Critical Theory Toward Trans Modernism O R A C L E A R I O N©MMV I I

1. Globalization
1.1 Imperial-Capitalism: The Collapse of Democracy
§Colonialism. Capital wealth. Eminent domain. Democracy in practice & theory.
1.2 Strategies for War and Peace
§Perspectives on diplomacy and militarism.
1.3 Guerrilla-Information Warfare
§Tactical synthesis: non-violent no-front-line anti-industrial neural-networks
1.4 Satellite Telecommunications
§Strategic Space Power. Surveillance. Counterinsurgency. Societal defenses.
1.5 Better Living through Chemistry
§Transhumanism, Machine Augmented Cognition, Biopharmaceuticals , Eugenics.

2. Society of Spectacle
2.1 Transmission Simulacrum, Mass Media and Culture
2.2 Language and Symbolic Power
2.3 Metamessages: Psychology of Propaganda
2.4 Education for Enlightenment & Elite Schools of Power

3. Humankind
3.1 Love & Death, Suffering & Virtue
3.2 Quantity, Quality and Morality
3.3 Perennial Theology
3.4 Dimensional Man in Class Society
3.5 Urban Tribalism: The Human Animal
3.6 Organization and Group Dynamic

4. Sociocybernetics

4.1 Short Philosophy of Space-Time
4.2 Theory of Systems Epistemology
4.3 Information Thermodynamics
4.4 Computational Metaphysics
4.5 Sociocybernetics & Cultural Morphology

5. Aesthetics
5.1 Art Nouveau & The Birth of Modernism
5.2 Gesamptkunschwerk: Synthesis of ART in theory & practice
5.3 The Performing Arts : role of catharsis in Civility.
5.4 Utopian Architecture & Metropolitan Sociology
6. The State
6.1 Political Economy of emergent world markets.
6.2 Role of Culture in Open Society
6.3 On Socialism
6.4 Civil Liberties
6.5 Nationalism vs. Patriotism

7. Transmodernism
7.00 Editorials. Oracle Arion et. al.

Transmodernism, Marxism and Social Change:
some implications for teacher education
MIKE COLE
Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

