p. 179 in A nation transformed...: the criterion of new functionality, the ability to do something that existing technology does not do, is hard to satisfy. I wonder if the personal computer qualifies for criterion four?
p. 200 and elsewhere: key point is that the success of IBM and other computer firms in the 1960s was predicated on their pre-computer base of business machine customers. It is much easier to compete if you have a stable market which you understand and know how to address.
p. 202: what does it mean when a corporation acts as an innovator, as opposed to an individual?
p. 207-208: is the impulse to reform society always the same as the desire to improve society?
About the Digital applications in higher education chapter draft: a critique of higher education practices is more than implicit in the chapter. Cortada is correct to perceive that higher education is an industry that works in part by swaying the public with the institutional equivalent of Weber's "hereditary charisma." One comment prior to the talk: my guess as to why college administrators are so enthusiastic for administrative applications is because they act as an electronic moat to keep the students, faculty, and public out of the institutional fastness. Faculty only gradually become aware of their exclusion from the information network enjoyed by administrators.
From the Digital hand summary article: p. 764, two very important issues independent of technology: how does an industry make money, and how many real players are there? It seems that technological progress, that is, progress that can't be reversed in the foreseeable future, is dependent on financially stable firms that act within markets where real economic freedom, the freedom to succeed, is effectively limited. If not monopolies, then American industry thrives through coalitions of competing firms.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Comment from main blog page
Jeff Gibbens said...
About the distinction between creative labor and information or other kinds of labor: all labor is potentially "creative"--what we call "creative" is either autonomous or collaborative. In a hierarchy, the presence of "creative" workers undermines subordination.
There's a nuance of meaning between "technician" and "expert" that has to do with the eroding boundaries between blue- and white-collar labor that Nate refers to. Ensmenger's choice of the term "technician" says a lot about what he sees as the value of programming work--that is, the hands-on aspect is essential.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Comment on Ensmenger
Note this title, published by University of Wisconsin Press,
Harris, Howell John, 1951- , The right to manage : industrial relations policies of American business in the 1940s. Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.
I referred to this book in the last couple of weeks.
In theory, there could be unions of personnel who hold control functions just as there are unions of prison guards, police, and so forth, but the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) excluded most supervisory personnel from the right to bargain collectively, thus throwing supervisors into the camp of employers because they had no other support options. The "right to manage," mythical because to manage a concern is not the same as to own a company, became according to Harris a rallying cry in corporate publicity throughout the 1950s, parallel with the second Red Scare and disputes with organized labor over labor's legitimacy and control over working conditions. The notion of a right to control what one is hired to control has become inscribed in our culture.
If we are going to understand how programmers and other groups that are networked around a shared skill or expertise can be, or may be seen as disruptive to management culture, we need to know more about how management structures itself socially, what the psychological benefits of holding a place in a hierarchy are, and on the other hand how management may also project itself as a community of practice in opposition to experts or technicians.
Harris, Howell John, 1951- , The right to manage : industrial relations policies of American business in the 1940s. Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.
I referred to this book in the last couple of weeks.
In theory, there could be unions of personnel who hold control functions just as there are unions of prison guards, police, and so forth, but the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) excluded most supervisory personnel from the right to bargain collectively, thus throwing supervisors into the camp of employers because they had no other support options. The "right to manage," mythical because to manage a concern is not the same as to own a company, became according to Harris a rallying cry in corporate publicity throughout the 1950s, parallel with the second Red Scare and disputes with organized labor over labor's legitimacy and control over working conditions. The notion of a right to control what one is hired to control has become inscribed in our culture.
If we are going to understand how programmers and other groups that are networked around a shared skill or expertise can be, or may be seen as disruptive to management culture, we need to know more about how management structures itself socially, what the psychological benefits of holding a place in a hierarchy are, and on the other hand how management may also project itself as a community of practice in opposition to experts or technicians.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Follow-up to class discussion
For the record, the thought that I had at the end of class about the priority of function to work to technological constraints was something that I struggled with when Greg offered the class for the first time in 2004. I could never figure out, in the various situations we read about, where the WORK was. In the case of the Calenberg fund, Dies's work is still recognizable as the descendant of social functions that were carried on by the Church or State, so that we can see it as an integrated whole, while at the same time his need for assistance shows the beginning of a division of labor.
