The Visibility of the
Revolutionary Project and New Technologies
How
to explain the weaknesses and failures of the revolutionary movements of the 20th
century? What must be deduced for the future? It is in connection with
these questions that, in a debate with Jacques Wajnsztejn,[1] I
had written:
“I
believe that one of the things which was lacking most in 1917-1923 as in
1968-74 is the visibility of the revolutionary project and that, ‘tomorrow’, in
particular thanks to the developments of ‘globalization’, including the
catastrophes and threats that it entails, and the current technological
upheavals (the exponential development of ‘information and communication
technologies’), the project of a post-capitalist society, without borders or
commodity exchange, could be much more easily envisaged, more perceptible.”
I
had insisted on the importance of this “visibility” also in relation to
the possible connection between proletarian economic demands and
revolutionary struggles:
"It is far too
limited to want to understand the possibilities of a connection between
economic struggle and revolutionary struggle without taking into account the
visibility of the revolutionary project. It is difficult to radically oppose
capitalist logic if one remains convinced that it is the only one possible.”
JW
had sharply responded, to the first text in these terms:
“What you call ‘the
visibility of the revolutionary project’ is only the consciousness of the
revolution of capital and what it allows. The horrors of world war one and the
fierce exploitation and impoverishment of Germany did not lead to a clear
vision of the world, but were nevertheless seen as favorable conditions
according to the theory of the proletariat. As for the end of the Sixties, one
can say that they were a real opening to other social relations and that it was
rather the political dimension that was lacking. While today, how can you speak
of the visibility of a project when the single thought and idea that we live in
the least bad kind of society prevails? (…) There is thus no need to discuss
what there will be to do, as that is imposed on its own. (…) One
could believe the discourse of capital on the necessity and the
ineluctability of everything that it makes happen (…) Individuals can remain on
their own. ‘Automatization and planetary
communication’ shape everything! But if that is the case, there will never be a
revolution, only the completion of capital or catastrophe and the barbarism of
social relations.”
With
different variants, the point of view of JW is unfortunately frequent among
“the old” revolutionaries. From a justified denunciation of that which
capitalism does and can do with new technologies, they end in a veritable technophobia, very much in the air in this period with its
tendencies to despair, and, in a puerile way, attributing to machines the
responsibility that belongs to the social system which governs them.[2]
I
will try to answer some of these arguments and to show that capitalism does not
have absolute control of all that new technologies are making possible; that
new social practices, arising from the particular qualities of
digital goods[3] and from
the development of the internet, occur on an openly non-commodity basis; that
these practices are only going to develop and that they will constitute with
time (perhaps 10 or 20 years?) a powerful element in the deployment of the
visibility of the revolutionary project.
But,
in order to avoid misunderstandings, let us start by specifying what I
understand by the “visibility of the revolutionary project”.
I
have employed the term “project” in its most traditional sense, such as one can
find it defined in the dictionary: “the image of a situation, of a state that
one thinks is attainable.” To have a revolutionary project is to have it in
mind, with more or less precision to represent what the new society, the
post-capitalist world, will be.
Henri
Simon made a comment in relation to this during a discussion on the
connection between economic struggles and revolutionary struggles: “A
project in the sense that Raoul understands, is
inevitably very vague, in the negative rather than in the positive sense, and,
if it is precise, it immediately becomes obsolete following the development in
technologies and methods of production which flow from it” In the same
sense, Marx already said in the 19th century that he did not want to
make “recipes for the cooks of the future” and Rosa Luxembourg, at the
beginning of the 20th century insisted on the idea that to
define the new society we only have signposts, especially negative ones.
It
is true that it is difficult, if not practically impossible to envisage exactly
what a post-capitalist society could be, inasmuch as, on the one hand, it will
be the work of human beings who by definition will have changed and moved away
from the alienating framework of capitalism and where, on the other hand, the
techniques and relations of production will be radically overturned. However,
it is absurd to think that after a century and a half of historical experience
and technological development we do not have anything to add to the great and
“vague” general principles formulated at the outset. Even if it is only in the
negative sense, has the Russian experience and its failure taught us nothing?