The author first briefly outlines what he considers to be the defining features of
transmodernism and its relationship both to postmodernism and to Marxism. He then
suggests that transmodern interpretations of the legacy of the European invasions of the
Americas are illuminating, as is Marxism, in providing an understanding of how the
imperialism in which contemporary US foreign policy is currently engaged has a specific and
long-standing genealogy. However, he argues that the Marxist concept of racialisation is
more convincing in explaining the source of violence against the Other than the
transmodern positing of 'basic narcissism' as the source. Next, he contrasts the transmodern
perception of liberal democracy with Marxist analyses of democratic socialism. After this, he
challenges transmodernism's conception of Marxism as an imposed and utopian philosophy
locked within modernism. He concludes with a consideration of the political and economic
choices open to us, and, with respect to these choices, the implications of both
transmodernism and Marxism for sustaining resistance to neo-liberal capitalism and US
imperialism within teacher education.
Introduction
Transmodernism, Modernism and Postmodernism
Transmodern ideas are relatively new to academia in the North. Indeed, it is still relatively difficult
to get copies in English of the publications of its leading advocate, Enrique Dussel. For me,
transmodernism's defining features are:
• not so much a way of thinking as a new way of living in relation to Others;
• anti-Eurocentrism;
• anti-(US)imperialism;
• analogic reasoning: reasoning from outside the system of global domination;
• analectic interaction: listening to the voices of 'suffering Others' and interacting democratically
with suffering Others;
• reverence for (indigenous and ancient) traditions of religion, culture, philosophy and morality;
• rejection of totalising synthesis.
A number of these features are addressed by David Geoffrey Smith (Smith, 2003). Given
transmodernism's 'newness' in the North, and the acclaim given to Smith's paper (it won the
Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies award for 'The Most Outstanding Publication in
Curriculum Studies in Canada in 2003'), it is particularly important that transmodernism and
Smith's interpretation of it receive careful scrutiny.
Smith's analysis needs to be understood in relation to transmodernism's critique of both
modernism and postmodernism. With respect to the former, the argument is that modernism is
'inexorably Eurocentric' (Smith, 2003, p. 497). Smith gives three reasons for this. First, modernism
is not located in an understanding of the way in which the North is complicit in the underdevelopment of the South; second, modernism does not acknowledge the utter violence –
indeed genocide – of the Euro-American contribution to the present global order; third, modernists
do not engage in conversation with the South. While these accusations are valid when directed at
many 'modernists', they certainly do not apply to Marxism, particularly current Marxist analyses,
which do engage with such issues. Top priorities for modern-day Marxists include the way in
which the economic situation in the South is a direct result of decisions made in the North,
particularly with respect to impoverishment as a result of debt burdens; the violence and genocide
practised as a result of the economic and political trajectory of neo-liberal capitalism and
imperialism; and the connections to be made and the lessons to be learned with respect to political
and economic developments in countries such as Cuba, and in Central and South America.
Following Dussel, Smith argues here for a new kind of logic, an 'analogic' – a manner of reasoning
from 'outside' the system of global domination (Smith, 2003, p. 497). While I would acknowledge
that we can learn from the indigenous voice (e.g. Cole, 1986, 1988, 2004a, p. 640), for Marxists, this
assertion by Smith is particularly problematic. This is because a central tenet of Marxist analysis is
that exploitation (the extraction of surplus value) occurs within the system of global domination
and must also be resisted within that system. In particular, with respect to the Marxist position on
class struggle, the transition for the working class to a class for itself (acknowledging its exploitation
and willing to challenge the capitalist system), in addition to being a class in itself (an objective fact
because of workers' shared exploitation, explained by the Labour Theory of Value) (Marx, 1976)
[1852] [1] must by definition occur inside the system of global domination.
As far as postmodernism is concerned, Smith argues that it is essentially inward-looking. As he
puts it, its 'celebration of particularity has rendered a collapse of concern for anything beyond what
individual experience can express, whether in the name of autobiography, story, nation, tribe,
personal therapy, or phenomenology' (Smith, 2003, p. 497).
Like Dussel, Smith sees the modernist and postmodernist agendas 'as trapped within a mutually
self-serving antagonism, and hence helpless to address the massive violence against human wellbeing
perpetrated in the name of a parochial truth claim' (Smith, 2003, p. 497). Elsewhere, Smith
(2004, p. 644) refers to the 'myth of sacrifice' (the underside of 'the myth of emancipative reason'),
whereby killing is justified 'as an act of love'. Both capitalism and Marxism, Smith suggests, 'are
underwritten by this common myth because of their European origins. Hence oceans of blood on
both sides in the name of emancipation' (Smith, 2004, pp. 644-645).
He goes on to suggest that this entrapment can be easily observed in the Western academy in
the tension between the universalistic logic of the modernists and the particularity of the
postmodernists (Smith, 2003, p. 497). In Cole (2004a), I argued against the notion that Marxism
represents a 'universal logic' (p. 636) and against the idea that Marxism cannot address the massive
violence perpetuated in the name of that distorted 'truth claim' that is represented by Stalinism
(pp. 636-637).[2]
Having rejected both modernism and postmodernism, Smith makes the case for Dusselian
transmodernism.
Transmodernism, Postmodernism and Marxism
In Cole (2004a), I critically analysed Smith's (2003) interpretation of transmodernism, and assessed
its contribution to the analysis of current US imperialism. I argued that transmodernism, in
common with postmodernism, 'rejects all forms of totalising synthesis' (Dallmayr, 2004, p. 10) and
eschews metanarratives. Marxism is thus ruled out, as is the naming of democratic socialism, as a
viable future. This rejection, I concluded, is based on a reified conception of Marxism, whereas
Marxism should rather be seen as a living philosophy which can adapt to changing circumstances.
The problem with the transmodern rejection of all metanarratives is that the very real
metanarrative of capitalism is aided in the retention of its hegemony. I argued, however (Cole,
2004a, p. 637), that transmodernism is theoretically and practically more progressive than
postmodernism. For example, unlike postmodernsim, transmodernism does not favour
multivocality, but instead privileges some voices over others. As I suggested, following Smith
(2003, p. 499), transmodernism goes beyond postmodern deconstruction, and actively seeks out not
just Others, 'but ... suffering Others'. Marxists have always privileged those suffering under class oppression: the working class. Modern-day Marxists also show awareness of and commitment to
combating the oppression of those oppressed on other grounds. In addition, transmodernism can
provide useful insights into the nature of neo-liberal US imperialism (as in its genesis and
genealogy, as discussed below) (for an extended analysis, see Cole, 2004a, pp. 635-636). As Fred
Dallmayr has put it, referring to transmodernism's founder: 'Dussell is a thinker from the
"periphery" vigorously opposed to Bush's design of world domination. As such he can be a
valuable ally for all right-minded people' (his comments on this article).[3] Marxism is also a
valuable ally. In fact, Lenin (1916) substantially predates transmodernism in his analysis of
imperialism – for him the highest stage of capitalism and 'the eve of socialist revolution'. Before
and since Lenin's major work, a number of other Marxists have analysed imperialism (e.g.
Luxemburg, 1913; Bukharin, 1917; Brewer, 1980; Hardt & Negri, 2000).
Transmodernism and the Legacy of the European Invasions
The major strength of transmodernism, I would argue, lies in its argument that European
philosophers still are not facing the historical responsibilities of their legacies (Smith, 2004, p. 644).
For Dussell the birth date of 'modernity' was 1492, the European 'discovery' and ensuing conquest
of the Americas (Smith, 2003, p. 494), which marked a shift of the centre of global power from
Islamic Central Asia to Europe with the rest of the world henceforward marked as periphery
(Smith, 2003, p. 494).
As I argued in Cole (2004a, p. 268), while Dussel acknowledges the foreshadowing by some
tendencies of the later Middle Ages, he writes, modernity
came to birth in Europe's confrontation with the Other. By controlling, conquering and
violating the Other, Europe defined itself as discoverer, conquistador, and colonizer of an
alterity likewise constitutive of modernity. Europe never discovered ... this Other as Other
but covered over ... the Other as part of the Same: i.e. Europe. Modernity dawned in 1492
and with it the myth of a special kind of sacrificial violence which eventually eclipsed
whatever was non-European. (Dussel, 1995, p. 12)
Basic narcissism, according to Dussel, is the source of Western violence, 'because under the
assumption of its inherent superiority, the myth of emancipative reason is actually incapable of
registering the experience of those falling outside of its own operating paradigm, and most
especially those suffering under it' (1995, p. 495). Accordingly, the myth of sacrifice means that any
refusal of the myth of emancipative reason, or even ignorance of it, is a cause for subjugation, or, in
its starkest terms, a just cause for genocide (1995, p. 495).
Transmodernism makes an important contribution to an understanding of this legacy of the
European invasion of the Americas, because it reveals how the imperialism in which contemporary
US foreign policy is currently engaged has a specific and long-standing genealogy. However, I have
problems with vague notions of 'narcissism' ('excessive ... interest in oneself and one's physical
appearance' [Pearsall, 2001, pp. 947-948), in explaining the source of Western violence directed
against the Other. Not only might narcissism be applicable to a number of other varied 'cultures',
its psycho-social nature renders it, for me, less convincing than the materialist concept of
racialisation.
Racialisation
Robert Miles (1987) has defined racialisation as a process that accompanies the appropriation of
labour power, where people are categorised (falsely) into distinct 'races'. As Miles puts it, the
processes are not explained by the fact of capitalist development (a functionalist position). However,
'the process of racialisation cannot be adequately understood without a conception of, and
explanation for the complex interplay of different modes of production and, in particular, of the
social relations necessarily established in the course of material production' (1987, p. 7). It is this
interconnection which makes the concept of racialisation inherently Marxist.
For Marxists, any discourse is a product of the society in which it is formulated. In other words,
'our thoughts are the reflection of political, social and economic conflicts and racist discourses are no exception' (Camara, 2002, p. 88). Dominant discourses (e.g. those of the government, of big
business, of large sections of the media, of the hierarchy of some trade unions) tend to directly
reflect the interests of the ruling class, rather than 'the general public'. The way in which
racialisation connects with popular consciousness, however, is via 'common sense'. 'Common
sense' is generally used to denote a down-to-earth 'good sense' and is thought to represent the
distilled truths of centuries of practical experience, so that to say that an idea or practice is 'only
common sense' is to claim precedence over the arguments of left intellectuals and, in effect, to
foreclose discussion (Lawrence, 1982, p. 48). In fact, common sense:
is not a single unique conception, identical in time and space. It is the 'folklore' of
philosophy, and, like folklore, it takes countless different forms. Its most fundamental
characteristic is that it is ... fragmentary, incoherent and inconsequential. (Gramsci, 1978,
p. 419)
The rhetoric of the purveyors of dominant discourses aims to shape 'common sense discourse' into
formats which serve their interests. I have argued recently (Cole, forthcoming, 2006a) how 'the
eclipse of the non-European' following the European invasion of 1492, consolidated by subsequent
invasions and conquests, unleashed racialised capitalism, often gendered, on a grand scale. The
expansion of capital entailed, on the one hand, the attempted enslavement, the massacre, and the
seizing of the land of indigenous peoples, both local and adjacent; and, on the other, the beginnings
of the transatlantic slave trade. Its legacy today includes a very high and disproportionate suicide
rate for Native Americans in general, and continuing attacks on the reproductive rights of Native
American women; the 'prison industrial complex' – a legacy of slavery – where people of color are
disproportionately represented; human rights abuse at US borders; and continuing segregation in
US cities. Its legacy is also, of course, the horrors of US imperialism, which involves similar
genocide and other human rights abuse. Once groups have become racialised via 'common sense',
for example, as 'savages' in the case of indigenous peoples, or sub-human and genetically inferior,
as in the case of African slaves, genocide becomes less problematic (Cole, forthcoming, 2006a; see
also McLaren, 1997), as do torture and other human rights abuses, to which Guantanamo Bay and
Abu Graib bear witness (Cole, 2004d, p. 533; Cole, 2005a, p. 58; McLaren, 2005).
Rethought Liberal Democracy or Democratic Socialism?
Bourgeois democracy is in crisis, given what is happening in the USA with respect to the
manipulation of numbers, the death of truth and media distortion. Smith (2003, p. 488) has dealt
with these issues at length. As I pointed out in Cole (2004a, p. 640), Smith argues that special
circumstances, such as 'the condition of contemporary North American culture', require the
creation of new language and new terminology. He coins the phrase, 'enfraudening the public
sphere' to describe 'not just simple or single acts of deception, cheating or misrepresentation'
(which may be described as 'defrauding'), but rather 'a more generalized active conditioning of the
public sphere through systemized lying, deception and misrepresentation' (Smith, 2003,
pp. 488-489).
Citing Weatherford (1990), Smith's solution to this enfraudening process is a rethinking of
liberal democracy (Smith, 2003, p. 499) and a 'return to the theory of democracy Thomas Paine
learned, not from the Greeks or the French, but from the Iroquois on the banks of the Delaware
river' (2003, p. 500). This theory of democracy, Smith continues, relates to 'consensus making
[which] ... arises from "sitting together" until that truth is found which can be held in common'
(2003, p. 500). I would argue that this is a utopian vision in the context of current anti-democratic
US imperialism and global neo-liberal capitalism, a context critically explored by Smith in his paper.
Democratic socialism, based on Marxist principles is, I will suggest, the only viable benevolent
future for humankind.[4]
Thomas Paine's rejection of heredity and of a 'House of Commons' which is honest and
truthful and serves the best interests of ordinary men and women was, in its time, certainly
revolutionary. However, I would argue that the time has passed for the existence of a transparent,
open, genuine and truthful form of bourgeois democracy. Paine's wish that parliaments should
truly represent the interests of the people seems strangely anachronistic.
Rather than 'a search for truth', elections are often characterised by distortions and slurs,
pandering to people's baser feelings. This is apparent in Britain in the right-wing popular press,
which has a major influence on the outcome of British elections (e.g. MacArthur, 2005). During the
run-up to the 2005 general election, for example, opposition leader Michael Howard 'played the
"race" card' by announcing further immigration restriction for asylum seekers and refugees. Eager
to legitimise the racialisation of these groups, the right-wing press featured a large number of
references to 'common sense'. For example, political editor of Britain's most popular tabloid,
Trevor Kavanagh, wrote an article with huge headlines declaring: 'This isn't racism. It's
COMMON SENSE' (The Sun, 25 January 2005, pp. 8-9), while, in the same edition, in order to
foreclose any consideration of a liberal, let alone left perspective, columnist Richard Littlejohn used
the phrases 'the Fascist left' and 'the Labour/Liberal/BBC/Guardianistas axis' and informed
readers that 'the Left always, always tell lies' (The Sun, 25 January 2005, p. 11) (for an extended
analysis, see Cole & Virdee, forthcoming, 2006; see also Cole, 2004e).
Littlejohn was not warning his readers about New Labour, who quickly followed up Howard's
intervention by announcing similar racist policy decisions. During the same pre-election period,
New Labour was rebuked for publishing two anti-Semitic cartoons on its website: the first
portrayed both the leader of the Opposition, Michael Howard, and the Shadow Home Secretary,
Oliver Letwin (both Jewish) as 'flying pigs'; the other, Howard as Fagin (Rees-Mogg, 2005).
There was little in this election campaign that Thomas Paine would recognise as liberal
democracy, as anything remotely connected with 'sitting together until that truth is found which
can be held in common'. More recently, Smith (2004, p. 644) has appealed to a vision of 'vitalized
senses of social democracy as necessary for the future'. Social democracy is epitomised by the
British Labour Party in government 1945-51, 1964-70 and 1974-76 [5] (Benn & Chitty, 1996; Hillcole
Group, 1997; Hill, 2001a). Following Heffernan (1997), Hill (2001a, p. 14) identifies one of the
essential features of social democracy as 'a mixed pseudo-Keynesian economy (an economic mix of
public sector and private sector control and provision, together with government reflation during
recessions)'.
While Marxists, of course, acknowledge and abhor the recent state of US excesses, and current
British political and media manipulations centred on racialisation, their argument is that bourgeois
democracy is always a numbers game, always distorts the truth, and always involves manipulation
by politicians and by the media. Democratic socialism is a totally different concept to Smith's
concept of liberal democracy and his more recent advocacy of social democracy. Unlike consensusbased
liberal democracy and social democracy, democratic socialism is not a political bedfellow of
the capitalist economy.
Democratic socialism is, by definition, a post-capitalist form of politics. It arises out of the
transcendence of class struggle, and thus is a product of conflict rather than consensus. Democratic
socialism is a much more profoundly democratic phenomenon than anything possible under
capitalism. It amounts to nothing less than a new realm of human freedom. As Tom Hickey
(forthcoming, 2006) puts it with great eloquence and passion:
Class struggle is treated in Marx's model as endemic to the capitalist system. It is ineradicable
and perpetual, though it does not always, or even typically, take the form of open conflict or
expressed hostility. It arises ineluctably from the tension generated by the zero-sum game
between wage income and profits to capital. The objective interests of the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat are incompatible, and therefore generate not a tendency to permanent
hostility and open warfare but a permanent tendency toward them. The system is thus
prone to economic class conflict, and, given the cyclical instability of its economy, subject to
periodic political and economic crises. It is at these moments that the possibility exists for
social revolution. Crises provide the opportunity for transition from the oppressive and
exploitative, competitive and alienating conditions of the order of capital to a realm of
human freedom in which humanity as a whole, through a radically democratic structure,
engages collectively in satisfying its needs, ordering its priorities, and constructing new needs
and aspirations to strive for, and challenges to overcome.
Thus, I would question Smith's recourse to rethought liberal democracy, or to 'vitalized senses of
social democracy'. For similar reasons, I would also reject the arguments of those on the left, who
believe in the parliamentary road to democratic socialism, since, in capitalist society, the interest of
capitalists and workers are diametrically opposed.
Marxism and Social Change
I have three points to make with respect to Marxism and social change: the first relates specifically
to Smith's notion that Marxism involves imposition; the second concerns Smith's use of the term
'(vulgar) Marxism'; and the third is related to Smith's conception of Marxism as a 'utopian
typification'. I will deal with each in turn.
Imposition or Majoritarian Revolution?
Smith's conception that Marxism involves imposition is implied by his use of the phrase, a
'hammer in the hands of the self-righteous' (Smith, 2003, p. 500) and by his assertion that Marxism
is 'foist upon us' (Smith, 2004, p. 645). This accords with the 'common sense' notion that Marxism
has to be imposed because 'people don't want it'. Smith's use of the term 'self-righteous' also
implies a morally superior minority (Smith, 2003, p. 500).
Marxism is not about minority imposition. The establishment of socialism should be a
majoritarian project. As exemplified by the citation from Hickey above, Marx argued that
capitalism is subject to periodic political and economic crises. It is at these moments that the
possibility exists for social revolution. Such a revolution can only occur, however, when the
working class, in addition to being a 'class-in-itself' becomes 'a class-for-itself'. So Marxism is about
the action of the majority, not imposition from a minority, as is implied by Smith. As Marx & Engels
state (1976 [1846], p. 56) in The German Ideology: 'The proletariat can ... only exist world-historically ...
its activity can only have a "world-historical" existence' (original emphases).
As Glenn Rikowski points out, this shows that, for Marx and Engels, the struggle for socialism
must be majoritarian not just in a national sense, but in a global sense, as recognised by the
Trotskyite emphasis on permanent, global revolution, as opposed to the (Stalinist) concept of
'socialism in one country'. Socialism is a struggle of the overwhelming majority of people
throughout the globe against the forces of and personal representatives of capital. For Marx and
Engels, the termination of capitalist social relations has to be global (Rikowski's comments on this
article).
(Vulgar) Marxism
My second point relates to Smith's use of the term '(vulgar) Marxism'. In his 2004 article, he uses
this term on two occasions. First, when he equates Marxism with 'oceans of blood' (see above),
Smith actually uses the term '(vulgar) Marxism' (Smith 2004, pp. 644-645).[6]. Second, he concludes
this article by stating that we need to 'refuse what both capitalism and (vulgar) Marxism foist upon
us' (2004, p. 645). In using the term '(vulgar) Marxism' in these contexts, Smith does not seem to be
aware of the conventional meaning of the term 'vulgar Marxism'. Vulgar Marxism traditionally
refers to economic determinism, where the economic base determines what happens at the other
(superstructural) levels of society: the political system, educational system and so on. As Robert
M. Young (1998) puts it:
The defining feature of Marxist approaches to the history of science is that the history of
scientific ideas, of research priorities, of concepts of nature and of the parameters of
discoveries are all rooted in historical forces which are, in the last instance, socio-economic.
There are variations in how literally this is taken and various Marxist-inspired and Marxistrelated
positions define the interrelations among science and other historical forces more or
less loosely. There is a continuum of positions. The most orthodox provides one-to-one
correlations between the socio-economic base and the intellectual superstructure. This is
referred to as economism or vulgar Marxism.
Smith's use of '(vulgar) Marxism' does not seem to be connected to notions of the base/
superstructure relationship (a widely debated topic in Marxist theory), and, like his use of Marxism per se, seems more to do with Stalinism and 'minority imposition' than conventional
understandings of vulgar Marxism. Indeed, Smith's analysis does not show cognisance of
developments in Marxism post Stalinism/post Third International.
Utopianism and Blueprints for the Future
My third point relates to Smith's conception of Marxism as a 'utopian typification' (Smith, 2004,
p. 645). It is a common misunderstanding that Marxists believe in 'an ideal world'; in a utopia, in a
blueprint for the future. How often has one heard in response to the argument of Marxists, the
'common sense' reply: 'it sounds all right in theory, but it won't work in practice'? Utopianism is, in
fact, however, the province of utopian socialists, rather than Marxists. Utopian socialism
conventionally refers to the eighteenth/nineteenth century writings of Henri de Saint-Simon,
Charles Fourier and Robert Owen (Marx & Engels, 1977 [1847]). Marxists distinguish utopian
socialism from Marxism, in that utopian socialists believed in change for all, in the context of an
untransformed economy. Marxists, on the other hand, advocate revolutionary change. As I have
put it elsewhere:
One thing these utopian socialists all had in common was that, unlike Marxists, who are
interested in the emancipation of one class (the working class) the utopian socialists were
concerned with liberating all humanity without the revolutionary changes, envisaged by
Marxists. As Marx and Engels (1977 [1847], p. 60) point out, Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen
all recognised the class antagonisms in existing societies, but viewed the working class as 'a
class without any historical initiative'. (Cole, forthcoming, 2007)
With respect to a Marxist vision of the future, '[w]e are ... locked', as Gibson & Rikowski (2004)
point out, 'into capitalist society, and our capacity to visualise anything beyond it, such as socialist
society ... is impossible'. Furthermore, as illustrated in the citation by Hickey above, the trajectory
of socialism cannot be decided a priori , since it entails a project whereby humanity as a whole,
through a radically democratic structure, engages collectively in satisfying its needs, ordering its
priorities, and constructing new needs and aspirations to strive for, and challenges to overcome.
Rikowski (2004, pp. 559-560) gives four other (interrelated) reasons why Marxists do not have
blueprints for the future. First, Marx held that the struggle for socialism must be based on the selfactivity
of the working class: the workers themselves must make history. Thus, he was reluctant to
provide a blueprint for socialist society, since this would contradict and negate workers' practical
solutions to the movement from capitalist to socialist society. Second, the practice of lone thinkers
projecting the 'society of the future' runs against the collective, democratic and experimental and
experiential nature of the socialist project. Third, those setting themselves up as 'experts' for
generating blueprints for socialism – whether they are leaders of left political parties, academic
Marxists or Marxists writing outside of academia – would amount to establishing themselves as an
elite of people 'in the know' with respect to what socialism was and could be. Rikowski cites
Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, where Marx signals the dangers of this:
The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets
that circumstances are changed by men [sic] and that the educator must himself be educated.
This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one which is superior to society.
(Marx, 1845, p. 616, cited in Rikowski, 2004, p. 560)
For Marx, such elitism had no place in the socialist movement.
Fourth, Rikowski continues, Marx was keen to emphasise the creativity and spontaneity of the
drive towards socialism, and to chart and assess the practical experiments of workers in this
endeavour. He cites, by way of example, the Paris Commune of 1871, the course of which was
enthusiastically followed by Marx who wrote about the way workers' power was manifested in
novel and exciting ways. Any notion of a definitive model for socialism, Rikowski goes on, would
inhibit the creative, energising and exciting moments of the struggle for an alternative society.
Thus, Rikowski (2004, p. 560) concludes, Marxism is not about specifying typifications for future
societies. Moreover, there is no final destination. 'The social drive to form a truly human society is
infinite, just as capital's social drives (to create value, to enhance human labour-power) are also
infinite' (Rikowski, 2004, p. 560).

