Hacking the Networked Society.

Abstract: The dynamic between free-software and open-source is often misunderstood by social and political theorists. As a consequence it is also under-theorised within socio-political theory. In this paper, I show how philosophies of free/libre, open-source and commons regimes have engendered new forms of socio-political consumption and new political economies of meaning. My emphasis on the interplay between the local and the global/structure and agency, shows new ways of ‘thinking’ the cosmopolitan, sedimented in the interconnected networks of the technical age. My thesis is concerned with our present moment of opportunity. I believe that positive possibilities for politics and political economy are presented in the philosophies of free/libre, open-source and commons regimes. In this paper I will demonstrate the contribution of these new socio-political categories and the new politics that is being ‘made public’ because of free/libre hacking.

Available online as web/HTML, as PDF (6×9 format, sorry, A4 coming) and as printed book from lulu.com. I also plan to put this up on my wiki.

I am going to continue my research and writing in this area over the coming year. I’m particularly interested in exploring free/libre and peer production, Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful economics and Benkler and Nissenbaum’s notion of virtue in free/libre (see Commons-Based Peer Production and Virtue).

I’ve converted some of my recent papers into web pages for easy reading online. I hope that others find them of some use, if only for the bibliographies!

Here is my New Radical Political Economy paper on social, peer-to-peer, participatory financial models. In the paper I contrast traditional banks and interest bearing capital transactions to these emergent models. Here is the web HTML version, and this is the PDF version for download.

For the Liberalism and Its Critics course I wrote a paper on Communitarian criticisms of liberalism. The paper considers the various arguments with liberal theory and liberal practice that communitarian critics hold. My view is that there are indeed a number of strong communitarian critiques of liberal individualism, critiques that are more than an expression of dissatisfaction by disaffected liberals. Here is the web HTML version, and this is the PDF version for download.

I’ve been investigating the feasibility of collecting and publishing final year dissertation projects in book form. I think that this will make a great reminder of our time of study, our political alliances and the friendships that have grown over the years at Goldsmiths. Also it’s such an indulgent, gratuitous act: So Fucking Goldsmiths. My plan is to gather together our dissertations and publish a book (ISBN record and everything) of our works to have it printed and ready for graduation in September.

Print On Demand / Short Run printing is readily accessible and affordable. A run of 100 works out at a per book cost of around a tenner. The result is a quality product too. There are POD books currently on sale in the college bookshop (look for Media Mutandis in Media/Culture) that you can take a look at to see what the finished result would look like.

I hope that I can drum up enough interest to make the project viable as solo-publishing my dissertation would be lonely!

I’ve been busy reviewing and replanning my dissertation project - only five weeks to go until hand-in! I’ve cut a lot out since my proposal last year, tightening my focus and shortening my reading lists. My four papers now look something like this…

• Who Governs in a Networked Society (final draft complete) - My first chapter is concerned with the depoliticisation of government and the politicisation of the social world in a global networked society. In this chapter I explore the networked society thesis (Giddens, Castells) contra globalisation. I draw on Virilio’s real/virtual city dichotomy in order to move towards Hardt & Negri Empire. I am interested in the post-material politics of NSM/NGO and the relationship between these organisations and the de/politicisation in networked society. I conclude with a discussion about the imagination and the affective dimension of the political.
• Free, Libre and Radically Open Communities (in draft) - This paper will consider the hacker identity and hacker social and cultural relations. In exploring this subjects ontology and its relationships with others I will also question the understanding of purpose, of telos, by this subjectivity. Freedom and openness are two central concepts in hackerism and the contemporary social movements it has influenced. My research will lead me to examine critically the political philosophy of hackerism in order to reveal the meaning in these emerging redefinitions of freedom and openness and the challenge they present to the corresponding dominant liberal notions of the same terms.
• Communicative Capitalism and F/los - In my third paper I will explore the political economy of contemporary communicative capitalism and f/los. Here I will draw on the networked society ideas from my first chapter and the hacker work ethic from my second. I am conscious of a dynamic between pragmatism and idealism and how this conditions political economy. I am searching for the `positive possibility’ of f/los and how this, in transmission, may effect our contemporary order.
• A New Politics of Openness? - I am not quite sure how this chapter will fit together yet. I am interested in how the hacker idea of freedom, `what kind of rules make possible a good society that is good for the people in it’ (Stallman) is be realised. McKenzie Wark, author of `A Hacker Manifesto’, in his paper `Escape from the Dual Empire’ wrote “020. The search for a counter strategy to ‘globalization’, if it does not look backwards to the reinstatement of the topographic boundaries of a lost age, looks forward instead to a new topography, in which the topical might hold the power of the digital, rather than being held within its thrall.” I think that the hacker ethic and the open political models of f/los are no longer emergent, existing at the frontiers of our networked society. I contend that they already among us and are radically altering established politics.

I’ve just sent the draft of my first paper to my supervisor and I’ve yet to run it past my Chief Editor (thanks B). I’ll post a PDF when its been reviewed and edited.

By the Gods! There are but weeks remaining for the third year politics students. Next significant deadline is the 13th March, the hand-in for New Radical Political Economy (NRPE) and Liberalism and Its Critics.  I’ve just finished my NRPE paper, ‘To what extent do social, peer-to-peer and participatory models democratise capital’, so this week I’ll be devoting to my Dissertation project which has received somewhere between little and no attention since I wrote my proposal back in October…

If anyone sees me out, ask me why I’m not home working…