The big problem for Dies, comprising the entire work force of this insurance fund, was his exclusion from the control function. I think we will find that this is a persistent problem even in open, networked workplaces, that the work can be made to resemble leisure, but the employees are vulnerable because financial and management systems are made offsite and thus are invisible to them.
The big problem for Dies, comprising the entire work force of this insurance fund, was his exclusion from the control function. I think we will find that this is a persistent problem even in open, networked workplaces, that the work can be made to resemble leisure, but the employees are vulnerable because financial and management systems are made offsite and thus are invisible to them.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Postscript to 12 February post
After rereading Benner Monday night, I admit to having misread him a couple of times. The structure of the guilds is clearly a pre-union organizing structure that can evolve into a union, and logical given industry circumstances. The key shift in consciousness is to begin to question the mythical "right to manage"--Schot's article in Modernity and technology is valuable for its discussion of that shift among the Rotterdam dock workers of the early 20th century.
Should be pointed out that the artificial ambiguity in the classification of workers as supervisory that was introduced by Taft-Hartley and recently widened by Bush's NLRB is one of the main incentives to employers to make the management cohort as large as possible. This is why Wal-Mart calls its employees "associates."
On Sampson and Wu, the question might be where the now-redundant dock workers and sailors disappeared to in terms of employment in the technological evolution of shipping?
Should be pointed out that the artificial ambiguity in the classification of workers as supervisory that was introduced by Taft-Hartley and recently widened by Bush's NLRB is one of the main incentives to employers to make the management cohort as large as possible. This is why Wal-Mart calls its employees "associates."
On Sampson and Wu, the question might be where the now-redundant dock workers and sailors disappeared to in terms of employment in the technological evolution of shipping?
Monday, February 12, 2007
Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 2007 post
I enjoyed reading several articles in the Blok/Downey collection that had been assigned in the 2004 version of the class. They make a great deal more sense than in 2004. The Stalder book clarifies the framework of this research.
On Rosenhaft's article:
While reading it occurred to me that the English-born American and French revolutionary Thomas Paine began his career by obtaining a post as an exciseman after having carried on a trade for a few years. His political problems with England began with his fight to retain his excise post after being accused of corruption, much like Dies's problems with an apparent act of embezzlement. By the end of the 18th century there was a sizable cohort, if not a class, of clerical-type workers who were not making their fortunes in the society but had enough literary ability to find patrons, sell their pens, and stir up trouble (nb. famous Darnton book on literary underground of the Ancien Regime). As it turned out, they had subversive power way beyond their numbers and caused real headaches. So the Calenberg trustees' fear of Dies was probably not exaggerated.
The converse of this, as Rosenhaft puts it, that "control of their public utterance was part of the price they paid in turn for the prospect of promotion" certainly carries over to the clerical type of employment, including the computer industry, today. One question for any organization to address is whether the public loyalty requirement does not also limit internal debate and consequently stifle innovation?
The Bartleby effect experienced by Dies and his successors suggests how much planning needs to go into workload and staffing. The Calenberg insurance fund exaggerated the burdens on Dies because it was an inverted pyramid, all generals (the trustees) and one private.
On Postigo, Benner:
Little to add to the 2004 comments. We have to assume that the programmers and volunteers were not merely dupes of the industry but had bought so completely into the libertarian assumptions of the society that they were truly baffled at how they were treated when they entered the "work zone."
To compare programmers' associations to college professors' organizations, professional and/or union: the tipping points that cause workers who are in the professional class to seek unionization is the fear of various losses--either loss of potential income (years without significant salary increases, or salary compression, or failure to compete in salary with professors in other disciplines), loss of status (threats to private colleges from public universities, threats to public universities from public junior colleges, et al.), or loss of personal negotiating power (administrators who are indifferent, pursue personal agendas exclusively, or who are led from above).
A question for the class, and for any worker, is what constitutes a threat so grave, that it would lead you or any worker to actively seek to organize or to affiliate with a union, rather than to passively accept existing working conditions as the cost of being employed?