In describing Marxism as imposition, in linking it with Stalinism, and in equating it with utopia,
Smith seriously misrepresents the Marxist project.
Political and Economic Choices
So what choices do we have? One choice is, with Smith, to rethink bourgeois democracy: we can
attempt to make capitalism more humane, a project epitomised by the aforementioned social
democratic project of the British Labour Party in government from 1945 until the 1970s, and by
regulation theory. This, however, is a most unlikely option. Capital is spiralling out of control, and
unconcerned with traditional conceptions of democracy. As Rikowski (2001, pp. 4-5) has argued:
Capital moves, but not of its own accord: the mental and physical capabilities of workers
(labour-power) enable these movements through their expression in labour. Our labour
enables the movements of capital and its transformations (e.g. surplus value into various
forms of capital). The social universe of capital then is a universe of constant movement; it
incorporates and generates a restlessness unparalleled in human history. ... It is set on a
trajectory, the 'trajectory of production' ... powered not simply by value but by the 'constant
expansion of surplus value'. [It is a movement] 'independent of human control'. ... It is a
movement out of control.
Given its rapacious and predatory nature and, in particular, given the advances made since the
1980s neo-liberal revolution, it is most unlikely that capitalism will retreat to its pre-1980s position.
My argument is not that capitalism cannot in theory be made more democratic or humane. The
point is that, in the words of Kevin Watkins of Oxfam, '[i]ndustrialised countries ... have
collectively reneged on every commitment made' (Guardian, 12 November 2001, p. 22). In fact,
organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) [7], the World Bank, and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) are constitutionally destined to fail in any attempt at addressing
the marginalisation of 'the developing world'. The WTO can only set maximum standards for
global trade, rather than the minimum standards that might restrain big corporations, while the
World Bank and the IMF, entirely controlled by the creditor nations, exist to police the poor
world's debt on their behalf. Rather than recognise these inherent defects, their backers blame the
poor countries themselves. Peter Sutherland, former head of the WTO, has asserted that it is
'indisputable that the real problem with the economies that have failed [is] their own domestic
governments', while Maria Cattui, who runs the International Chamber of Commerce, insisted
that the 'fault lies most of all at home with the countries concerned' (Monbiot, 2001, p. 17).
Any possible gain for poor and dispossessed workers in the developing countries and elsewhere
as a result of increasing global political awareness, including the current Commission for Africa
initiative (March, 2005) (www.commissionforafrica.org) by British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
Chancellor Gordon Brown, and Secretary of State for International Development, Hilary Benn, is
likely to be minimalist and short-lived.
Neo-liberal capitalism is deepening its hold on all aspects of everyday life, including taking an
increasing national and global role in the ownership and management of education, health and
social services (e.g. Cole, forthcoming, 2006b; Hatcher, forthcoming, 2005; Hill, 2004a, b, 2005,
forthcoming, 2006; Hill et al, 2005). This massive onslaught has led Ellen Meiksins Wood (1995) to
conclude that the lesson that we may be obliged to draw from our current economic and political
condition is that a humane, 'social', truly democratic and equitable capitalism is more
unrealistically utopian than socialism.
So, if I am right that a return to a more democratic and humane capitalism is not likely to
happen, the only choices available are to continue down the path of neo-liberal capitalism and
imperialism, or worse, fascism; or to challenge capitalism itself. The suggestion by Smith (2004,
p. 645) that we can harness Taoism and Buddhism to refuse capitalism and US imperialism (Smith,
2003, p. 500) seems hopelessly utopian, particularly in a country like the USA, where evangelical
theo-conservatism is hegemonic.[8]
Marxism, I would argue, presents the only viable humane alternative to capitalism. Bringing
Marxism back to the forefront, however, is not an easy task. Marxists must break through the
'bizarre ideological mechanism, [in which] every conceivable alternative to the market has been
discredited by the collapse of Stalinism' (Callinicos, 2000, p. 122), whereby the fetishisation of life makes capitalism seem natural and therefore unalterable and where the market mechanism 'has
been hypostatized into a natural force unresponsive to human wishes' (p. 125).[9] Capital presents
itself 'determining the future as surely as the laws of nature make tides rise to lift boats (McMurtry,
2000, p. 2), 'as if it has now replaced the natural environment. It announces itself through its
business leaders and politicians as coterminous with freedom, and indispensable to democracy such
that any attack on capitalism as exploitative or hypocritical becomes an attack on world freedom
and democracy itself' (McLaren, 2000, p. 32).[10]
However, the biggest impediment to social revolution is not capital's resistance, but its success
in heralding the continuation of capitalism as being the only option. As Callinicos (2000, p. 128)
puts it, despite the inevitable intense resistance from capital, the 'greatest obstacle to change is not
... the revolt it would evoke from the privileged, but the belief that it is impossible'.
Challenging this climate requires courage, imagination and willpower inspired by the
injustice that surrounds us. Beneath the surface of our supposedly contented societies, these
qualities are present in abundance. Once mobilized, they can turn the world upside down
(Callinicos, 2000, p. 129)
Teacher Education
Constraints
All attempts to mobilise resistance to neo-liberal global capitalism and imperialism can invoke
intense surveillance and persecution from the capitalist state. With respect to higher education, this
is particularly the case in the USA at the moment (Hill, 2004a, b, c; Hill et al, 2005; McLaren, 2005;
Walsh, 2005). As far as teacher education is concerned, since teacher educators can have a major
influence on future teachers, and thereby the next generation, teacher education potentially
presents a rich arena for the furtherance of progressive ideas. For this reason, along with schools
themselves, teacher education tends to be singled out for special treatment from the state.
Between 1987 and 1993, during the Thatcher and post-Thatcher Conservative governments in
Britain, for example, I, personally, was under general attack from the right-wing educational
establishment of the time (Cole, 1990). This included allegations of 'Marxist bias' in my teaching in
the School of Education at Brighton Polytechnic – now the University of Brighton. The extent to
which my work was perceived as a threat is evidenced by the fact that negative references to it are
cited in The Spectator (15 October 1988), by the then influential radical right Hillgate Group (1989,
pp. 29-35) and in the first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs (Thatcher, 1993, pp. 597-598). It
also involved a libel writ from a high-ranking Conservative peer (Cole, 2004f).
For Thatcher (who believed that there was 'no such thing as society, only individuals and their
families') and Thatcherites, attacks on less powerful individuals, such as isolated academics, was par
for the course, and part of the ongoing assault on anything viewed as being not conducive to the neo-
Conservative agenda – in this case, a (perceived) radical left threat to schooling from within teacher
education.
Like Thatcher, Blair targets societal structures which impede 'modernisation' (read 'neo-liberal
capitalism') (Cole, 2005b) but he does not tend to personally attack individuals in academia. This is
no longer necessary, since teacher education and schooling has been conformed to the neo-liberal
agenda. Thatcherism achieved its main objectives in detheorising teacher education (Hill, 2001b,
2004c, forthcoming, 2006). At Brighton Polytechnic/University of Brighton, for example, core
course units validated under the 1984 Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE)
Criteria, which had focused ..ual and egalitarian issues in education (set out in Hill, 1989)
were replaced in the late 1980s. Their content and concepts became, under the 1989 and then the
1992/93 CATE Criteria, less visible in the successor BA Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) courses.
Surveillance of teacher education under New Labour thus takes a different form; namely, Office for
Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections and the enforcement, set out in its various
publications, of the Teacher Training Agency's 'national curriculum' for teacher education (Hill,
2001b, 2004a, c, forthcoming, 2006). This 'national curriculum' exists partly as a result of increased
surveillance in schools in the form of school Ofsted inspections, league tables, the literacy and
numeracy strategies, and so on.