Don’t we have anything to add to the ideas on communism formulated at the time
of the horse-drawn trolley and “telecommunications” by semaphore? I believe
that, even while remaining on the very general level of the great principles
and the “general signposts” there is already a little more to put meat on the
revolutionary project than there was a century ago.
This
said, it is not by putting on paper precise new formulas on how a
post-capitalist society should or could be, which is central to the
development of the revolutionary potential. Even reduced to the most
general formulations, what is important, and what was most lacking in the past,
is "the visibility" of this project, the possibility of seeing in
reality the actual conditions for its realization.
In
this sense, I can share the concern expressed by Christian[4]
when he responded to me on this subject: "revolutionaries meet
and work out their ideas for a communist project, a human community, based on
what they know today. That comes down to the Leninist project: there are
those who know and those who do not know. The revolutionaries bring with
them the Tables of the Law." I believe that indeed, until now, the
idea of a communist society, without commodity exchange, classes, borders or
States too often remained "a dogmatic abstraction", to use the
expression of Karl Nesik: an abstraction to which
reality did not seem to want to give flesh and bones, if it was not in the
grotesque form of a ruthless state capitalism. Rarely did social
evolution make the communist project visible. But here there arises a crucial
question. The anti-capitalist revolution can only be the work of the immense
majority of society and it must be a conscious work. Such a
consciousness cannot be the product of the preaching – however well
formulated -- of a minority of "enlightened" revolutionaries. It
is historical practice, the evolution of
material and social conditions, that alone can convince billions
of individuals, including "revolutionaries," that their
discourse has a solid foundation. As the Communist Manifesto says: "The
theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or
principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be
universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations
springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on
under our very eyes."
Understood
in this sense, the visibility of the revolutionary project during the 20th
century remained basically limited. That is not what JW thought, when he wrote:
"The horrors of world war one and the fierce exploitation and
impoverishment of
The
revolt against the horrors of the war and its outcome certainly constituted the
principal stimulant of the revolutionary wave that would mark the end of the
first world conflict. But by that very fact, the visibility of the
revolutionary project found itself greatly limited. Generally, the first
project aimed at by agitation directed against war – one that is
understandable -- is peace. And peace, in itself, could also be a capitalist
peace. The German bourgeoisie had learned the lessons of the Russian
revolution. As soon as the revolutionary movements against the war broke out,
it immediately signed the Armistice. And, as soon as peace returned, the
revolutionary movement lost the basis of its energy. The revolutionary
attempts, which continued in
The
revolutionary project was not that much clearer in the social movements at the
end of the Sixties. The struggle against the
JW embellishes
the reality of past experiences and expresses a low opinion of the
consciousness of the present generation: "Today how can you speak
about the visibility of a project when a single thought and idea, that we live
in the least bad of kind society, prevails? Even the opponents of globalization
passed from the "anti" form to the “alter” form. It is striking to
see to what extent one reasons within the terms of capital."
First
of all, I do not say that currently, now, there is already a clear,
generalized, visibility of the revolutionary project. I have not just landed
from another planet. I situate myself within a perspective and speak about a
process that can take years, even decades, but which is happening even now. In
addition, and even before coming back to this point, I believe that it is not
true that the prevailing thought today is that "we live in the least bad
kind of society". In the ambient pessimism, it is rather the idea that
this society is heading for planetary social and ecological disaster that
prevails. What is generalizing is the idea that "children will live
less well than their parents". The consciousness of the present
generation is in certain ways clearer than those of the years 1917-23 or
1960-70, in particular on the questions which are fundamental from the point of
view of a revolutionary perspective, namely the global vision of society
and the system which governs it, on the one hand, and the loss of illusions in
capitalism, on the other hand, The “thirty glorious years" ended a long
time ago, and have given way to massive and chronic unemployment, to
insecurity and fear about the future. It is still the lack of visibility of the
revolutionary project that constitutes the principal difficulty, but, as we
shall see, it is also what is changing.