On Sampson and Wu:
I note that there is a direct tie-in to Schot's article on the Rotterdam docks industrial action of 1905-1907. The physical realities of an industry like shipping do not yield as rapidly to transformation as hoped.
On Downey:
A comment on p. 251 quote about unions degenerating into online value-added services for members:
In the NEA-affiliated faculty union I worked for, there was a debate about the excessive reliance of the activists on e-mail rather than face-to-face interaction with members. E-mail exaggerates the tendency of faculty to barricade themselves in their office fortresses. (Might there be a difference in the effectiveness of e-mail if the workforce is in a single, large room divided into cubicles as opposed to individual offices?)
To compound the tactical problem of all electronic communication and no grassroots effort, only gradually in the course of our contract dispute did the organization become aware that e-mail on the university server was completely open to monitoring by the administration. I would think that no worker would make the same mistake now. (There was a New York Times story recently about e-mail forwarding by corporate employees to external accounts for their personal protection, a practice wreaking havoc with corporate security. Nice.)
On Rosenhaft's article:
While reading it occurred to me that the English-born American and French revolutionary Thomas Paine began his career by obtaining a post as an exciseman after having carried on a trade for a few years. His political problems with England began with his fight to retain his excise post after being accused of corruption, much like Dies's problems with an apparent act of embezzlement. By the end of the 18th century there was a sizable cohort, if not a class, of clerical-type workers who were not making their fortunes in the society but had enough literary ability to find patrons, sell their pens, and stir up trouble (nb. famous Darnton book on literary underground of the Ancien Regime). As it turned out, they had subversive power way beyond their numbers and caused real headaches. So the Calenberg trustees' fear of Dies was probably not exaggerated.
The converse of this, as Rosenhaft puts it, that "control of their public utterance was part of the price they paid in turn for the prospect of promotion" certainly carries over to the clerical type of employment, including the computer industry, today. One question for any organization to address is whether the public loyalty requirement does not also limit internal debate and consequently stifle innovation?
The Bartleby effect experienced by Dies and his successors suggests how much planning needs to go into workload and staffing. The Calenberg insurance fund exaggerated the burdens on Dies because it was an inverted pyramid, all generals (the trustees) and one private.
On Postigo, Benner:
Little to add to the 2004 comments. We have to assume that the programmers and volunteers were not merely dupes of the industry but had bought so completely into the libertarian assumptions of the society that they were truly baffled at how they were treated when they entered the "work zone."
To compare programmers' associations to college professors' organizations, professional and/or union: the tipping points that cause workers who are in the professional class to seek unionization is the fear of various losses--either loss of potential income (years without significant salary increases, or salary compression, or failure to compete in salary with professors in other disciplines), loss of status (threats to private colleges from public universities, threats to public universities from public junior colleges, et al.), or loss of personal negotiating power (administrators who are indifferent, pursue personal agendas exclusively, or who are led from above).
A question for the class, and for any worker, is what constitutes a threat so grave, that it would lead you or any worker to actively seek to organize or to affiliate with a union, rather than to passively accept existing working conditions as the cost of being employed?
On Sampson and Wu:
I note that there is a direct tie-in to Schot's article on the Rotterdam docks industrial action of 1905-1907. The physical realities of an industry like shipping do not yield as rapidly to transformation as hoped.
On Downey:
A comment on p. 251 quote about unions degenerating into online value-added services for members:
In the NEA-affiliated faculty union I worked for, there was a debate about the excessive reliance of the activists on e-mail rather than face-to-face interaction with members. E-mail exaggerates the tendency of faculty to barricade themselves in their office fortresses. (Might there be a difference in the effectiveness of e-mail if the workforce is in a single, large room divided into cubicles as opposed to individual offices?)
To compound the tactical problem of all electronic communication and no grassroots effort, only gradually in the course of our contract dispute did the organization become aware that e-mail on the university server was completely open to monitoring by the administration. I would think that no worker would make the same mistake now. (There was a New York Times story recently about e-mail forwarding by corporate employees to external accounts for their personal protection, a practice wreaking havoc with corporate security. Nice.)
Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750-2000--2004 posts on Benner, Postigo, and Rosenhaft for comparison, reverse chronological order
29 November [2004]
1. On Postigo, I had a question of just what content the volunteers created when they had access to the in-house text editor/publisher? It had to be pretty thrilling to yield as much volunteer buy-in as it did. When AOL changed its pricing to attract users in the mass rather than well-heeled enthusiasts, what had changed in its business model? (A history of which I am ignorant.) Are there alternatives to the models of Internet users Postigo presents, to wit, enthusiastic volunteers, unpaid web proletarians, or company-designated community leaders?for 15 November [2004]
1. Benner talks about the history of professional associations and how "high-status" professions like medicine have been able to organize to maintain status by limiting "the supply of skills and knowledge." Evelyn Geller has identified librarianship as a "semi-profession," while Benner recognizes IT workers as semi-professional in that their expertise gives them an advantage in the labor market but not quite the skills monopoly enjoyed by physicians. Do librarians have a skills or knowledge advantage in the labor market, and if so, how can they translate that into greater employability, and by extension, more control in the workplace? Let's try the 2nd question again [3 October 2004]
2. After rereading this at home, it seemed garbled to me, so here's another go. Thanks to Mary for bringing up the status issue explicitly.
Dies and Eisendecker had work responsibilities at different levels of status--(1) menial and/or clerical work (all phases of record-keeping for the Widow's fund), (2) public and customer relations = professional work, and (3) confidential work like money handling, communication with the trustees--these would be managerial or proprietary functions. How did Dies and Eisendecker and and how do their analogs in the late 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries mediate between their personal interests and their job responsibilities depending on variations in working conditions, treatment by the employer, and their stake in the success of the employer?
To add to this, were the professional recognition accorded to Dies as a polemicist for the fund and the proprietary information to which he had access enough to compensate him for his stagnant salary and lack of control over his work?
Rosenhaft/Downey questions [1 October 2004]
1. We know from Rosenhaft's evidence the base sum from which Dies's and Eisendecker's salaries and pensions were drawn, 500 Rtl. (=Reichsthaler?), and also that each suffered from a work-related health problem. What else can we infer about their hours and other "terms and conditions of employment"?
2. Although responsible for all phases of record-keeping for the Widow's fund, Dies and Eisendecker seem to have been responsible for maintaining the fund's public image, much as the help desk workers, telephone operators, and messengers Greg discusses are held accountable for being the company's public faces. Dies also had the opportunity to damage the Widow's fund in private, because he handled money and knew the Fund's secrets, just as system operators have control over users and access to proprietary information. How did and do these employees mediate between their personal interests and their job responsibilities depending on variations in working conditions, treatment by the employer, and their stake in the success of the employer?
3. What control if any would access to collective bargaining have given Dies and Eisendecker over their working conditions? What advantage would accrue to system operators if they were not treated as managers and had the opportunity to bargain collectively?
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Here copied for convenience are my responses to the class comments on 5 Feb. discussion questions
Thanks for the comments. These are my responses.
1. About "knowledge" preceding "action," what I was trying to get at is another point of view about action, that of experimental action. One can act based on a projected, desirable result, without absolute knowledge of the details of a situation or the exact outcome. Experimental action is not utterly uninformed, just bolder than what Castells seems to suggest.
Here he seems to react to a theme of 20th century French thought, that to break through unreasoning acceptance of social norms, you need irrationality, which leads to the so-called acte gratuit, a leap more or less into the dark.
2. I agree that the proof of direct action is in observable, desirable change to the society. What is debatable as Electra implies is the boundary between protest and mere violence. I think that the protests against the regime of international trade were valid and effective, unlike soccer hooliganism. What I wanted to get at is that soccer hooligans have a concrete point of view that is expressed by their behavior.
If we are willing to look at psychology, motivation, and causes, as Castells apparently is not, we might learn how to extract the energy from hooliganism while limiting the damage from it.
3. About networks vs. hierarchies, I want to set down what I said in class, that the network embodies equality of position, with nodes serving as inputs and outputs, while the hierarchy is represented usually as a pyramid with resources flowing up and power flowing down. Again to repeat, I think Castells sees the emancipatory potential of networks as stemming from those bridging links Greg spoke about, so that power will flow between nodes that are outside the persisting hierarchies of nation-states, international organizations, et al. I'm not sure I agree that this logic of the network will have this transformative effect.