Possibilities
What, then, should critical teacher educators, including Marxists, strive for in the future? How can
we sustain resistance to neo-liberal capitalism and imperialism? Fischman & McLaren (2005,
pp. 351-353) have suggested four ways forward. First, student teachers need to engage in an
analysis of the mechanics of capitalist production and exchange. Marxism would be an obvious
starting point. In this context, they should be introduced to theories of power, and should be
encouraged to investigate aspects of control, the process of commodification, the creation of
violence in nation states, and destructive patterns in the earth's ecosystems. To this I would add,
student teachers also need to be critically aware of systems of imperialism, past and present.
Transmodernism and Marxism, as argued above, can be important in facilitating this.
Second, student teachers need to be able to relate shifting patterns of globalization and their
effect on local communities. Again, Marxism would be a logical starting point. Student teachers
should not only be involved in struggles for a better education for all pupils, they should also
connect their professional needs with local community struggles for better jobs, working
conditions, health services, day care facilities, housing and so on.
Third, there is a need to connect with local oppressed communities. What is required is
reciprocal knowledge. This should involve moving beyond white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class and
heterosexist educational norms, and in Fischman & McLaren's (2005, p. 352) words, we should
'explore the subjugated knowledges of women [and] minority groups'. Here, transmodernism's
prioritising of 'suffering Others' is germane, though, as argued earlier, oppression based on
identities other than class is now acknowledged in recent and current Marxist analysis and practice.
Transmodernism's 'new way of living in relation to Others' is also useful. The argument is that it is
not just a case of thinking differently about 'suffering Others', but also about interacting with
reciprocity and mutuality. Finally, the Marxist concept of racialisation is most pertinent in
connecting with oppressed communities, since it helps understand how and why certain groups are
oppressed. A move beyond traditional educational norms would, by necessity, involve teachers and
teacher educators in a number of struggles. Local struggles would, of course, relate to national and
international struggles. It would be important to make interconnections between them.
Fourth, teacher education programmes need to emphasise a media literacy curriculum, in order
to acquire the multiple literacies required to engage critically with hegemonic discourses.
Understanding such discourses can be facilitated by the transmodern concept of enfraudening
(Smith, 2003), outlined above. Student teachers need to be able to find ways of breaking through
these processes. Smith's current teaching concentrates on the specifically religious and spiritual
roots of capitalist theory, on the basis that he does not think much progress will be made in
critiques of capitalism until it is 'desacralized' (personal correspondence). This connects to the
transmodern reverence for pre-capitalist religion, culture, philosophy and morality. As Smith
argues, this is much like the necessity for the World Council of Churches to declare apartheid a
heresy in order to desacralise and hence delegitimise it. Certainly, in the North American context,
he goes on, God and Mammon have conflated, and this has a whole genealogy that can be traced.
Given the entrenchment of theo-conservatism, noted above, this is a major, but most worthwhile
counter-hegemonic task. However, unlike Marxism, it does not, in itself, provide any solutions.
I would like to add a fifth suggestion for ways forward for teacher education programmes. I
would like to suggest that, at the heart of teacher education, space is created for a consideration,
both historic and contemporaneous, of the varying understandings of society, provided by
postmodernism/post-structuralism, transmodernism and Marxism.[11] This would not only
stimulate debate about the nature of our world, it might encourage student teachers to transcend
'common sense' and to move towards a critical understanding of all that envelops them. It might
also engender a belief that a different world is possible, that 'history is always in the making'
(Fischman & McLaren, 2005, p. 356). We are talking about empowerment. As Antonia Darder
(2002, p. 110) has put it, with respect to school pupils/students, but equally prescient to student
teachers:
empowerment ... entails participation in pedagogical relationships in which ... [student
teachers] experience the freedom to break through the imposed myths and illusions that
stifle [them] and the space to take individual and collective actions that can ... transform their
lives.

And, of course, the lives of others.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank John Clay, Fred Dallmayr, Dave Hill, Brian Matthews, Peter McLaren and
Glenn Rikowski for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article, and Dave Hill and
Glenn Rikowski for further comments on a later version. As always, any inadequacies remain mine.
Notes
[1] For a discussion of the Labour Theory of Value, see Cole, 2003, pp. 494-495.
[2] In the same paper (Cole, 2004a, p. 630) I argued that postmodernism has a high profile in educational
theory, and in many ways, along with post-structuralism, it may be viewed as the dominant
paradigm in this field in the United Kingdom (e.g. Atkinson, 2002, 2004) and in the USA (e.g. Lather,
1991, 2001). Postmodernism and post-structuralism, however, I pointed out, have been subject to
sustained critique in recent years from Marxist educators (e.g. Green, 1994; Cole & Hill, 2002; Cole et
al, 1997, 2001; Hill et al, 2002; McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2002a, b; Cole, 2003, 2004b, 2004c). I went
on to argue (Cole, 2004a, p. 637) that the Marxist critique of postmodernism and post-structuralism
relates to their joint rejection of any notion of (the possibility of) order and coherence in society and
of an ordered socialist world; the refusal of the metanarrative, that is to say of an overarching theory
about society, such as Marxism; their rejection of duality, thus failing to acknowledge the existence of
class struggle; their plural view of truth, such that all accounts have equal worth, rather than
privileging some accounts over others (related to this is the concept of multivocality [multiple voices]
where everyone's opinion has equal worth); their stress on deconstruction alone, rather than
deconstruction and reconstruction; and their concentration of the local at the expense of the national
and the global, thus rendering major structural change non-viable. For a discussion of the differences
between postmodernism and post-structuralism, see Cole, 2003, pp. 496-497.
[3] My aim in this article is not confrontation. As in Cole (2004a, p. 633), it is rather the continuation of
comradely discussion. The joint aim of transmodernism and Marxism is to disrupt the trajectory of
(neo-liberal) capitalism and imperialism. Some have gone so far as to compare this trajectory with
Nazi fascism (see, for example, McLaren, 2005). On Holocaust Memorial Day I was sent the
following attachment by a colleague:
The danger is real, the pace quickens. What lessons should we learn from Auschwitz? Learn that
there is a certain road. It starts with an atrocity which (it is alleged by those in power, the real
perpetrators) was engineered by a mysterious enemy (burning of the Reichstag 1933, 9/11 2001).
This is used to fill the populace with a feeling of terror, of being under attack, and it is used to reduce
the freedoms of those who might disagree with those in power. A certain 'alien' group is portrayed as
untrustworthy (Jews 1930s, Moslems 2000s); everyone is forced to have identity cards, and detention
without trial on the diktat of politicians is allowed. Other nations are portrayed as threats and must
be invaded (1930s Austria, Czecho-slovakia, Poland; 2000s Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran?)This is the
beginning of the road; Auschwitz and Belsen lie at the end. Once a nation starts down that road,
which is a downward path of steadily increasing gradient, it becomes increasingly difficult to change
direction. WE HAVEN'T LEARNT, HAVE WE?
I have always been wary of equating US neo-liberal imperialism with fascism. This is because I
believe that the distinguishing features of the latter, epitomised by the Nazi era, must not lose their
unique and terrible significance. I was, nevertheless, struck in this email by the parallels between
Nazi anti-Semitism and present-day Islamophobia.
[4] Unlike Marxism, which is based on notions of 'conflict' and class struggle, Smith's analysis is based on
'consensus', and, as such, is essentially theoretically liberal pluralist.
[5] It should be noted that Labour was actually in power until 1979, but, as Hill (2001a, p. 14) points out,
'after Callaghan's Ruskin College speech, it changed its education policies'. In fact, in signalling the
need to align schooling closely to the needs of industry, Callaghan's intervention went beyond the
sphere of education and sowed the seeds of 'New Labour', with its essentially neo-liberal agenda.

[6] Smith's use of brackets here indicates that he thinks the points he makes could also apply to Marxism
per se.
[7] The WTO is one of the most untransparent and undemocratic global institutions (Sardar & Davies,
2002, p. 72, cited in Beckmann & Cooper, 2004, p. 2), largely due to the tendency for decisions to be
made in mini-ministerial gatherings of a select group of rich OECD (Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development) member countries, which are dominated by the USA and the
European Union (Rady, 2002, cited in Beckmann & Cooper, 2004, p. 2; see also Cole, forthcoming,
2006b).
[8] It is nonetheless crucial for Marxists to engage in productive dialogue with transmodernists. Those
who accept transmodern arguments are also likely to be amenable to Marxist ones.
[9] Here, we have an ironic twist: the capitalist class and their representatives, who used to deride
Marxists for what they (wrongly) perceived was a belief in the inevitability of social revolution, are
the ones who now champion the inevitability of global neo-liberalism and the accompanying 'worldwide
market revolution' (McMurtry, 2000).
[10] At the same time, globalisation, in reality in existence since the beginnings of capitalism, is hailed as a
new and unchallengeable phenomenon, and its omnipresence used ideologically to further fuel
arguments about capitalism's inevitability (Cole, 1998, 2003, 2004c, 2005b).
[11] Currently, counter-hegemonic work in UK departments of education usually takes place in non-QTS
degrees (although many students on these degrees do eventually undertake QTS qualifications).
What follows, here, by way of example, is the content of three modules currently taught to non-QTS
students at the University of Brighton. Readers will notice a degree of congruence between this
content and the five suggested ways forward.
Module 1:
– An introduction to Marxism and postmodernism and their relationship to education
– The concepts of social class, 'race' and racism, gender, sexuality, disability and special needs and
their relationship to education
– A consideration of some current debates on educational policy
Module 2:
– Introduction to theories of capitalism and globalisation: is globalisation a new phenomenon, or as
old as capitalism itself?
– Introduction to global trends in education, including the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS) and the issue of privatisation and commodification
Module 3:
– The development of Marxist theory
– The development of postmodernist theory
– Marxist and postmodernist theory in a sociological context
– Marxism and postmodernism in educational theory
– Marxism and postmodernism in educational practice
– The relationship between postmodernism, Marxism and the future of education
Full module outlines for all three modules are available on request (mike.cole2@ntlworld.com).
Other examples of critical undergraduate and Master's degree modules are those run at
University College Northampton by Dave Hill and Glenn Rikowski. These are online at the Institute
for Education Policy Studies website at: www.ieps.org.uk. The undergraduate modules are listed
under 'Modules in Critical Education', and the Master's degree modules are under 'MA/Med and
PhDs with Dave Hill and Glenn Rikowski'.
A counter-hegemonic Marxist teacher education course, a four-year B.Ed. full-time course,
developed and led by Dave Hill 1990-95 until it was terminated, is described and analysed in detail in
Hill, forthcoming, 2006 and referred to in Hill, 2001b, 2004c.
Some counter-hegemonic space in teacher education in the UK may be facilitated by up-andcoming
equalities legislation which requires all public institutions to be proactive in promoting
equality and equal opportunities (for an analysis, see Cole, 2005c, forthcoming 2006c). While the UK
government's primary intention may well be a more inclusive and flexible workforce rather than the
promotion of equality, Marxists support all such progressive reforms in capitalist societies, whatever the intentions of their innovators. This, however, is with a view to a longer term project of
transformation to democratic socialism. For similar reasons, Marxists support the left-leaning
governments of South America.
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Cons in the panopticon: Anti–globalization and cyber–piracy by Indhu Rajagopal with Nis Bojin
This paper examines the paradox of the digital telecommunications revolution that augured the transcendence of big business and big government (Toffler, 1980), but also extended to the World Wide Web the processes of privatization and commodification. Instead of facilitating individuals to design, through interactive technology, their own media and directly express their will (Pool, 1983), the Internet has come to embody a panopticon [1] that extends the reach of corporatists [2]. We discuss the panopticon in the context of the globalizing cyber–technology, and argue that piracy is an anti–globalization movement.

Contents

Introduction
Review of literature and conceptual themes
Panopticon
Dialectics of cyber–piracy
Conclusion

 

---

 

Introduction

If we apply William Mitchell's [3] notion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to globalization, we can see how, in relation to cyber–technology, the panopticon operates on the Internet. We examine in this paper Mitchell's arguments relating to piracy as an anti–globalization movement. A variant of panopticon, proposed by Jeremy Bentham [4], had a single master in the middle, surrounded by a circle of six monitors to keep order, then circular tiers with seats for nine hundred boys [5] (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon.

Mitchell (1997) notes that "the digital telecommunications revolution, the ongoing miniaturization of electronics, the commodification of bits, and the growing domination of software over materialized form," have locked us into the corporate capitalists' technologists, "imagining and creating digitally mediated environments for the kinds of lives that we will want to lead and the sorts of communities that we will want to have." Pursuing Mitchell's questions on the global arena, we may ask: Why should we care about who originates and who spreads the global digital technology? Its significance is too obvious. In the digital era, the panopticon globally monitors, and profoundly affects, the economic, social and political relationships between individuals and corporate capitalists. In resistance to the globalization of corporate control over the cyber–world, piracy and the gift economy have evolved as anti–global resistance movements [6]. We discuss in this paper how piracy — that has been labeled by corporate capital as illegal — can be deemed as an anti–globalization movement led by those who break the proprietary cyber–technology codes.

