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> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/the-end-of-ownership-culture/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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> Something weird is in the water these days.....
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> SA
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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I've heard this stuff before..... its been around for, I dunno, 250? 300 years? Any time serious new technologies surface the technophiles start up these speculations. Economies driven by steam-powered men, strangely communal looking colonies on the moon, you know how it is... Of course some were less than convinced; I think that Karl Marx chap had a few interesting things to say about the relationship between technology and private property rights. And in that spirit I think that perhaps a point or two should be made here.
Its interesting that most (all?) of the examples are information related. Even more specifically an awful lot of what the author is talking about is entertainment related. He envisages a world where our cultural products escape the tyranny of "the Man". Sure, that would be great, but what would really happen if this occurred in an economy which functions in and through the profit motive?
How would those producing these things be able to fund them? We've got Hollywood, not MosFilm. The author mentions the existence of libraries, but forgets to tell us how and why these are funded. If technologies were to seriously blur the boundaries between public and private ownership in these spheres and there was no public body willing to pick up the slack and fund the products being pumped through this new "streamlined" medium would the result then not be a cheapening of these products? Would we all not be forced to entertain ourselves by watching videos of cats jumping on babies and reading news stories so regurgitated that their grasp on reality was almost non-existent? The result could easily be some sort of supercharged Kulturindustrie.
As I said, I don't really buy into these arguments; technophiles are science fiction writers who can't be bothered coming up with a decent plot. But follow them to their logical conclusions, accept the premise that no technology can possibly liquidate a class intent on maintaining its grasp on the surplus product of society and the results may turn out to be less than edifying.