1:22 PM
1. About "knowledge" preceding "action," what I was trying to get at is another point of view about action, that of experimental action. One can act based on a projected, desirable result, without absolute knowledge of the details of a situation or the exact outcome. Experimental action is not utterly uninformed, just bolder than what Castells seems to suggest.
Here he seems to react to a theme of 20th century French thought, that to break through unreasoning acceptance of social norms, you need irrationality, which leads to the so-called acte gratuit, a leap more or less into the dark.
2. I agree that the proof of direct action is in observable, desirable change to the society. What is debatable as Electra implies is the boundary between protest and mere violence. I think that the protests against the regime of international trade were valid and effective, unlike soccer hooliganism. What I wanted to get at is that soccer hooligans have a concrete point of view that is expressed by their behavior.
If we are willing to look at psychology, motivation, and causes, as Castells apparently is not, we might learn how to extract the energy from hooliganism while limiting the damage from it.
3. About networks vs. hierarchies, I want to set down what I said in class, that the network embodies equality of position, with nodes serving as inputs and outputs, while the hierarchy is represented usually as a pyramid with resources flowing up and power flowing down. Again to repeat, I think Castells sees the emancipatory potential of networks as stemming from those bridging links Greg spoke about, so that power will flow between nodes that are outside the persisting hierarchies of nation-states, international organizations, et al. I'm not sure I agree that this logic of the network will have this transformative effect.
1:22 PM
Clarification
The comment attached to the posting, Comment on 5 February, really belongs with the discussion questions that precede the 5 Feb. Comment. Chronologically they all belong together.
Citation for Castells article available electronically in MadCat
Castells, Manuel. "Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society," British Journal of Sociology 51/1(January/March 2000): 5-24.
This is a convenient summary of Castells' argument in the trilogy.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Comment on 5 February post
The discussion questions and comments are based on reading Stalder's book, looking at the Feenberg et al. work on May 1968, and consulting books by Lefebvre and bits of Castells magnum opus. I have printed off some articles from the Stalder bibliography that I hope to review before class, including a Castells article where he starts to respond to his critics.
My conclusion for the moment about Castells "tendency" is that he feels snake-bit by Marxism and by Progressive thought in general. As someone who grew up in Catalonia and later crossed swords with Soviet-influenced Marxists, I can imagine his deep suspicion of anything remotely connected to the Soviet-led Communist movement, even the Eurocommunism of the 1960s. And its not hard to see that he would be pretty bugged by the liberal state under General de Gaulle and others. So his progressive actors are reduced to single-issue political activists, and even with them he seems to have no preference for a side.
What I learned as a union representative, talking to union activists who also had experiences organizing for the SDS etc. in 1960s, is that action has to be multidirectional. So it is important to be an advocate for your own key issue, but it is also important to write letters to the editor, attend meetings of representative bodies, vote, run for office if possible or necessary, to engage in public demonstrations and nonviolent civil disobedience, and work within the workplace, community organizations, and political parties, in an oppositional mode if need be. Asserting one's mere existence may contribute in some mystical sense, but is not quite adequate to the case.
I'm disappointed by the anti-intellectualism of his conclusion to End of Millennium. While intellectuals may not have authority in the sense that Hegel or Kant or Rousseau or Voltaire did in their day, surely they have a role in creating the language of the day and contributing to the discussion. When an author creates a 1500 page document like Castells, even if he conceives of it as an observation-based work contributing to the pedagogy of the oppressed, he has to assume that most of the readers will be scholars or academics like himself. Who is he jivin'?
From my vantage point, I connect this attitude of surrender with the psychology of the US in November and December 2000 which has led to our current predicament. What the concept of the "spaces of flows" demonstrates is that you neglect a traditionally-contested space like the management of elections by states, your opponents will take over that space, and limit your ability to reenter it.
An example that illustrates this point even better is the rise of Rush Limbaugh. The phenomenon of highly-partisan radio talk is a direct result of the FCC abandonment of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Rush got on the air with his current show in 1988, and the rest is history. AM Radio has become an almost complete wasteland except for the talk on WHA-AM, and how many parallels does that have outside the state?