However,
I would first like to respond to the somewhat specious argument of JW according
to which I claim that the revolution will be the automatic outcome of the
technological development induced by capital. That will necessitate recalling
the connection between development of the productive forces and the advent of a
new society.
JW
writes: "There is no questioning of capital. One simply awaits
its crisis or its degeneration, but one remains in thrall to the ‘sense’
of history. One would have to believe the discourse of capital about the necessity and ineluctability of all
that happens (…) Individuals can sit on their hands, ‘automatization
and global communication’ will do it all!
JW
deforms what I say or pretends not to understand it so as to dodge questions. I
have never claimed that, from a revolutionary perspective, technological
development under capitalism rendered the action of "individuals" or
of classes useless. It is, on the contrary, starting from the problem of
knowing what explains the weaknesses of the proletarian revolutionary struggle
in the past, and what can make it possible to overcome those weaknesses
tomorrow, that I grapple with the question of the present and future evolution
of the productive forces. If I speak about "visibility" it is for
individuals and for classes -- of what else could it be a question? Machines?
What
is it that JW wants to say? That revolutionary “individuals” have to tackle the
question of the possibility of revolution independently of the technological
evolution of the productive forces? Would building communism with computers
and global means of communication be the same as doing it with the
material means available at the beginning of the 19th century or,
why not, with those of antiquity, say at the time of the Spartacus
revolt? “Men make their own history – said Marx – but they do not do it
arbitrarily, under the conditions chosen by them, but rather in conditions
directly given and inherited from the past.” The armies of Spartacus defeated the Roman legions and saw the numbers
and disposition of their troops swell, but they could have no realistic project
for a society with neither classes nor exploitation. No more than any of the
other slave revolts of that time, could that of Spartacus,
which was the most important and most dangerous for the Empire, seek to set up
a new social order. And the attempts that did take place only ended by
reproducing slave relations. The peasant jacqueries
of the Middle Ages against the feudal nobility ran up against the same limits.
It was necessary to await capitalism and the explosion of the productive forces
that it initiated for the project of a society without exploitation to begin to
take on a coherent, non-religious form, with its bases firmly anchored in
reality.
Property,
the right that it contains of allowing some to dispose of another human being,
his life, his work, cannot disappear without destroying that which
renders it "useful" for the life of society. Private property
and its corollary, commodity exchange, are the most effective means of managing
material scarcity. The project of a non-commodity society can rest only on the
possibility of going beyond this state of scarcity. One cannot make a free
product without making it abundant relative to needs. And that requires a
degree of development of the productive forces that only begins to be reached
with capitalism. Utopian socialism, anarchism, Marxism, all the socialist
theories of the 19th century, were also products of the industrial revolution.
The question of knowing what level of development of capitalism is necessary
can be eventually be discussed, but the need for that development is obvious
for whoever understands that the revolutionary project is not a simple
religious incantation.
"Automation
and global communication" are realities developed under modern capitalism
and about them one thing is certain: their deployment and their impact on
social life can only increase under capitalism, ever forced to increase the
productivity of labor and the globalization of its markets. That
constitutes of the "conditions directly given", not
"chosen" by men, to make their history in the future. The question of
JW about what would happen if these realities "were all there
is", as if "individuals and classes" could
suddenly disappear, is of little interest and is only a dodge. The real
question, simple but crucial, is: for individuals and classes desirous of
overcoming the capitalist horror, will the evolution of new technologies
facilitate or block the possibility of revolution, and more particularly the
visibility of the revolutionary project?
Will
the development of new technologies make it possible to better perceive what
the new society can be?
