- Invited paper to be read at the 'Symposium on
Re-Publicness' Sponsored by the Chamber of Electrical Engineers Ankara
Turkey, December 9 10, 2011
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- Introduction
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- The relation of information technology (IT) and more
specifically the internet, to politics is a central issue facing contemporary
social movements. Like many previous scientific advances the IT innovations
have a dual purpose: on the one hand, it has accelerated the global flow
of capital, especially financial capital and facilitated imperialist 'globalization'.
On the other hand the internet has served to provide alternative critical
sources of analysis as well as easy communication to mobilize popular movements.
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- The IT industry has created a new class of billionaires,
from Silicon Valley in California to Bangalore, India. They have played
a central role in the expansion of economic colonialism via their monopoly
control in diverse spheres of information flows and entertainment.
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- To paraphrase Marx "the internet has
become the opium of the people". Young and old, employed and unemployed
alike spend hours passively gazing at spectacles, pornography, video games,
online consumerism and even "news" in isolation from other citizens,
fellow workers and employees.
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- In many cases the "overflow" of
"news" on the internet has saturated the internet, absorbing
time and energy and diverting the 'watchers' from reflection and action.
Just as too little and biased news by the mass media distorts popular
consciousness, too many internet messages can immobilize citizen action.
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- The internet, deliberately or not,has "privatized"
political life. Many otherwise potential activists have come to believe
that circulating manifestos to other individuals is a political act, forgetting
that only public action, including confrontations with their adversaries
in public spaces, in city centers and in the countryside, is the basis
of political transformations.
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- IT and Financial Capital
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- Let us remember that the original impetus
for the growth of "IT" came from the demands of big financial
institutions, investment banks and speculative traders who sought to move
billions of dollars and euros with the touch of a finger from one country
to another, from one enterprise to another, from one commodity to another.
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- Internet technology was the motor force for
the growth of globalization at the service of financial capital. In some
ways IT played a major role in precipitating the two global financial crises
of the past decade (2001-2002, 20082009). The bubble in IT
stocks of 2001 was a result of the speculative promotion of overvalued
"software firms" de-linked from the 'real economy'. The global
financial crash of 2008-2009 and its continuation today, was induced by
the computerized packaging of financial swindles and underfunded real estate
mortgages. The 'virtues' of the internet, its rapid relay of information
in the context of speculator capitalism turned out to be a major contributing
factor to the worse capitalist crises since the Great Depression of the
1930's.
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- The Democratization of the Internet
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- The internet became accessible to the masses
as a market for commercial enterprise and then spread to other social and
political uses.Most importantly it became a means of informing the larger
public of the exploitation and pillage of countries and people by multi-national
banks. The internet exposed the lies which accompany US and EU imperialist
wars in the Middle East and Sothern Asia.
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- The internet has become contested terrain,
a new form of class struggle,engaging national liberation and pro-democracy
movements. The major movements and leaders from the armed fighters in
the mountains of Afghanistan to the pro-democracy activists in Egypt, to
the student movements in Chile and including the poor peoples' housing
movement in Turkey, rely on the internet to inform the world of their struggles,
programs, state repression and popular victories. The internet links peoples'
struggles across national boundaries it is a key weapon in creating
a new internationalism to counter capitalist globalization and imperial
wars.
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- To paraphrase Lenin, we could argue that
21st century socialism can be summed up by the equation: "soviets
plus internet = participatory socialism".
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- The Internet and Class Politics
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- We should remember that computerized information
techniques are not 'neutral' their political impact depends on their
users and overseers who determine who and what class interests they will
serve. More generally the internet must be contextualized in terms of
its insertion in public space.
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- Internet has served to mobilize thousands
of workers in China and peasants in India against corporate exploiters
and real estate developers. But computerized aerial warfare has become
the NATO weapon of choice to bomb and destroy independent Libya.The US
drones which send missiles that kill civilians in Pakistan, Yemen are directed
by computer 'intelligence'. The location of Colombian guerrillas and the
deadly aerial bombings are computerized. In other words IT technology
has dual uses: for popular liberation or imperial counter revolution.
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- Neoliberalism and Public Space
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- The discussion of "public space"
has frequently assumed that "public" means greater state intervention
on behalf of the welfare of the majority; greater regulation of capitalism
and increased protection of the environment. In other words benign "public"
actors are counter posed to exploitative private market forces.
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- In the context of the rise of neo-liberal
ideology and policies, many progressive writers argue about the "decline
of the public sphere". This argument overlooks the fact that
the "public sphere" has increased its role in society, economy
and politics on behalf of capital, especially financial capital and foreign
investors. The "public sphere", specifically the state is much
more intrusive in civil society as a repressive force, particularly as
neo-liberal policies increase inequalities. Because of the intensification
and deepening of the financial crises, the public sphere (the state) has
undertaken a massive role in bailing out bankrupt banks.
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- Because of large scale fiscal deficits provoked
by capitalist class tax evasion, colonial war spending and public subsidies
to big business, the public sphere (state) imposes class based "austerity"
program cutting social expenditures and prejudicing public employees, pensioners,
and private wage and salaried employees.