ICT has accelerated the globalization of prurient forces such as the production and dissemination of pornography, market scams, spam, and vicious virtual viruses. Dialectically, it has also fostered ethical and moral causes across the globe ...

This paper does not address the ethical, moral, or legal dimensions of cyber–piracy although they have serious implications for global socioeconomic values. Our focus is on globalization that the cyber–revolution has accelerated manifold, and on the challenges to it that have emerged in various forms, on both side of the digital ethical, moral, and legal divide. Indeed, ICT has accelerated the globalization of prurient forces such as the production and dissemination of pornography, market scams, spam, and vicious virtual viruses, formulae for bomb making and nuclear proliferation. Dialectically [7], it has also fostered ethical and moral causes across the globe, e.g., knitted anti–global protest movements for social justice, bridged the digital divide in the production and the dissemination of medical technology, scientific knowledge, generic drugs, and educational research, between the haves and have–nots. Our quest is to examine what the digirati are able to create for all those who reach out to ICT for their own needs. Cyber–piracy unleashes the creativity of digirati, and extends cyber–technologies to cater to various wants and desires in the global community, not the least of them being a post–industrial gift economy of sharing, where participants see propriety controls as outmoded.

Concepts and explanations

Some special terms used in this paper require explanation. Piracy is adapted from the context of plundering on the high seas, and applied to the Web as a metaphor for illegally acquiring and distributing goods on the Internet, copyrights of which are infringed by interlopers (Wikipedia, 2004d). The term 'piracy' is not used here to refer to the sale of physical media containing pirated codes or software on the black market. Indeed, such goods come to the market as a result of Internet pirate distribution. However, we only examine the process of piracy on the Internet, rather than the products on the market. Piracy is structurally well–organized on the Internet as layers or echelons of operations with distinct roles at each level. These echelons are identified with layers of distinct functions that each performs in the chain of Internet–facilitated piracy distribution. These echelons often work dialectically with each other in garnering and disseminating pirated materials, particularly with respect to larger forms of digital goods that may exceed several hundred megabytes. The diagrammatic representation we have presented here (Figure 2) should be read not as a rigid hierarchy, but as a general mapping of piracy production and distribution based on an empirical conceptualization. The important levels described here account for a majority of distribution patterns and transactions of pirated materials through the Internet.

The term 'warez' [8] refers to all pirated goods, whether they are software, games, or music. Other warez–related items are also affixed with a 'z' at their end, such as 'crackz' which are patches that allow the bypassing of software copy protections and 'serialz' which are illegally distributed key codes that permit access to the software. Those warez generally referred to as '0-day' are typically acquired for distribution within a day of their original release. Connotations of the term '0-day' that appears on the site, include warez items' anticipated short availability on Web sites, urging one to download it before its impending deletion.

There is an important distinction between hackers and crackers. 'Crackers' are typically those whose expertise is to reverse–engineer copyright protections of software, while 'hackers' can generally be perceived as technological explorers who tinker and play with computer systems, either locally or via the Internet. Hackers themselves are not necessarily malevolently motivated, as some hack mainly for freeing information, or for lifting technological boundaries, while others may deliberately hack to vandalize.

Gnutella and Direct Connect are two peer–to–peer [9] file–sharing programs. Each uses different methods to achieve its goals, but they are both similar to Napster, the once popular music–sharing program, in functionality and searching techniques. Bit Torrent, an application programmed by software developer Bram Cohen, is a tool also used for file–sharing [10]. It is designed to facilitate peer–to–peer exchanges by requiring downloaders to share their uploading bandwidth capacity with one another in the communal pursuit of the same file. Thus, Bit Torrent is a client program that harnesses its user's typically underutilized upload capacity in order to speed up downloading at any given time.

File transfer protocol (FTP) sites refers to computers that are operated as servers for the purpose of file exchange and Internet–accessible archiving. Typically computer users with substantial hard disk space and an Internet connection potentially could establish their own FTP servers, although to process large size transactions regularly, massive storage capacity, preferably equipped with high bandwidth, is necessary to process large size transactions regularly. In relation to FTP sites, the term 'couriers' is used to refer to those who competitively upload files to FTP sites or exchange files between these sites in order to speed up the propagation of newly pirated releases. Couriers competitively operate in a great rush to establish links between an FTP site with a newly pirated release that another FTP site does not have, or vice versa, and negotiate the mutual transfer of files.

 

Review of literature and conceptual themes

Globalization

"Globalization is a multifaceted process, and can be characterized as a systematic decline in the barriers to the cross–national flow of products, factors (capital and people), values and ideas" [11].

Globalization has rapidly advanced in the post–World War II era, which was previously linked under colonialism. Financial, commercial, cultural, and technological integration of the world accelerated with the ever–expanding integration of global policies under the various agencies of the United Nations. In this paper, we focus on ICT and its impact on globalization. Cristiano Antonelli (2003) compares ICT with previous radical technologies [12], and sees it as a combination of product and process innovations that embody the innovating countries' structural and cultural characteristics. Commodification and profitability have driven the seemingly 'free' Internet around the planet. In order to understand the implications of technology in a globalized world, we draw upon Judy Wajcman's (2002) discussion of the changing social theories and paradigms and the centrality of social variable. She notes that Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970) initiated the study of the sociology of scientific knowledge. Kuhn's central premise in the paradigm of scientific knowledge exposes the profound influence of society where scientific findings and technological discoveries are conducted. The imperative of social interest in the design and in the technical aspects of the process and product of knowledge is more significant than the necessary technical reasons related to the creation and production of any technology (Law and Hassard, 1999; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999) [13]. Wajcman (2002) cautions that the technological impact on social shaping merely simulates the existing conditions of our mundane world in spite of many thrilling new discoveries in cyberspace. As no new societies can be created in the cyber–sphere, all that technological discoveries can do is to alter the social relations within the global political economy.

Commodification of the Internet

Commodification occurs when, through a deliberate or non–deliberate process, a non–commodity e.g., an idea, a propensity, a desire, an intellectual curiosity, identity, or gender, is transformed into a commodity. Generally these thoughts or social constructs are not considered exchangeable in market terms, but are attributed a monetary value through this process (Wikipedia, 2004b). In essence, commodification means commercializing relationships previously not encompassed by market relations or by exchange transactions. The term came into currency in 1977, and it was central to the understanding of how capitalism advances (Marxist Internet Archive, 2004). Commercialization of work, goods, and social relations is a process that ensures the dominance of capital in producing and exchanging commodities for profit.

"The bourgeoisie ... has resolved personal worth into exchange value ... it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation ... [it has] torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation." (Marx and Engels, 1848).

If we treat information as a proprietary good, we commodify information, and create ownership and control regimes. In such a commercial milieu, information becomes unaffordable to the workers and to poorer people. When communication, music, and knowledge are commercialized on the Internet, they are bought and sold in the information market on the Internet, proprietarily commoditized for its consumers (Rajagopal and Bojin, 2004).

Pieter Boeder (2005) examines the dramatic changes to the public sphere that is under siege through commodification of the Internet, and the way in which these striking changes threaten the very existence of the public sphere on the Internet. William Mitchell (1997) names them 'electronic agoras':

"The keyboard is my café ... Traditionally, you needed to go someplace to do this sort of thing — to the agora, the forum, the piazza, the café, the bar, the pub, Main Street, the mall, the beach, the gym, the bathhouse, the college dining hall, the common room, the office, or the club — and where you went pegged your peer group, your social position, and your role. It also framed expectations about how you should represent yourself by your clothing, body language, speech, and behavior and about the interactions that were to take place. Each familiar species of public place had its actors, costumes, and scripts. But the worldwide computer network — the electronic agora — subverts, displaces, and radically redefines our notions of gathering place, community, and urban life."

Media monopolies and full–fledged commodification of intellectual artifacts challenge the milieu that has long been characterized by a global free flow of information, discursive dialogues, dissemination of knowledge, and freedom of speech on the Web. Boeder argues that "discourse [has] degenerated into publicity, and publicity used the increasing power of electronic media to alter perceptions and shape beliefs. What dies in this process is the rational discourse at the base of civil society" [14].

Richard Barbrook (2000) analyzes extensively the roots of market worship and the forces that have led to the commodification of the Internet, and notes that theorists such as Toffler (1980), and Ithiel de Sola Pool (1983) assumed that technological advancements in the media industries would liberate people from corporatist clutches. Since the French Revolution of 1789, the process of modernization under the hegemony of reactionaries has been making rapid strides. However, by taking a leap to the 1970s when economies collapsed, Barbrook notes that the emergent bourgeoisie were the digirati who were expected to transform the Internet into a free haven of information society and the notion of representative democracy assumed by personal participation in the 'electronic town hall.' They were digerati who became neo–liberals and hacker geniuses. Discussing the optimism among liberals, Barbrook adds that many of them (Toffler, 1980; Kelly, 1994; Hudson, 1996; Dyson, 1997) figured out that the question was, as Rossetto (Hudson, 1996) summarized, not the "Not haves and have–nots, [but have–nows and] have–laters." The lure for temporarily accommodating the tyranny of the minority was the hope that, in the long run, as Henri de Saint–Simon suggested, it would lead to material and moral goods (Saint–Simon and Halevy, 1975). Barbrook lists the parallels between industrial capitalism and cybercommunism [15]. He finds that the Internet satisfies its users not as a market, but as a gift economy: spontaneously giving and receiving information as gifts. The knowledge–creating sector of the economy, the university, has offered scholarly research results in the 'commons' and anyone could take, and benefit from, them. As a result of these established practices in academia, the gift economy has been embedded within the social mores of the Internet. Hobbyists and the general public have joined these researchers to bring information into the public forum of free knowledge. Each contributed one's discourse or information for free, and also accessed others' knowledge for free. Those who developed the Internet did not envisage it as an exchange for commodified information, and hence hard–wired it as a dynamic free–exchange commons. However, the market economy crept in to control this gift exchange of intellectual labour through 'copyright' [16]. Barbrook (2000) reiterates what Porter (1995), Frow (1996), and May (1998) cautioned earlier, that copyright transformed intellectual labour and information into commodities. However, the Internet that has not lost its verve of freedom, has catalyzed the exuberant programmers who have created Open Source [17] and non–proprietary ICT artifacts, and customized them for free distribution [18].

If we treat information as a proprietary good, we commodify information, and create ownership and control regimes. In such a commercial milieu, information becomes unaffordable to the workers and to poorer people.

Andrea Bonaccorsi and Cristina Rossi (2004) recently surveyed the motivations of developers of Open Source, and compared their results with earlier surveys (Ghosh, et al., 2002; Hertel, et al., 2003; Hars and Ou, 2002). Consistently all these surveys find that the developers emphasize their interest in designing Open Source as emancipation from corporatist proprietary software. Developers' interests are not geared to gaining fame, but to advancing challenging skills, developing human capital, and freely distributing the resultant products, because they disdain corporate commodification of knowledge processes on the Internet, which has become a global public sphere.

Jürgen Habermas (1962) notes that the public sphere is a phenomenon that emerged after the breakdown of religious hegemony and the rise of the middle class in the eighteenth century. Since then, private individuals and property owners regulated public authority, and shaped the public sphere. However, nineteenth–century discursive reasoning and informed public opinion have been relegated by mass consumption, commercialization of mass participation, and publicity as a form of entertainment. Habermas provoked free discussions on issues of commodification of art in public forums, e.g., in coffeehouses, and as discourses in weeklies. More importantly, his discourses advanced public discussions of private opinions and narratives by legitimizing a new literary genre, viz., the publication of intimate and personal correspondence. Thus a form of "literary public sphere" emerged. Habermas warns that mass media and monopoly capitalist organizations have gained control over the public sphere, turning it into a nominal and impotent forum and rendering its participants powerless (Holub, 1997; Wikipedia, 2004c).