One
can distinguish two dimensions within which to envisage the effects of the
development of new technologies on the visibility of the revolutionary project,
even if in the reality the two are interconnected: the first relates to the
increase in the productivity of labor, the second concerns the new kinds of
social practice thereby made possible.
On
the productivity of labor, I will only insist on recalling the fact that the
condition for making products freely available, and therefore eliminating
commodity exchange, depends on the possibility of abundance and that, beyond
the question of natural limitations and on the form of social organization,
that depends on the increase in the productivity of labor, or of productive
activity, if one doesn’t like the term labor.
The
Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow declared in 1987:
"One sees computers everywhere, except in the statistics." At the
time, indeed, productivity, such as it is measured by the relation of
production (measured in monetary terms) divided by employment (the number of
people or hours worked), was not particularly marked by a more growth than in
the past. Since the second half of the 1990’s, things have changed and the
effects of the introduction "of computers everywhere" can be seen in
a spectacular way, including the problems thereby posed for employment levels in
the Western economies. The importance of that growth is even more impressive
when instead of measuring it in monetary terms (the price of the goods
produced) one evaluates it "physically", in the use value
produced by the same labor.
New
technologies bring about a qualitative upheaval in the level of the growth of
productivity, and thus in the possibility of a world without scarcity, where
everyone can receive according to his needs and give according
to his abilities, in the words of the old but still valid formula. The
visibility of a project of a society freed from the laws of
capital, which prevent such an outcome, would thus be enhanced. It is
easier to dream of a world where goods are free when the necessary
effort to satisfy human needs is being reduced at an accelerated rate, and
that, and when that becomes visible.
But
it is especially on the new social practices made possible by modern
technologies that I would like to insist. To fully understand the significance
and the range today, I believe that there are two essential conditions: the
first is situated at the qualitative level and consists in knowing how to
recognize the authentically non-commodity, therefore non-capitalist, character
of these practices; the second is situated at the quantitative level, and consists
in seeing reality and the importance of its repercussions on social life within
a temporal perspective of several years, or even decades.
Jacques
W, and with him a number revolutionary "technophobes" see in the
evolution of technologies only what capital does and can do with them, and
conclude that that can lead only to the "barbarization of social
relations". They can thus show how the development of the Internet and all
the applications of electronics lead to an expansion and intensification
of commerce and the commercialization of social life, of control and
spying on the life of individuals, of improvement in the means of destruction
and self-destruction, etc. But they see only that, ignoring, often with an
ironic contempt, the whole universe that develops with it, and which is built
on non-commodity – therefore non-capitalist -- bases, therefore not
capitalists. They see "in misery only misery", as Marx reproached Proudhon. They see the extension of commodity and
capitalist relations to all aspects of social life but do not realize that
simultaneously there also develops a sector that escapes that logic.
Capitalist trade through the Internet represents a sector in full
expansion and the world wide net is becoming an essential instrument
for any competitive enterprise. But, simultaneously, the Internet constitutes
as of now the greatest experiment in "sharing", in sharing non-commodifiable goods, in the history of humanity. The
combination of the prospects of communication via the net and that of digital
goods has generated, and is generating, an unprecedented development of
"sharing." This phenomenon has
three dimensions:
- The sharing of digital goods;
- The sharing of individual efforts for the
development of a project, a common,
public, work;
- The sharing of means materials
(computers).
The
sharing of digital goods (software, pieces of music, images, plans, films,
books, comic strips, electronic games, in short, all that can be digitized)
constitutes the most obvious form of this new type of practice. That can go
from the individual who puts on the "web" his best vacation
photographs and the history buff who "publishes" the results of his
latest research, to the "hacker" who makes available
software, that is normally subject to the payment of copyright fees,
accompanied by a data-processing "key" allowing one to
bypass commercial protection and
“safety walls,” and to make use of it for free, and including groups of engineers
who publish construction plans. To make known what is available and to access
it, placing it at the disposal of others, without having recourse to
centralized forms, what is called the
"P2P"("peer-to-peer"), has been developed. This system has
recourse to software which makes it possible "to download" directly
onto a computer the digital goods "taken" from another
computer. It is not a question of “exchange,” in a strict sense of the term,
because there is no systematic reciprocity. Each one can take from the
heap what he/she wishes, independently of whether they also give
something or not. It is a logic completely alien to commodity relations.
