Invited
paper to be read at the “Symposium on
Re-Publicness”
Sponsored by the Chamber of Electrical Engineers
Ankara Turkey, December 9 – 10, 2011
Introduction
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
‘globalisation’. On the other hand the internet has served to provide alternative critical sources of analysis as well as easy
communication to mobilize popular movements.
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.
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.
In many cases the “overflow” of “news” on the
internet has saturated the internet, absorbing time and energy and diverting the
‘watchers’ fromreflection and action. Just as too little and biased news by the mass media
distorts popular consciousness, too many internet messages can immobilize
citizen action.
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.
IT and Financial Capital
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.
Internet technology was the motor force for
the growth of globalisation 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, 2008–2009). 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.
The Democratization of the Internet
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.
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 globalisation and imperial wars.
To paraphrase Lenin, we could argue that
21st century socialism can be summed up by the equation:
“soviets plus internet = participatory socialism”.
The Internet and Class Politics
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.
Internet has served to mobilize thousands of
workers in China and peasants in India against corporate exploiters and real estate
developers. Butcomputerized 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.
Neoliberalism and Public Space
The discussion of “public space” has
frequently assumed that “public” means greater state intervention on behalf of
the welfare of the majority; greaterregulation of capitalism and increased protection of the environment. In other words
benign “public” actors are counter posed to exploitative private marketforces.
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 outbankrupt banks.
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.
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.
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.
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?
The Internet and
the Social Opposition: The Threat of State
Repression
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. For example, in theUSA 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”.
The Internet and Contemporary Struggle: Is it
Revolutionary?
It is important to recognize the importance of the internet in detonating certain social movements as well as relativizing its overall significance.
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.
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.
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.
Concluding
Remarks: “Desktop Militants” and Public
Intellectuals
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…
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. 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.