Under copyright laws, intellectual property has inevitably been transformed into a commodity. In the early periods, 'fair use' in public interest restricted the absolute ownership of information. However, toward the end of the twentieth century, these conditionalities have gradually dropped off under the rigorous enforcement of copyright legislation by hi–tech industries, media conglomerates, and communication empires (Barbrook, 2002).

 

Panopticon

Writing about Foucault's theories on "the Net as a panopticon," Mark Winokur (2003) discusses the "visible surveillance on the Net ... to studies of such phenomena as information–gathering about individuals (e.g.: Carnivore software)" but Foucault's theorization does not deal with "data encryption ... spatialization, totality of experience, coercive discourse, and ambiguous/internalized authority — are not frequently linked to the Internet." Neo–Foucauldian critics examine the use of ICT as a surveillance instrument of the invisible oligarchy in which power is invisibly vested in the form of an Orwellian 1984 or Kafkaesque Castle. The Internet is surveillant, and it assists the monitors — corporations and the rulers — to know citizens and consumers better through Internet spying. Winokur argues that the Internet technologies shape individuals, their tastes, their hobbies, their work and their existence to the extent that it may turn into a body of knowledge that becomes a means of coercion. David Lyon (1994) emphasizes that one cannot locate or avoid the authoritarian gaze that collects data on, and coerces, the Internet user.

What then are the techno–tools of this gaze through the Internet? Tom Brignall (2002) argues that the Internet is inherently a panopticon because the Internet service providers are equipped by technology to monitor their online customers without their being aware of it. The Internet observers go beyond the 'jailers' envisaged in Jeremy Bentham's panopticon because of wireless technology and its global reach. Already global programs like America Online, Prodigy, and Microsoft Online monitor their users' habits, culture, activities and transactions, and claim that they are not violating any law. They all gather private personal information through their intrusive software [19]. For those who argue that piracy is emancipatory whether monitoring one's privacy was deliberate or not, Brignell's rejoinder is that peer–to–peer networking would lead to global corporations' monitoring Internet users because of the trend among conglomerates like BMG, Sony and Warner/AOL to make deals with peer–to–peer networks in order to control the flow of digital media.

Those who developed the Internet did not envisage it as an exchange for commodified information, and hence hard–wired it as a dynamic free–exchange commons.

Spyware [20] is a sort of panoptic tool on the Internet, which can intrusively extract information and provide it to servers of software companies and others. The Internet can be used by the state's older institutions and forces that are charged with the responsibility of maintaining order in society. Beyond this spectrum of controls, as Adorno and Horkheimer note,

"Tyranny leaves the body free and directs its attack at the soul. The ruler no longer says: You must think as I do, or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do; your life, your property, everything shall remain yours, but from this day on you are a stranger among us. Not to conform means to be rendered powerless, economically and therefore, spiritually to be self employed" [21].

Another panoptic raid against one's privacy is through Adware programs that include spyware [22]. While viewing a pop–up advertisement, one may be unaware of the spyware collecting and sending information from your hard drive. While downloading peer–to–peer files, a user may also be downloading a large number of spyware and adware programs. Yet, another danger is systemware that downloads itself through peer–to–peer networks. This program facilitates the company that owns the download to "use unused storage space, unused computing power and/or Internet bandwidth/Internet access for the aggregation of content and use in distributed computing. The user acknowledges and authorizes this use without the right of compensation" (Duke, 2002).

Colin J. Bennett (2001) points out that "a more sophisticated form of surveillance by design is revealed through ... banner-advertising." Doubleclick, an advertising company on the Web, performs as an agent in marketing advertisement space on behalf of various Web sites, and it also disseminates and services such ads. When ads run on Web sites, their visitors are monitored, while Doubleclick's proprietary software collects surfers' habits, products they visit, and information they provide. Bennett notes:

"Any website that knows your identity and has a cookie for you could set up procedures to exchange their data with the companies that buy advertising space from them, synchronizing the cookies they both have on your computer. This possibility means that once your identity becomes known to a single company listed in your cookies file, any of the others might know who you are every time you visit their sites. This identity might become known by filling in a warranty, product registration, survey or purchase form" [23].

Carnivore is another raider program, a more controversial one developed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow the FBI to spy online, tracing e–mail activities of suspected criminals. Often one is reminded of the tactics reminiscent of those in George Orwell's book 1984 (Tyson, 2004). Carnivore is a sophisticated wiretapping/eavesdropping program which chews all the data on the network, although it eats only the information authorized by a court order (Graham, 2004).

It would seem that cookies are innocuously embedded in computers for the speed of surfing Web pages we access often and that they do not act maliciously on our computers. Cookies are text files that can be deleted at any time and are not plug–ins or programs. However, cookies are relevant to the issues of surveillance because they are software that compromises user's privacy and anonymity on the Internet. Cookies may not read your hard drive to find out information about you, but personal information that you give to a Web site, including credit card information, will be stored in a cookie unless you have turned off the cookie feature in your browser. Thus cookies are problematic to privacy (see Webopedia).

Free programs like Gnutella allow open entry into users' programs and content on another user's hard drive. Because there is no revolt from the users who are interested in downloading what they want from Gnutella user groups, it does not mean that spying of a less tech–sophisticated user is not possible via Gnutella. In fact, many peer–to–peer users turn off Gnutella's program Preferences in order not to allow access to their hard drives. Because most peer–to–peer technology relies on open source programming, it is possible for crackers and hackers to create modifications in order to allow illegal access to personal information. Even without peer–to–peer client software, one can easily figure out that crackers could de–compile software, and modify it to suit their interests.

If one assumes that the Internet frees individuals from limitations, i.e., of space, time, and dependence, one must also face the fact that it is an illusion and that inexorable tides of control invisibly flow through the Internet. Brignall points out:

"Such attention to the production of homogeneous cultural artifacts will continue to produce creativeless, bland, and sterile cultural icons such as Brittney Spears and Barney. Any counter pop creative culture will continue to be drowned out if it does not look like a big money maker ... the Internet will be[come] a cultural Leviathan, making sure we do not do anything that would result in fewer profits for multinationals" [24].

Anti–globalization and cyber–piracy

In resistance to globalization, many alternatives identified under the general rubric of anti–globalization movements have emerged. Anti–globalists champion various causes all the way from anti–sweatshops to protests against genetic engineering. They see the various causes spearheaded by diverse groups as complementary to one another, and through the Web, knit together across the globe to carry out their strategies. They view multinational corporations, e.g., Microsoft, as exploitive and stepping on individual rights and human interests by using their global corporate power. Even pro–capitalist economists, like George Soros and Joseph Stiglitz, identify with some aspects of anti–globalism when they argue against centralized world economic policies such as IMF's structural adjustment program (SAP) and World Bank's policies that override local interests of those in poorer countries (Wikipedia, 2004a).

Discussing various examples of anti–globalization movements, Amory Starr and Jason Adams (2003) focus on relocalization or local autonomy as one of the three rubrics of anti–globalization movements: viz., radical reform that aims to undercut corporations, globalization from below (Falk, 1993), and a range of autonomous movements that articulate their productivity, and rights of communities. In the literature on anti–globalization, the autonomy perspective is theoretically rooted in the arguments of "protect the local globally" (Hines, 2000), "delinking" from globalization and self–determination (Amin, 1985) and "scaling back overdevelopment" (Weinberg, 1991).

Revolution and resistance in the cyberworld

In Marxist thought, anti–globalization movements emerge to challenge the fetters that globalization imposes. Under advanced corporate capitalism, according to Karl Marx, dialectics occur between the material forces and social relations of production in cyber–political economy. Social relations of production involve the relation between corporate capitalist ownership of production, and the workers and consumers who have little say on matters relating to the process of production and commodification in the cyber–economy. To quote Marx: "At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production ... with the property relations ... From forms of development of the forces of production, these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes a period of social revolution" [25]. Barbrook (2002) critiques the neo–liberalists' argument that the world has seen the "end of history" (Fukuyama, 1992), as there could be no other alternative socio–economic system, which is based on the hegemonic commercialization now of the Internet. However, the full potential of the Internet cannot be realized within the traditional hierarchies of capitalism. The new social relations of production beyond advanced capitalism are already in conflict with barriers imposed by the forces of production that operate in cyber–economy, resulting in resistance through the gift culture and the thriving of the "intellectual commons" that free–sharing and the anti–globalist actions of piracy have established (Barbrook, 2002).

The full potential of the Internet cannot be realized within the traditional hierarchies of capitalism.

David Tetzlaff's (2000) examination of the Hotline file–sharing community not only elaborates a technological framework of how the file–sharing community operates, but also provides a look at the ethical perspective from which many "pirates" view their activities. Tetzlaff points out that these perspectives range from the personal acknowledgement of piracy as unethical to the militant belief that piracy is a necessary step in the battle for the freedom of information. Through the examples of Hotline, a file–sharing application, newsgroups and warez sites, Tetzlaff outlines the descriptive nature of how piracy operates, and describes a vignette of one section of the chain of pirate distribution that operates through, and is facilitated by, the Internet. However, Internet piracy extends above and beyond the world of file–sharing, newsgroups and warez sites. A long chain of distribution starts at the top with the release groups who acquire and crack a copy of new technological wares, and thus initiate a process which allows the artifacts to trickle down the line to the average downloader. Barry Shore, et al. (2001), differentiate the term "piracy" from "softlifting," defining the former as an activity based on a monetary incentive of selling illegally obtained software, and the latter as limited to downloading software for personal use only. In this paper, we discuss the process of "piracy" on the Internet in broader terms that would include all ICT artifacts that are pirated.

 

Dialectics of cyber–piracy

For this paper, we gathered information from individuals involved in the piracy chain at various levels. For obvious reasons, they wish to remain anonymous and unidentified. There are three common levels within the cyber–piracy system of any digital cultural goods — music, software or other artifacts — that have been socially and technologically structured: the upper, middle and lower echelons. The upper echelon at the top of the chain produces as a virtual factory: release groups are the architects of the initial cracked pirate release, and FTP sites acting as warehouses for the increased proliferation of that release by couriers (Die.net Online Dictionary, 2004a). The three operative participants — crackers, FTPs, and couriers — get access to nearly any item they want mainly because of their interrelational intimacy with the process. Depending on the size of the release, pirated goods can even make their way directly to the bottom rung to be "file shared," or hosted on warez sites if they are small enough. However, pirated releases, especially those of substantial size, first make their way through the second rung, i.e., through newsgroups or the middle echelon. Newsgroups are the ultimate recycling hub of warez because new materials are always being sent through the top of the chain, and older material is being re–uploaded by newsgroup users themselves. This makes newsgroups a widely accessible method of finding a large quantity of pirated materials. The third or lower echelon of pirate distribution, the file–sharing and warez Web sites, depends highly on having either received pirated software from a newsgroup, IRC or even from warez Web sites or other file sharers on the same stratum.

Whereas newsgroups provide massive amounts of pirated materials that are poorly organized, file–sharing provides significantly less amounts of pirated material in terms of variety, and finding what one needs is a simplified process (Tetzlaff, 2000). Despite the lack of dependability that arises from trying to download files from another user on a file–sharing client or from trying to download a 0–day application from a warez site that may or may not be reliably linked, finding items is relatively easy mainly because of search engines such as Google and the built–in search functions of file–sharing applications and bit torrent trackers. Thus, the third echelon of pirate distribution not only requires the least amount of computer skill to access, but it also provides what is nearly the best method to specifically pinpoint what has ultimately come down the chain of distribution.