This
practice is becoming a mass practice, in particular among young people. It is
estimated, for example, that in 2004, "nearly 4,6 million people at
every moment exchange music via unauthorized sites in
The
sharing of individual efforts for the development of a collective work is a
dimension relatively less known than the sharing of music and films, but
it is perhaps more significant and heralds what the life of a
post-capitalist society might be. I want to show how free software, which can
take the shape of consumer or production goods, depends for its
creation, as well as its distribution, on non-commodity principles. Even
if today certain commercial firms like IBM or Sun, take part in this
production, for reasons of quality and also in their war against the monopoly
of Microsoft, the bulk of free software is the fruit of co-operation of
thousands of voluntary and impassioned programmers through the Internet. If one
thinks of GNU/Linux (a system making possible the basic operation of a computer)
as the best known and most widespread free software, it is estimated that it is
the work of more than 3,000 programmers and a mass of more than 10,000 unknown
contributors and testers, divided between 90 countries. Another significant
example of the sharing of will and effort is the Wikipedia
encyclopedia. It is continuously produced by volunteers on the Internet
and freely put at the disposal of all. With it, there is no
commodity relation either in its production or distribution. The control
of the contents is ensured by the participants themselves with a minimum of
centralization or without any centralization at all. Technically it functions
entirely with free software. Started in 2001, it now already exists in 80
languages. The English version which is naturally the most developed
contained at the beginning of 2005 more than 450 000 articles; the second in
importance, the German version contains 195 000 articles, the Japanese 97 000,
the French 78 000... the Chinese version, the 13th in rank, 19 000.
At the end 2004, it was estimated that more than 13 million pages of Wikipedia were consulted per day. How does such a
collective work, which has neither police force nor government, continue to
exist and not be destroyed by acts of "data-processing vandalism",
which obviously exists? It is the collective itself, the action of each
participant, who ensures its protection and the compliance with certain
implicit rules. There are really many more partisans of its existence
than destroyers. And that has been enough, until now. The "Wiki" model is expanding into other spheres of
activity. It constitutes a new form of cooperation and of collective production
-- and it is non-commercial.
The
sharing of means is the third dimension of the new practices made possible
by new technologies. It’s a matter, for the moment, of voluntarily sharing
the power of personal computers. That especially concerns the work of
scientific research requiring an astronomical number of calculations and
normally requiring the use of computers as powerful as they are expensive. The
idea was to replace the latter by thousands of personal computers connected by
the Internet. These receive packages of data from a center through
the Internet and return them, processed, to this center by the same
way. The owners of personal computers can let make these calculations
automatically with their computers while they are not using them or in tandem
while they make use of it without using all its computing power. One of the
first cases in which that was done was for the analysis of the gigantic mass of
radio signals in space in the search for possible evidence of
extra-terrestrial civilizations. In 1993 the American Congress decided to cut
the appropriations allocated to NASA for this project. The scientists called
upon volunteers on the Internet. They today number several million. Since
then, this voluntary form of cooperation has developed in many scientific
fields. It is employed, in particular, for research on protein folds by
These
practices thrive and develop side by side with the commercial universe. Because
of their new effectiveness, they are the prey of the voracity of the commercial
undertakings which see a means to thereby appropriate free work, a weapon
in the wars in which they are engaged, and even an instrument to adorn their
image. In certain cases, some of these practices also face the repression of
the State, and new legal structures are being set up to try to keep control of
them. But, whatever the degree of interpenetration with the capitalist world,
whatever the effort to control them that they encounter, they constitute a
reality qualitatively new reality, one that is different from commodity
relations. These new social practices are still, for the most part, just
beginning, but the forms which they have taken until now are only the
first in a universe which will not stop growing as it changes old
activities and generates new ones. The possibilities opened up are infinite and
to the extent that the world of the Internet grows, the creativity of new,
possible, communities can only grow with it. It is estimated that there were
nearly a billion Internet users at the beginning of 2005 and 1.2 billion
are foreseen for 2006. That’s alot, if one takes into
account what the population was only five years ago; it’s only a little if one
considers the part of humanity which still does not yet have access
to the network of all networks. Besides, non-commodity practices are only one
part of the reality of the Internet, which, moreover, has become an indispensable
means of trade and of the organization of companies and governments. Nevertheless,
these practices are a concrete demonstration that commercial exchange and the
pecuniary search for profit are not the only motivations making it possible for
humans to socially act and live together, contrary to what the dominant
ideology repeats ad nauseam. And it is not unimportant, when it
is a question of envisaging the possibility of a revolutionary project.