My conclusion for the moment about Castells "tendency" is that he feels snake-bit by Marxism and by Progressive thought in general. As someone who grew up in Catalonia and later crossed swords with Soviet-influenced Marxists, I can imagine his deep suspicion of anything remotely connected to the Soviet-led Communist movement, even the Eurocommunism of the 1960s. And its not hard to see that he would be pretty bugged by the liberal state under General de Gaulle and others. So his progressive actors are reduced to single-issue political activists, and even with them he seems to have no preference for a side.
What I learned as a union representative, talking to union activists who also had experiences organizing for the SDS etc. in 1960s, is that action has to be multidirectional. So it is important to be an advocate for your own key issue, but it is also important to write letters to the editor, attend meetings of representative bodies, vote, run for office if possible or necessary, to engage in public demonstrations and nonviolent civil disobedience, and work within the workplace, community organizations, and political parties, in an oppositional mode if need be. Asserting one's mere existence may contribute in some mystical sense, but is not quite adequate to the case.
I'm disappointed by the anti-intellectualism of his conclusion to End of Millennium. While intellectuals may not have authority in the sense that Hegel or Kant or Rousseau or Voltaire did in their day, surely they have a role in creating the language of the day and contributing to the discussion. When an author creates a 1500 page document like Castells, even if he conceives of it as an observation-based work contributing to the pedagogy of the oppressed, he has to assume that most of the readers will be scholars or academics like himself. Who is he jivin'?
From my vantage point, I connect this attitude of surrender with the psychology of the US in November and December 2000 which has led to our current predicament. What the concept of the "spaces of flows" demonstrates is that you neglect a traditionally-contested space like the management of elections by states, your opponents will take over that space, and limit your ability to reenter it.
An example that illustrates this point even better is the rise of Rush Limbaugh. The phenomenon of highly-partisan radio talk is a direct result of the FCC abandonment of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Rush got on the air with his current show in 1988, and the rest is history. AM Radio has become an almost complete wasteland except for the talk on WHA-AM, and how many parallels does that have outside the state?
Copy of Discussion Questions for Stalder on Castells
I have difficulty creating open-ended questions, having been trained to analyze the language of arguments and make counter-arguments.
So here I'm just marching through the Stalder text with my marginal notes and extracting the questions that occurred to me as I was reading.
For Castells political background, to supplement what Stalder says, I would look at Feenberg, Andrew. When poetry ruled the streets : the French May events of 1968 / Andrew Feenberg and Jim Freedman ; with a foreword by Douglas Kellner. Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, c2001.
Feenberg is one of the editors of the Modernity and Technology anthology we read for last week, and was living in France in 1968.
One of Castells' colleagues and later antagonists, the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre, is mentioned several times in Stalder's work. I would recommend taking a look at his list of books (including a work translated as The production of space) and some of his background to get an idea of what Castells is revolting against.
1. Does the organization of Stalder's exposition of Castells make sense theoretically?
Both Castells and Stalder use the word Theory pretty freely for what feels like enlightened speculation about social structure. So they have to bring a scientific organization and/or vocabulary to bear in order to make their theory sufficiently theoretical. The problem with this is that the quasi-scientific exposition is confined to the last two chapters, while one would expect it at the beginning if it is important to framing their arguments. I like the foregrounding of the context of Castells' ideas and Stalder's critique, but if the theoretical concepts are secondary to the argument, what is really going on with them (either the concepts or Stalder and Castells)?
2. From p. 7 of Stalder, a good question, "why does this transformation from hierarchies to networks as the dominant form of social organization matter so much?"
I think it does matter, but is this question answered adequately by Stalder as he introduces the network concept? Why does Stalder present in chapter 6 a long digression about networks in biology and markets while he ignores the obvious origin of networks in theory about computing and information (Cybernetics, Information Theory)?
Is faith in the "organic" nature or quality of networks justified? If networks are "organic" does that make them more, or less, beneficial?
3. From p. 39, Castells is quoted as follows, "I believe that knowledge should precede action, and action is always specific to a given context and a given purpose." This belief should be debated. What happens to experiment, either empirical or in thought, if we act only on our knowledge? (Language elsewhere in the book shows that at least Stalder acknowledges that knowledge can be and is created.)