The key characteristics of each rung in the piracy chain are their specific qualities that make each rung distinctly useful in the chain. If one wants a new program or game that recently arrived on store shelves or was about to arrive soon, the upper echelon would have it tapped. If one wants the largest smorgasbord of pirated material available to anyone with moderate computer skills, then the second echelon would be the most optimal choice. But if one is looking for a specific small application, video clip, song or reasonably sized releases, but had only a low level of computer skills, the third echelon is the tap. These hierarchic echelons on the Internet do not apply to every item released by a pirate release group. Often, depending on the size and significance of the item, levels are skipped, or releases are simultaneously propagated on all three levels, and pirated goods can also be found moving back and forth between the second and third echelon. However, these are exceptions as they apply only to a relative minority of warez transactions down the chain of distribution. As one can see from this analysis, the top tier directly resists against the Internet's globalization, and burrows into the Internet for commodified products; the second tier accelerates the dissemination of the pirated warez; and, the third tier accomplishes the global distribution of the fruits of anti–globalization.

Drawing from theoretical arguments on anti–globalization, we build a framework of analysis to examine "piracy" as an anti–globalization movement, adapting two of the key conceptual themes in the anti–globalization literature: resistance against commercial hegemony and privatization of the Internet and the establishment of communal autonomy and communal currency on the Internet [26].

Piracy as resistance against commercial hegemony and the privatization of the Internet

Citing John Locke who observes that "The great and chief end of ... men ... putting themselves under Government ... is the preservation of their Property" [27], Richard Barbrook emphasizes how media corporations that vigorously resist state regulation of their activities demand the exercise of state power in criminalizing social mores and software codes. Barbrook argues that, in the guise of copyright, state enforcement of any censorship, whether political or economic, is undesirable. Instead of a democratic state fostering a discursive "intellectual commons" (Barbrook, 2002; Lessig,1999; Hauben and Hauben, 1997) on the Web, the state, by enforcing such corporate demands, is facilitating "the digital panopticon." In this situation, where one–dimensional information would, as Berners–Lee (1998) cautions, be the standard diet for passive consumption, any interactive creativity would be anathema under panopticon's surveillance (Figure 3).

The notion of piracy on the Web is a counter–reaction to the stifling of creativity and access to free resources on the Internet. The greater the commodification of processes and products on, and relating to, the Internet, the less useful and unique will the Internet become. Corporate capital insistently pursues various means: rigorous policing of the Internet through surveillance technology as panopticon, use of the state power, threat of punishment through stringent legislation, and dissemination of McCarthyistic propaganda to enforce commercial copyright and turn the Internet into a web of commodity fetishism.

Corporate capitalist trends in the market inevitably lead to "commodity fetishism," by turning class antagonism into a desire for commodities and for accumulation of capital. To satisfy these never–ending desires and the limitless urge for accumulation, consumerism gives a boost to the world market where businesses engage in the production and sale of goods. Thus the Internet becomes dominated by corporate capitalist enterprises, gets transposed into a conduit and a social shaper of such desires and commodities, and ends up as an extension of the conglomerate media empires (Mosco, 2000), which dismantles the original purpose of the Internet as a public space, a "creative commons" [28].

The technological "Creative Commons" seems to be ineffective. Tom McCourt and Patrick Burkart [29] warn about Napster and free-downloading of music:

"The commercialization of the Internet transforms the experience of on–line music from a network–enabled community of freely participating individuals to a network–delivered commodity that is relentlessly measured and metered."

Europe and U.S. have different approaches to intellectual property rights. While the U.S. model ensures financial rights to media corporations and their artist clients, the European model shores up creator rights to artists, and allows moral rights greater significance than rights for profits. In view of these international barriers to U.S. copyright assumptions, the U.S. multinational media corporations created Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies which enable proprietary "lock up" of content into every OS, artifact, and the player. Further technological advancements such as Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) have been attempted, but they have proved to be code–breakable [30]. Music recordings and dissemination inherently require that artists promote them freely online to their audience in order to popularize themselves as well as their future productions. The "lock in" technologies inhibit such promotions, and also complicate the processes of online sales. The neoliberal state is ever ready to enforce penalties against copyright infringements. Richard Barbrook identifies a humorous posting on the Internet which exemplifies the irony of propaganda against downloading music disseminated by corporate empires — the Recording Industry Association of America (Figure 4) [31].

Establishment of communal autonomy and communal currency on the Internet

Carl Cuneo's classifies the protest process that has emerged in relation to, or from within, the Internet, which we identify here as "anti–globalization" movement, under five categories: "Smash the Internet, Organizing and Protesting Digitally; Software Piracy; the Open Source Movement; and, Hackerdom" [32]. The first two categories — "Smash the Internet" and "Organizing and Protesting Digitally" — are resistance movements against the hegemonic corporations that have usurped the Internet as a powerful infrastructure of globalization. Protesters globally organize via the Internet, and challenge multinational corporations' (MNCs) virtual global expansion, and financial and currency transactions that destabilize LDCs' economies. The third category — "Software Piracy" — describes the acts of those who are assumed to be "digital–have–nots" who acquire access to the information and communication technology (ICT) by disregarding copyright laws. The fourth category embraces the Open Source Movement (OSM) that undercuts the technological roots of corporate capital's role in the privatization of intellectual capital. Linus Torvalds' source code of Linux is freely distributed on the Internet with the freedom for global collective skill to develop it further. Competing against Microsoft, Linux has a 25 percent share of the global server OS market. The fifth category is "hackers or crackers" whom the media labels as criminally inclined; these are sophisticated programmers who use their skills to gain unauthorized access to information. Hackers see themselves as a community with advanced skills that enable them to climb out of their "digital–have–not" position (Cuneo, 2002).

We argue that software piracy — resisting proprietary copyright regulations and ignoring any hegemonic ownership of intellectual capital — is a type of anti–globalization movement. Who is interested in bridging the haves and the have–nots in ICT, and why? Corporate–vested interests expand their commodities and consumerism, as well as acquire a reserved army of technological workers from around the globe (Cuneo, 2002; DiMaggio, et al., 2001). From cradle to grave, free donations of computers, through schools and community centers, promote the Internet culture (Cuneo, 2002; Pellizarri, 2000). Even in poorer countries, one is bombarded with advertisements about what middle classes are missing without access to a computer. There is a rush among the poorer countries to catch up, lest they be left behind in this most radical knowledge revolution since the Industrial Revolution. However, hi–tech corporations have targeted knowledge and information as commodities and as capital in the global market (Cuneo, 2002; Castells, 1996). In resistance to this control, the Internet has become an infrastructure for anti–globalization activities aimed at breaking the oligopolistic proprietary control of hi–tech information systems, i.e., piracy of software, music, videos, and other ICT artifacts.

The piracy chain as resistance against commercial hegemony and privatization of the Internet

The upper echelon: Release groups, FTPs and couriers

In the piracy chain, at the top echelon, the pirates imitate the very capitalistic processes — appropriation and competition — they despise. This occurs despite the fact the term cyber–piracy connotes a process of dismantling proprietary ownership of technology and capitalist commercialization of the Internet, The trafficking of illegally obtained software and games begins with individuals who manage to procure a copy either from a store, or from a leaked source, and who may also have access to a program's source code (Jacobssen and Reiter, 2001). Once a software or game title is released, or is near completion and in the process of moving to store shelves, several piracy "groups," each with identifying titles, are already competing to release their own pirated version of the title before others do. The "drag–race" mentality in the illegal release of a stolen title may often be at the expense of the quality of a program's or game's pirated release. Such an item may embody a poorly "cracked" product, one in which copy protection was not fully removed or nullified, or has other anomalies. Erroneous releases often are deleted, or likely to be "nuked" from source FTP sites, after word of their shortcomings has spread. At all levels, piracy groups are not only highly organized, but also quite untraceable because they remain invisible and keep a low profile.

Piracy groups are usually effective at "reverse engineering" or "cracking" to subvert copy protections of the artifacts. Through this process, the pirated artifact is distributed with an embedded unit of technology, a file known as a "crack" that replaces one of the original program's components, which the user must apply to operate the pirated version. There are few traces of signatures on the Internet or related media, because release groups' operations are confined to acquire, crack, and assign a pirated artifact to a "host," an outside source, and not extend their functions on the Internet beyond this. Release groups never host or distribute their own releases, but leave them to FTP sites. As a result of their invisibility and smallness, release groups are often not caught as the piracy police cannot track their activities efficiently. Therefore, the legal arm of the state is always after those that distribute the artifacts [33].

The greater the commodification of processes and products on, and relating to, the Internet, the less useful and unique will the Internet become.

Release groups have their own couriers, but third–party courier groups also have a unique identity, hierarchical structure, and competitive motivations among their group. Couriers not only compete as groups against each other to sport the quickest uploads to a key server in a "race," but they do so also as individuals to be the first to locate and harness new releases. Statistics are maintained within courier groups in order to determine the groups and the individuals who transfer the most data in order to earn the most FTP credits. Credits are common currency of value among couriers, and this permits them to download material from various FTP sites. These are points that couriers earn in exchange for their timely upload. The prevalent version of exchange of upload to download is a ratio of 1:3, i.e., every 100 MB uploaded or transferred to a site gives one the access to download three times that amount from that same site (Cooper and Harrison, 2001). Couriers earn these credits by exchanging files between servers in a process known as file exchange protocol (FXP). For quick uploading of massive amounts of newly cracked technology to popular FTP sites in the upper echelon warez scene, couriers rely on FXPing to earn their credits, rather than on slower cable connections. Thus, couriers co–exist symbiotically with the higher profile FTP sites brimming with pirated goods, and the speedy release groups, in order to accelerate the propagation of pirated software. There is a remarkable sense of interdependency among the triumvirate in the pirating scene: release groups, couriers, and FTP sites.

The middle echelon: IRC and Usenet

The middle level in the piracy chain depends highly on new content providers at the top level who upload new releases to a newsgroup. Participants of the top echelon feed acquired pirated releases to newsgroups, and/or make them available for exchange on one or a number of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. The middle echelon is, therefore, a critical transition conduit in the chain for proliferating and distributing a number of pirated artifacts. At this level, the piracy community operates with a greater level of autonomy, unrestrained by any formal rules in their world except for informal codes of good behaviour required in dealing with downloading sites.

The middle echelon, the newsgroups, in the piracy chain demonstrates the use of what are otherwise client/server technologies by the pirating community to self–govern the warez exchange process (Barbrook, 2002). Although newsgroups are client/server–based, we witness a movement towards full post–Fordist peer–to–peer autonomy [34], because the users trade and freely provide digital goods amongst each other, using non–peer–to–peer technologies. The middle echelon demonstrates a movement towards full piracy exchange autonomy through the use of the very technology that is built to prevent such exchanges.

Because they are in the middle of the piracy chain, newsgroups tend to be the ultimate recycling hub of warez, because new material continues to flow through the top of the chain, and older or current materials are continually re–uploaded by newsgroup users. Thus newsgroups become a widely accessible method of finding a large quantity of pirated material. Usenet [35] newsgroups are channels for massive reservoirs of unadulterated large releases that could not easily be handled by many other forums. The amount of server space afforded to the average newsgroup service is considerable, and this permits slow, but prolific, uploading and downloading. Usenet groups are quite different from courier groups or FTP sites, and are utilized by a large number of people who both informally trade and also offer up files without expectation of immediate compensation (Figure 5). These groups share many common features with release and courier groups in the upper echelon. Similar in function to Bulletin Board Services (Traphagan and Griffith, 1998), in 2003, Usenet servers not only operate as an Internet–facilitated conduit for pirated software of all sorts — games, movies, music — but, as with many of the groups higher up in the piracy chain, they also maintain an informal measure of order within Usenet. Order and control in a newsgroup are often determined by denying the wants and needs of newsgroup participants. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), in the form of text or Web links, state the rules of a number of newsgroups, the proverbial "dos and don'ts," and group etiquette that users should follow. These are similar to the subtle rules of a chat room, for instance, avoiding usage of caps in a chat room because of its emotive significance comparable to raising one's voice. These rules are not set in stone, and often don't even play a role in many groups, but generally speaking, in terms of etiquette, those who upload frequently and efficiently to a group, tend to have their own requests filled more easily and vice versa.