The
influence of the these practices in the social body, and within the exploited
classes in particular, can only become significant with their development and
extension, and that will take time. How much time? It would be foolhardy
to guess. If the growth in the number of users of the Internet continued to
grow at the current rate, in 6 years that number could equal almost half of
humanity. It would exceed 6 billion in 10 years. That is only one mechanical
projection and ignores some important questions, such as knowing socially
who will have access to the Internet or what part non-commodity practices,
sharing, will play in it. What we can be sure about is that their development
is inescapable. There are two essential reasons for that:
1.
The inevitable productivity race, the veritable nerve center of capitalist commercial war, leads to the
increasingly intense and extended recourse to new digital
technologies. Which means that the number of goods that can be
digitized (thus freely reproduced), and the share of the
"digital" in each good, can only increase;
2.
Relations based on exemption from payment, free co-operation and the disdain
of borders, constitute the most effective forms to manage new technologies
of communication and data processing.
Here
are the elements of the "conditions directly given" in which
one can foresee that humans will make "their own history",
to again use the words of Marx. But, the evolution and the taking advantage of
these objective conditions depend on the consciousness of men. At present,
what consciousness do the humans who now engage in those non-commodity
practices made possible by the evolution of technology have? Can these
practices contribute to the generalization of a revolutionary anti-capitalist
consciousness?
JW
tackles the question, indirectly, when, so as to insist on the completely
negative character of any technological dynamic (which he completely
identifies with the dynamics of the capital), he writes:
"The need to make
visible other possibilities surely exists in various practical alternatives and
it is for reason that that we say “alternative and revolution” and not
alternative or revolution. But it is not the dynamic of capital that
produces this. It is resistance to that dynamic. Cf. without mythifying this form of action: the anti-GMO actions."
Independently of
knowing if JW, according to this logic, would propose
"anti-Internet" actions, he seems to be unaware that the
non-commodity practices related to new technologies often had their
origin in opposition (more or less vague) if not to capitalism at
least to fundamental aspects of it, in particular to the right of private
property in digitized goods, the copyright. The Internet itself is mainly the
product of this state of mind. Admittedly, its primarily a matter of digitized
goods, but we know the increasingly central place in the production process
which these goods have, and, on another level, the importance of the question
of property from the Marxist point of view: "In this sense,
Communists can summarize their theory in this single formula: the abolition of
private property." (Marx and Engels, The
Communist Manifesto).
This
kind of contestation can go from the elementary form of action of the teenager
who "illegally" downloads a piece of music, "because it is less
expensive", without raising any other questions, to theoretical
developments as radical as "The dotCommunist
Manifesto" of Eben Moglen
who announces "the downfall of property" and "the
advent of a new social order".
