.Communist

I really enjoyed this week's reading by Eben Moglen. His "dotCommunist Manifesto" brought up several interesting ideas about how technology tectonics are affecting our social order. The most important point Moglen raises is that the oppressive process Fordist production has been replaced by a similarly oppressive process of consumption. So whereas Marx was looking at the way creators are inherently disconnected from the things they make, in the technology age, we are similarly disconnected from the products we consume. The things we buy still define us to some extent, but because the machinery of consumption is so impersonal and obligatory, we don't genuinely connect to it. Moglen's idea that universal education serves as a tool to enlist people in the consumption craze is particularly interesting. By giving the working class a taste of bourgeoisie through increased media literacy, they are encouraged to keep reaching for it.

However, I agree with Moglen that the technology the bourgeoisie has created is backfiring. As he notes, "the bourgeois system of ownership demands that knowledge and culture be rationed by the ability to pay". But to a great extent, this system is falling apart. Aside from the initial purchase of the hardware required for access (ie computer, radio, TV), culture is becoming free. Information is becoming free. So while the working class is becoming media literate and therefore bigger spenders, they are also being given the opportunity to participate in the flow of culture in a way that the bourgeoisie can't necessarily control. In fact, the bourgeoisie is coming to depend on the proletariat to create culture in order for them to sell it back to them. The bourgeois class has become so disconnected from the masses that they don't know what to sell them. Now I wonder, who has more control in this relationship?

I foresee the roles reversing, but the qualities of the classes remaining the same. Every revolution brings new challenges and forms of oppression. Therefore it's possible that the working class may rise up and gain more control over the machine of consumption to the exclusion of yet another class.

briana berry