4. About the "Network Enterprise," (p. 55): Stalder describes the emergence in the 1980s of a new type of business organization "in the West," "less hierarchical, more modular, and thus much more flexible." Is this mythology or a fact-based statement?
I don't dispute that there are flatter organizations in the economy in the last 25 years, but I'm struck more by the almost prophetic language used. Out of the West, out of the East: these are images with powerful cultural resonance.
The analysis on pp. 58-59 is helpful. Why isn't the term "outsourcing," (for project organization or organization by project) used?
5. Key point on p. 61: the belief that the logic of networks, where the players are roughly equal, will prevail over the attempt of any single player at a node to assert authority over the players at the other nodes. Can we find examples of this? How could this observation support either reorganization of work or organization by employees within the workplace?
6. PP. 77-81: how about the characterization of social movements as significant due to their mere existence, and irreducible, or without any basis in society? If they are without origin or any reason to exist, then are they different from soccer hooligans, and how would that be?
7. There seems to be a conflict between the idea of diffused power in a network, seen overall as a good thing, and the cultural conservatism of the remark (p. 102), "the more we select our personal hypertext, under the conditions of a networked social structure and individualized cultural expression, the greater the obstacles to finding a common language, thus common meaning." Is the problem to maintain a common language, thus a common meaning, or to get rid of the notion of "commonness" and to create new language and new meaning?
(The composer Ken Gaburo (d. 1993) had a nice performance piece called Commonness and other conceptual dysfunctions.)
8. P. 109, et al.: what is the relationship between the movement beginning in the late 18th century that Stalder and Castells call "liberal democracy" and the concept of the "State"?
9. P. 179: there is an unexplored distinction between "collective" as a disorganized mass at one node and the network. Isn't a network potentially a different kind of collective?
The term collective brings to mind marching hordes out of the 1930s, but I question if "the masses" can really said to be a collective, in the sense that the collective since the 1840s has been seen as an agent with the potential to bring about desirable social change. My mystical bias tells me that actors working in parallel and connected by a network may be more effective in bringing about change and thus closer to a true collective. Castells' example of the WTO/G7 protests indicates this, but neither Stalder nor apparently Castells actually say this.
10. I'm disturbed by the threads of conservatism, pessimism, even helplessness running through Castells' thought, at least in the period 1996-2000 when the first version of the three volume work was created. Stalder says (p. 193), "major social movements...do not really represent anyone"--the late Mayor Richard J. Daley could not have put it better. Yet Castells sees the sole social transformative potential in contemporary society precisely in these movements.
I looked at the conclusion of Castells' vol. 3, "End of millennium." In the "Finale" he makes an emotional plea for non-ideological, collective problem solving based on the personal experiences of all of us. His sincerity is convincing, but he utters some troubling, Rodney-King-like phrases, for example, "if business will assume its social responsibility; if the media become the messengers, not the message...." in projecting how world problems might be addressed.
Each of us has to answer personally the question of "what needs to be done," a question posed by various Russian 19th century thinkers, later by Lenin, and by Castells at the end of "End of millennium"--my hope is that some of the analysis we read this semester will give indications of positive directions out of the current situation. Can we talk about what those might be, based on this reading?
So here I'm just marching through the Stalder text with my marginal notes and extracting the questions that occurred to me as I was reading.
For Castells political background, to supplement what Stalder says, I would look at Feenberg, Andrew. When poetry ruled the streets : the French May events of 1968 / Andrew Feenberg and Jim Freedman ; with a foreword by Douglas Kellner. Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, c2001.
Feenberg is one of the editors of the Modernity and Technology anthology we read for last week, and was living in France in 1968.
One of Castells' colleagues and later antagonists, the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre, is mentioned several times in Stalder's work. I would recommend taking a look at his list of books (including a work translated as The production of space) and some of his background to get an idea of what Castells is revolting against.
1. Does the organization of Stalder's exposition of Castells make sense theoretically?
Both Castells and Stalder use the word Theory pretty freely for what feels like enlightened speculation about social structure. So they have to bring a scientific organization and/or vocabulary to bear in order to make their theory sufficiently theoretical. The problem with this is that the quasi-scientific exposition is confined to the last two chapters, while one would expect it at the beginning if it is important to framing their arguments. I like the foregrounding of the context of Castells' ideas and Stalder's critique, but if the theoretical concepts are secondary to the argument, what is really going on with them (either the concepts or Stalder and Castells)?