The
contradiction between the development of the productive forces and social
relations becomes even more glaring when it confronts the reality of free
reproducible goods with the laws of capitalist property. As opposed to what JW
in his last book affirms, namely that
“the contradiction between productive forces and relations of production
is no longer operative”,[5]
this contradiction is more real than ever and produces a powerful work of
undermining the foundations of the capitalist commodity ideology.
It
would take several pages to take account of the debates and
tendencies that traverse the “hackers” milieu, on the potential of the new
technologies. One of the principal cleavages occurs around the question of the
attitude to take with respect to the commodity world, with, on one side,
tendencies that seek to better integrate the new practices into the
capitalist commodity world and, on the other, tendencies that seek to
preserve their autonomy and assert themselves as alternatives to the
practices of the dominant system. Partly, the capacity of these practices to
fertilize the revolutionary potential of which society is the bearer will
depend on the relative strength of these two tendencies.
Today,
on the one hand, we see the struggles of wage workers that
seem blocked in a dead end of powerlessness by the lack of any alternative to
the logic of capital. The non-visibility of a revolutionary project leads to
divisions, and to the discouragement of a struggle for a ... "better
form of exploitation". On the other hand, the communal movement of
hackers runs up against the limits of the non-digitizable
world, whose goods are not freely reproducible. Overcoming the limits that
these two dynamics confront proceeds through their interpenetration, partly
facilitated by the fact that the greatest number of hackers and protagonists of
the new practices are proletarians, employees exploited by capital.
In
any event, it seems to me not very serious to envisage the future of the
revolutionary movement without being aware of the reality of these new
practices, or worse to reject them out of of hand as mere contributions
to the "barbarization of social relations". I am always astonished to
see the indifference, if not the contempt, with which certain
"Marxists" see these realities. They are however of luminous proofs
of two essential ideas of Marxism, namely that the development of the
productive forces tends to shape social relations, and that the
development of the productivity of labor leads to the establishment of
non-commodity relations.
Lastly,
a word in connection with the argument advanced by Christian: "If
one awaits the effects of the technological revolution, I am
afraid that meanwhile the world will become a dustbin". It is
true that the ecological evolution of capitalist society is alarming, as has
just been confirmed by the very official report made by 1,360 experts to the
United Nations in March 2005: "Evaluation of Ecosystems for the
Millennium." This report puts 40 years as the point of no return. But, if
one wants to have at least a chance to accelerate a revolutionary process, it is
necessary to start by giving up all technophobia and
discern the profound realities of the "historical movement that is taking
place under our very eyes."
Raoul Victor,
[1] Jacques Wajnsztejn is one of the animators of the group Temps critiques, itself a part of the milieu in France designated as communisateurs, which is characterized by a critique of the “objectivism,” the economic determinism, that they see as a hallmark of Marxism. The debates in question took place within the Francophone discussion circle.
[2] In his latest book, L’évanescence de la valeur, (Jacques Guigou and Jacques Wajnsztejn, editors, L’Harmattan), JW cites Marx on the Luddite movement, one of the first expressions of the worker’s movement in England at the beginning of the 19th century, and which opposed the “industrialization” of the textile mills: “It took both time and experience before the workers learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and therefore to transfer their attacks from the material instruments of production to the form of society which utilizes those instruments.” (Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Penguin Books, pp. 554-555) JW sees that as “one of the passages in Marx most deserving of criticism.” (p. 135)
[3] These are goods in the form of a “text,” composed of “digits,” of numbers “1” and “0,” that can be used electronically. This can take the form of software that controls an automated assembly line in a car plant or a simple image on a computer. They can take the form of producer or consumer goods. What is unique about them is that they can be endlessly produced at an insignificant cost, and transmitted, by cable or wave, with the speed of electric current. Once created, they cannot easily be kept scarce, subject to the usual bounds of scarcity. “Digitable” goods are not necessarily digital. For example, a painting can be “digitalized,” but in contrast to software, is not originally so.
[4] A
participant in the discussion circle that meets in
[5] L’evenescence de la valeur, p.134.