents a regular market with both buyers and sellers, no-one is under a compulsion to do either and most legal objects can be sold, it is thus then a free market. If you have to pay a 15% tariff, so does the other seller thus if I sell you a golf club, and with the money I buy a snooker cue from you, we have both paid the 15% tariff which is in this way nullified.
A tariff thus is imposed on this virtual market, as if by a virtual state but what does e-bay do with its money apart from upkeep and business expansion? Profit, capital made from the labour put in by the sellers of goods which already incorporates the production of the goods. And what is at the base of these ever cheaper goods, this online consumer revolution? The sweat and toil of the manufacturing third world, what else.
Surplus value again snatched from the hands of the proletariat as well as the petty bourgeoisie. Without the individual input there is no e-bay. By taking a piece of virtual land that was once so free and organising and setting up the means of production they can now reap the surplus value not only of their own workers, but also of the “customers” themselves!
This new virtual market doesn't only affect virtual competition, but also real world, or rather, physical competition as well. The cheaper cost of business entailed by avoiding rental of physical premises, the cost of certain staff and other running costs means that, just as big supermarkets do, e-commerce is able to lower prices, while maintaining the same rate of profits that traditional retail was able to offer.
The greater part of manufacturing has already left Western countries (with a few minor exceptions) long ago, now it seems that even the quasi invented jobs in the tertiary sector are under threat and with the resulting greater unemployment – where only a few are employed in the same industries – we begin to see a more malevolent picture. How long before algorithms replace human labour, not just on the lower employment scale, but also in the so-called professions?
If machines can now not just work for us, but think for us as well, what place does modern man have in the capitalist system? As always such advances, which should be advances for society, are only advances for a very small percentage of the population – the capitalist class. But how can companies not do it? The only way that there seems to be was if the government demands that companies hire a certain amount of people which would be wholly ridiculous, especially in today's globalised market, and even if at a stretch it could work, would change nothing in the long run.
The motive force of capitalism is to extract the highest amount of surplus value as possible, due to both competition and thus survival, as well as the inherent lust for capital. The trickle down effect however is a sad myth in that the modern capitalist enjoys splashing their wealth about(5) as well as paying (as little as possible - as is only right) taxes and thus the masses are kept happy and enthralled on the crumbs of the gilded table of capitalism.
As things get more technical and more costly for individuals to be able to undertake, so the capital will be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Once companies like Amazon have shut down their physical high street counterparts how can the market allow prices not to go up, or at least be pooled entirely in the hands of the few creating a huge political power base that can easily threaten and dictate to whole countries as many American companies do today(6) in the third world(7).
Next and finally we will discuss the freedom of the internet from the non-commercial perspective. At the moment, it is seen by many as a free place. A place that even governments cannot exert control over thus creating a globalised community which apart from allowing extremist views to thrive in the virtual forum (which is necessary otherwise it wouldn't be free) is a beacon of liberal values and freedom.
__________________________________________________ _______________
5. Early students of capitalism will be surprised at the trickle down because wasn't it the very prudence of the capitalist that entitled him to capital and the labour of other men?
6. Aided of course by their governments and a variety of INGOs such as the WTO amongst others.
7. In fact through the funding of political campaigns where the man with the greatest financial and mass media backing almost invariably wins, it could be argued that private companies are already, if not in control, then at least disproportionately and undemocratically powerful.
__________________________________________________ _______________
However notwithstanding the fact that governments can and do ban access to certain websites(8) there is another form of censorship at play. For in the virtual world it does not pay to get on the bad side of Google and other search engines which have to power to remove websites from their search, assign them rankings and sell ad-space to the highest bidder.
But no, it is free though. You can go on Youtube and watch videos for free, I can download torrents, videos, pornography, games, music and a whole host of other things for free. Then all of a sudden the recent talks in the US (that dear capitalist trendsetter) of making people pay different sums of money for different content as well as the cracking down on torrents as seen throughout the world, thus little by little the free internet is beginning to be be closed in on, from all sides.
Yet we're not there yet, but about this free content, why is it free? Nothing is free. And this is no exception: advertisements which work their way into your mind day after day, ever more tailored and personalised to catch your eye, paid subscriptions to premium content, a whole host of other schemes and ever more quickly choice disappears and options are narrowed.
Another reason for free internet content is illegality which in this case however, as it assaults capitalism, is in fact a good, if not great thing. Capital out of the hands of the capitalist is always better than capital in their hands and in a system of corruption, under the shroud illegality may be the only moral way in which to operate. How long however, until police begin to clampdown on the totally free, free movement of goods?
In conclusion then we see all the previous traits of the capitalist mode of production applied to this novel means of production. We saw how the monopolistic tendency of capital had already reduced the PC market to an oligarchy, and that the same seemed to be happening on the internet and in software. Other than that we saw how it was parcelling off virtual plots, cornering virtual markets, replacing jobs with algorithms and driving physical competition from the market.
As always then, the question must be raised, that as unemployment rises and the problems and contradictions inherent in the system become ever worse, could this lead to revolutionary change? The answer, as it always is, is yes, of course it could, but that does not mean it will.
Throughout history there have been countless missed or botched opportunities, where all that was needed was an actualisation that never came. There needs also be a willingness in the people to be able to step back, in this case from narcotic consumerism, to then be able to stride on forward.
In the end, the internet is a tool. A marvellous creation that can pool the resources of society together in an instant and as all tools, the way you use it is vital. Correctly used, and in some cases it has been(9) it can be a tremendous source of progress for mankind. If improperly used however it will only lead to ever more dominance of man by capital, ever more poverty and ever greater unemployment.
__________________________________________________
8. Neither positive nor negative, they can. Whether it's child pornography or dissident political parties, there is the ability.
9. Crowd sourcing initiatives, rather than clicktivism.
__________________________________________________
Note: This is something I wrote a month or two ago and is my first offering on this site (that I joined an hour ago.) I read through it and am highly unsatisfied and it is for aid that I post it here (being new to this site perhaps this was the wrong area in which to place it, if so I apologize.) In any case, any and all criticism would be highly welcome. Ideally, if anyone has the time a red ink "marking" or a point by point analysis or at least a more comprehensive critique than "Good" or "Infernally bad, you reactionary dog, a thousand suns will burn your heart out should I ever have the opportunity to roast you on a spit." If you do of course feel so strongly I humbly ask in relation to my relatively youthful inexperience that my heart be burnt by nine hundred and ninety nine suns as opposed to the full one hundred as I doubt I could bear it...
A.