2. From p. 7 of Stalder, a good question, "why does this transformation from hierarchies to networks as the dominant form of social organization matter so much?"
I think it does matter, but is this question answered adequately by Stalder as he introduces the network concept? Why does Stalder present in chapter 6 a long digression about networks in biology and markets while he ignores the obvious origin of networks in theory about computing and information (Cybernetics, Information Theory)?
Is faith in the "organic" nature or quality of networks justified? If networks are "organic" does that make them more, or less, beneficial?
3. From p. 39, Castells is quoted as follows, "I believe that knowledge should precede action, and action is always specific to a given context and a given purpose." This belief should be debated. What happens to experiment, either empirical or in thought, if we act only on our knowledge? (Language elsewhere in the book shows that at least Stalder acknowledges that knowledge can be and is created.)
4. About the "Network Enterprise," (p. 55): Stalder describes the emergence in the 1980s of a new type of business organization "in the West," "less hierarchical, more modular, and thus much more flexible." Is this mythology or a fact-based statement?
I don't dispute that there are flatter organizations in the economy in the last 25 years, but I'm struck more by the almost prophetic language used. Out of the West, out of the East: these are images with powerful cultural resonance.
The analysis on pp. 58-59 is helpful. Why isn't the term "outsourcing," (for project organization or organization by project) used?
5. Key point on p. 61: the belief that the logic of networks, where the players are roughly equal, will prevail over the attempt of any single player at a node to assert authority over the players at the other nodes. Can we find examples of this? How could this observation support either reorganization of work or organization by employees within the workplace?
6. PP. 77-81: how about the characterization of social movements as significant due to their mere existence, and irreducible, or without any basis in society? If they are without origin or any reason to exist, then are they different from soccer hooligans, and how would that be?
7. There seems to be a conflict between the idea of diffused power in a network, seen overall as a good thing, and the cultural conservatism of the remark (p. 102), "the more we select our personal hypertext, under the conditions of a networked social structure and individualized cultural expression, the greater the obstacles to finding a common language, thus common meaning." Is the problem to maintain a common language, thus a common meaning, or to get rid of the notion of "commonness" and to create new language and new meaning?
(The composer Ken Gaburo (d. 1993) had a nice performance piece called Commonness and other conceptual dysfunctions.)
8. P. 109, et al.: what is the relationship between the movement beginning in the late 18th century that Stalder and Castells call "liberal democracy" and the concept of the "State"?
9. P. 179: there is an unexplored distinction between "collective" as a disorganized mass at one node and the network. Isn't a network potentially a different kind of collective?
The term collective brings to mind marching hordes out of the 1930s, but I question if "the masses" can really said to be a collective, in the sense that the collective since the 1840s has been seen as an agent with the potential to bring about desirable social change. My mystical bias tells me that actors working in parallel and connected by a network may be more effective in bringing about change and thus closer to a true collective. Castells' example of the WTO/G7 protests indicates this, but neither Stalder nor apparently Castells actually say this.
10. I'm disturbed by the threads of conservatism, pessimism, even helplessness running through Castells' thought, at least in the period 1996-2000 when the first version of the three volume work was created. Stalder says (p. 193), "major social movements...do not really represent anyone"--the late Mayor Richard J. Daley could not have put it better. Yet Castells sees the sole social transformative potential in contemporary society precisely in these movements.
I looked at the conclusion of Castells' vol. 3, "End of millennium." In the "Finale" he makes an emotional plea for non-ideological, collective problem solving based on the personal experiences of all of us. His sincerity is convincing, but he utters some troubling, Rodney-King-like phrases, for example, "if business will assume its social responsibility; if the media become the messengers, not the message...." in projecting how world problems might be addressed.
Each of us has to answer personally the question of "what needs to be done," a question posed by various Russian 19th century thinkers, later by Lenin, and by Castells at the end of "End of millennium"--my hope is that some of the analysis we read this semester will give indications of positive directions out of the current situation. Can we talk about what those might be, based on this reading?
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