Usenet FAQs play a key role in keeping order, based solely on the likelihood that if one doesn't follow the rules, any request for pirated artifacts by an aberrant individual might not be filled. More severe punishments may arrive in the form of "flaming" or online insulting or barb tossing of the uninformed user. However, no one can be "booted" out of a newsgroup, because it is more representative of public space than an IRC channel which is run and operated by individuals and/or their designated bots.

Newsgroups tend to be the first real publicly accessible conduit in the chain of piracy distribution. In contrast to access being limited to those operating in the upper echelon of the chain of piracy — courier groups, the FTP sites for exchanging files, and specific IRC channels — newsgroups are available to anyone who has access to a news server, and this is typically granted by one's ISP. Newsgroups are highly dependant on individuals who have upper echelon access to upload their material to the appropriate group. However, because newsgroups are publicly accessible, their position in the middle echelon of the hierarchy allows newsgroup warez to come from anyone, e.g., those who might have acquired pirated warez from file–sharing, Web sites, IRC or through repacking of digital images of their own copy of a game or software along with the appropriate crack.

IRC [36], a tool which envelops a number of piracy activities, operates as a communicative membrane that facilitates not only the organization of upper echelon pirates, but the location of particular files as well. Through IRC, individuals join specific servers hosting chat channels, and chat with others with similar interests on various channels (e.g., chatting about xbox games in an xbox channel). Cooper and Harrison (2001) elaborate on the social organization of audio piracy, and explain the tools and channels used. IRC is one of the oldest and most established communicatiion protocols aside from Usenet. mIRC and Trillian, which are both freely available for downloading on the

What is Sociocybernetics?

Sociocybernetics is the application of systems thinking and cybernetic principles in sociology and other social sciences in order to analyse social phenomena regarding their complexity and dynamics. Research interest focused on handling complexity. A systemic view is an observation attempting to trace the diversity of interaction in reality instead of analytically isolating individual causal relations and exploring them in their entire depth. Systems are defined by a certain form of distinction from their environment. It is not causality but the mutual influence of dynamic self-regulating systems that research focuses on. With a cybernetic approach, one has opted for the examination of the basic forms from which the internal order of a system results rather than for observing individual properties.

Cybernetic Principles

Opting for a cybernetic approach in research means accepting a number of fundamental principles that are not always unambiguously defined in literature but can be best described as a particular mode of thought, as a paradigm, or – as Gordon Pask once put it – as an art, philosophy or also a way of life. While mathematician Norbert Wiener stresses the aspects of control and communication in natural science and humanities contexts, neuro-philosopher Warren McCulloch defines cybernetics as an epistemology dealing with the generation of knowledge by communication. Management consultant Stafford Beer regards cybernetics as the science of organisation. To Ludwig von Bertalanffy, cybernetic systems are a special case of systems differing from other systems by the principle of self-regulation. As a scientific discipline, cybernetics distinguishes itself by concentrating on the research of control mechanisms, basing its activities on information and feedback as key concepts. Walter Buckley formulates the context in a similar manner by regarding concepts such as information, communication, cybernetics, self-regulation and self-organisation as well as adaptability as sub-areas of general systems theory. Systems theory is understood here not so much as a uniform theory but more as a theoretical framework and a set of methodological tools that can be applied in different fields of research. To Heinz von Foerster the fundamental principle of cybernetic is self-referentiality. He speaks of circularity, referring to all concepts that can be applied on themselves, processes in which a state ultimately reproduces itself.

Unity of Sciences and Humanities

What is highly significant and is again and again pointed out by all authors is that cybernetics cannot be restricted to a special field of research objects. This meta-disciplinary view and its interdisciplinary options for application would already suffice to distinguish cybernetics in an academic world that is still characterised by the theoretical and methodical dualism of natural sciences and the humanities. Similar fundamental principles of organising individual elements as a systemic whole can be found in organisms, in society, and in technical artefacts. In the first chapter of "An Introduction to Cybernetics", Ashby writes that cybernetics "treats not things but ways of behaving. It does not ask 'What is a thing?' but 'What does it do?'". Biologist Humberto Maturana expresses this in a similar way in his answer to the question of life. According to Maturana, the question of life cannot be answered by seeking the necessary properties of the elements constituting living organisms, but by tracing the fundamental organisational principles in which "living systems" acquire their identity and through which living systems differ from non-living systems. What Niklas Luhmann fascinates about cybernetics is that the problem of constancy and invariance of systems is taken up and explained in a highly complex, changeable world. This "qualifies cybernetics as an uncompromisingly non-ontological research approach and reveals a surprising proximity to the functionalist systems theory of sociology" (Luhmann 1968).

Information: Third Factor alongside Matter and Energy

System processes, especially the relation between the system and the environment, are understood as "informational processes" in which contingencies exist and selection occurs rather than as necessities in the sense of a strict causality. Information is often referred to as a function of the organisation of systems. Some natural scientists regard information as a "third factor" next to matter and consciousness (v. Weizsäcker 1974) or matter and energy (Stonier 1990).

The purposeful influencing of social phenomena always amounts to an attempt to intervene in highly complex systems with self-organising (dissipative) structures. These systems respond to attempts to regulate them coming from their environment only on the basis of their internal structure. Thus regulation has to handle the phenomenon of the determinedness of systems' structures.

"The World is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life…".

The Informational Revolution fundamentally redefined society: Satellites simulcast worldwide as mankind humbled in homage to the silicon chip. Advertising now defines class and consumer; individuals begin to define themselves digitally. The birth of "cool", this coca-cola bliss stunted language thereby collapsing culture. In contrast to these messages, artists pursued an identity outside the brand image. Joy and sorrow rediscovered primal paths of expression. Creativity became the call of the wild. Technology captured modern minds.

The twilight of the twentieth century saw the rise and fall of independent music artists; American poets used their voice to champion the cultural creative's cause. The industry then decreed the revolution would not be televised. Media conglomerates spun a market for neo-pop: mass industrialization of the arts; causing the reversal of value that accompanies the commoditization of creativity. For what value does an original hold when a copy can be made in facsimile? These copies then transmuted into commodity: items with a perceived value, however, lacking cultural capital. The epoch of mechanical reproduction would homogenize art into products of uniform par value. The question of art aesthetic became the cold quandary of the atomic age: the nature of machine.

Solving this post-modern conundrum requires dialectic method and a strategy of social synthesis. Together we must stand on the shoulders of those artists, writers, philosophers that precede us. Wisdom speaks from within true art, integrated beneath spectacle. This is The History: great men and women of insight expressing truth. Our responsibility is reaction.

Without response creation is Form, a timeless object that will be because it has been created simply to be. The object exists for its own sake. In this sense, high art is as benign as industrialised art is malignant. Esthetic as the sole aim of creativity is forever unattainable. When the artist finally commands truth, the creative act will proclaim it with passion. The creator and the creation are only realized with reaction. The audience imbues the Art with mortality that may reveal life's fleeting beauty.

Trans Modern Art will champion global awareness that we must together create a new dynamic form of communication. Art noveau as a social movement will cultivate human potential through total art synthesis. We will entertain, elevate, inform and illuminate. Our generation's masterpeice will be a never-ending network self-sustaining incorporation whose true purpose is to educate.

"…Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce." - President John F. Kennedy

'Entheogens for the Agnostic'

A chemical religion has been custom tailored to suite the agnostic's needs.  Every class of pharmaceuticals has been marketed and made readily availabe to the partisans of mass culture.  Illicit narcotics are marketed to the counter-culture, and dependant on a particular sub-class these drugs are criminalized and stigmatized to perpetuate the post-industrial power structure.

For those godless denizens fed with fear and hopelessness, searching for escape from the hell built up around them, a simple plan: a small vacation from reality produced, placed, packaged and priced for their convenience.  A pop-able pill for every bourgiouse man, woman and child.  A potent powder for every junkie jew and hypnotised hispanic.  Crushed crystals, study aides, erotic intensifiers, anxiety relievers, mood elevators, empathogens: all addictive, all commodity.

Furthermore, the stigma attached to each indulgence inturn helps to plant a social virus, one that consumes (through addiction or greed) or alienates (by law or by exile) persons connected in a network; ultimately weaking the communications structure thus crippling the community.

As global entropy exponentially increases so directly does the demand for alleviation.  Without a dramatic decrease in demand or eradication of supply, the international drug industry and capitalist-class society are inextricably commerced in this social pandemic.

Brave New World

Brave New World

 is a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1932. Set in London in 2540, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, biological engineering, and sleep-learning that combine to change society.

All citizens are expected to be involved socially; spending time alone is discouraged and sexual promiscuity is norm. Recreational drug use has become a pillar of society and all citizens regularly swallow tablets of soma, a ecstacy like tranquilizer that makes users mindlessly happy.

ebook: Aldus Huxley's Brave New World

audiobook: Part.1 Part.2

In Brave New World Revisited Huxley considers whether the world has moved towards or away from his frightening vision of the future. He concludes that the world was becoming much more like Brave New World much faster than he thought.

Over-Population Over-Organization

Propaganda Democracy Dictatorship

Drugs Brainwashing Hypnosis

Quantity Quality Morality

ebook: Brave New World Revisted

Hyperreality of Jean Baudrillard

The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.
Ecclesiastes

The Transparent Simulacrum of the Feigned Image Salvador Dali

 

Jean Baudrillard was a social theorist best known for his analyses of modes of mediation and technological communication, although the scope of his writing spreads across more diverse subjects — from consumerism, to gender relations, to the social understanding of history through to more journalistic commentaries.

He had affinities with post-structuralism in that his arguments consistently drew on the notion that systems of signification and meaning are only understandable in terms of their interrelation. In contrast to Foucault however, of whom he was sharply critical, Baudrillard developed theories based, not on power and knowledge, but around the notions of seduction, simulation, and, the term with which he is most associated, hyperreality. Baudrillard uses this principle to argue that in our present 'global' society, wherein technological communication has created an excessive proliferation of meaning, meaning's self-referentiality has prompted, not a McLuhan-style 'global village', but a world where meaning has been effaced and society has been reduced to an opaque mass, where the 'real' has been reduced to the self-referential signs of its existence. Wikipedia

Html: Chapter One
eBook: Simulacra & Simulation

eBook: Age of the Hyperreal

eBook: Implosion of the Social in the Media

'The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning.'

Jean Baudrillard

Philosopher and Sociologist 

born July 29 1929; died March 6 2007

Understanding Media

UNDERSTANDING

MEDIA:

THE EXTENSIONS

OF MAN

Marshall McLuhan

[1911 - 1980]

McLuhan's most widely known work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), is also a pioneering study in media ecology. Popularly quoted as "the medium is the message," McLuhan's theory was that media affects the society; it plays a role not by the content delivered, but by the characteristics of the medium itself. Controversially, he postulated that content had little effect on society –- in other words, it did not matter if television broadcasts children's shows or violent programming, to illustrate one example -– the effect of television on society would be identical. He noted that all media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways; for instance, a passage in a book could be reread at will, but a movie had to be screened again in its entirety to study any individual part of it.

McLuhan claims that different media invite different degrees of participation on the part of a person who chooses to consume a medium. Some media, like the movies, enhance one single sense, in this case vision, in such a manner that a person does not need to exert much effort in filling in the details of a movie image. McLuhan contrasted this with TV, which he claimed requires more effort on the part of viewer to determine meaning, and comics, which due to their minimal presentation of visual detail require a high degree of effort to fill in details. A movie is thus said by McLuhan to be hot, intensifying one single sense "high definition", demanding a viewer's attention, and a comic book to be "cool" and "low definition", requiring much more conscious participation by the reader to extract value.

McLuhan's theories about "The medium is the message", link culture and society. The Internet, and the advent of the World Wide Web, are examples of what McLuhan would classify as hot media.
Each new form of media, according to the analysis of McLuhan, shapes messages differently thereby requiring new filters to be engaged in the experience of viewing and listening to those messages.

When terrorism is the medium the underlying message is
"I must be right because I'm willing to die for it"

http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/