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- The public sphere diminished its role in
the productive sector of the economy. However, the military sector has
grown with expansion of colonial and imperial wars.
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- The basic issue underlying any discussion
of the public sphere and the social opposition is not its decline or growth
but rather the class interests which define the role of the public sphere.
Under neo-liberalism, the public sphere is directed by the use of public
treasury to finance bank bailouts, militarism and expanded police state
intervention. A public sphere directed by the "social opposition"
(workers, farmers, professionals, employees) would enlarge the scope of
public sphere activity with regard to health, education, pensions, environment
and employment.
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- The concept of the "public sphere"
has two opposing faces (Janus-like): one facing capital and the military;
the other labor/social opposition. The role of the internet is also subject
to this duality: on the one hand the internet facilitates large scale movements
of capital and rapid imperial military interventions; on the other hand
it provides rapid flow of information to mobilize the social opposition.
The basic question is what kind of information is transmitted to what
political actors and for what social interest?
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- The Internet and the Social Opposition: The Threat
of State Repression
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- For the social opposition the internet
is first and foremost a vital source of alternative critical information
to educate and mobilize the "public" especially among progressive
opinion- leaders, professionals, trade unionists and peasant leaders, militants
and activists. The internet is the alternative to the capitalist mass
media and its propaganda, a source of news and information that relays
manifestos and informs activists of sites for public action. Because of
the internet's progressive role as an instrument of the social opposition
it is subject to surveillance by the repressive police-state apparatus.
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- For example, in the USA over 800,000
functionaries are employed by the "Homeland Security" police
agency to spy on billions of emails, faxes, telephone calls of millions
of US citizens. How effective the policing of tons of information each
day is another question. But the fact is that the internet is not a "free
and secure source of information, debate and discussion. In fact as the
internet becomes more effective in mobilizing the social movements in opposition
to the imperial and colonial state, the greater is the likelihood of police-state
intervention under the pretext "combating terrorism".
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- The Internet and Contemporary Struggle: Is it Revolutionary?
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- It is important to recognize the importance
of the internet in detonating certain social movements as well as relativizing
its overall significance.
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- The internet has played a vital role in publicizing
and mobilizing "spontaneous protests" like the 'indignados' (the
indignant protestors) mostly unaffiliated unemployed youth in Spain and
the protestors involved in the US "Occupy Wall Street". In other
instances, for example, the mass general strikes in Italy, Portugal, Greece
and elsewhere the organized trade union confederations played a central
role and the internet had a secondary impact.
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- In highly repressive countries like Egypt,
Tunisia and China, the internet played a major role in publicizing public
action and organizing mass protests. However, the internet has not led
to any successful revolutions it can inform, provide a forum for
debate, and mobilize, but it cannot provide leadership and organization
to sustain political action let alone a strategy for taking state power.
The illusion that some internet gurus foster, that 'computerized' action
replaces the need for a disciplined, political party, has been demonstrated
to be false: the internet can facilitate movement but only an organized
social opposition can provide the tactical and strategic direction which
can sustain the movement against state repression and toward successful
struggles.
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- In other words, the internet is not an "end
in itself" the self-congratulatory posture of internet ideologues
in heralding a new "revolutionary" information age overlooks
the fact that the NATO powers, Israel and their allies and clients now
use the internet to plant viruses to disrupt economies, sabotage defense
programs and promote ethno-religious uprisings. Israel sent damaging viruses
to hinder Iran's peaceful nuclear program; the US, France and Turkey incited
client social opposition in Libya and Syria. In a word, the internet has
become the new terrain of class and anti-imperialist struggle. The internet
is a means not an end in itself. The internet is part of a public sphere
whose purpose and results are determined by the larger class structure
in which it is embedded.
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- Concluding Remarks: "Desktop Militants" and
Public Intellectuals
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The social opposition is defined by public action: the presence of collectivities
in political meetings, individuals speaking at public meetings, activists
marching in public squares, militant trade unionists confronting employers,
poor people demanding sites for housing and public services from public
authorities
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- To address an active assembled public meeting,
to formulate ideas, programs and propose programs and strategies through
political action defines the role of the public intellectual. To sit at
a desk in an office, in splendid isolation, sending out five manifestos
per minute defines a "desktop militant". It is a form of pseudo-militancy
that isolates the word from the deed. Desktop "militancy" is
an act of verbal inaction, of inconsequential "activism", a make-believe
revolution of the mind. The exchange of internet communications becomes
a political act when it engages in public social movements that challenge
power.
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- By necessity, that involves risks for the
public intellectual: of police assaults in public spaces and economic
reprisals in the private sphere. The desktop "activists" risk
nothing and accomplish little. The public intellectual links the private
discontents of individuals to the social activism of the collectivity.
The academic critic comes to a site of action, speaks and returns to their
academic office. The public intellectual speaks and sustains a long-term
political educational commitment with the social opposition in the public
sphere via the internet and in face to face daily encounters.
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