"The Unity Of Electricity" The Anarchives Volume 2 Issue 16 The Anarchives Published By The Anarchives The Anarchy Organization The Anarchives tao@lglobal.com Send your e-mail address to get on the list Spread The Word Pass This On... --/\-- Integration / / \ \ and ---|--/----\--|--- Synthesis \/ \/ /\______/\ by Jesse Hirsh Two of the key elements of the emerging techno-economic paradigm are integration and synthesis. These two trends are indicative of the proccess of change modern capitalism is undergoing. David Wolfe in a chapter on the new paradigm describes: "The convergence of computers and telecommunications behind the new IT paradigm also allows electronic networks to integrate a range of diverse activities within firms or between firms across distant geographic spaces... As these firm-based information handling systems are linked into new digital telecommunication sytems that integrate voice, data and video transmissions, the basic infrastructure of the new prardigm is forged." (D. Wolfe, Chapter 3, pp. 24) Integration is the driving metaphor of change, describing the emergence of a new social system, based upon the socio-economic organization of information networks. Parties with vested interests in the old paradigm may view the current transformation as a crisis. Integration and synthesis represent a new process of production departing from the fragmentation of mechanization. Breaking the process of production into specialized sectors, hierarchicly controlled, is quickly becoming outdated. However new methods of exploitation, domination, and control are quickly adapting to the new environment. "While westerners usually equate the marketplace with freedom of opinion, the hidden hand of the market can be almost as potent an instrument of control as the iron fist of the state." (Chomsky, Noam; Neccessary Illusions, Anansi Press, 1991 pp. 7) Attempts at managing the new paradigm have been indicative of the identity crisis now facing international elites. Western modes of management have failed to achieve optimum productivity due to their emphasis on mechanical, linear, static organization. The message of the network as medium suggests a holistic, acoustic, electric 'environment', that by nature is comprised of dynamic, continuously changing organization. Perhaps the dynamism of the eastern cultures are enabling an easier transition into the new age. Western cultures, and explicitly american culture have been based on individuality. The emphasis on collectivity and community has enabled the eastern cultures to cope with integration and synthesis as a natural progression. Western culture has met the challenge of integration with the community of corporate culture. The corporate tribe integrates and co-opts all in total commodification. As the elite and their systems of management adapt to the new paradigm in an attempt to enable the full benefits of the new media, integration and synthesis inspire the introduction of new management concepts. As the process of production undergoes synesthesia, previously excluded members become active participants in the end result. "As we saw above, the skill requirements of the new paradigm support the more effective integration of conception and execution on the shopfloor. Similarly, the new model of production and innovation facilitates a closer integration of the shopfloor and the R&D laboratory. Both of these developments support the trend towards a less hierarchical organization and the shifting of the autonomy/control dimension of skill towards greater autonomy for front line workers." (D. Wolfe, Chapter 3, pp. 35) In the face of labour empowerment, management must preserve the invested interests of production. A new interaction between human and techne, human and machine, is established, removing what autonomy ever existed. "Computer screens established an interface between biological and technological electricity, between the user and the networks." (Skin Of Culture, Derrick de Kerckhove, pp. 125) Domination and exploitation adapt to new media, becoming holistic, and part of the new hidden ground. "Literal censorship barely exists in the United States, but thought control is a flourishing industry, indeed an indispensable one in a society based on the principle of elite decision, public endorsement or passivity." (pp. 42, Pirates And Emperors, Noam Chomsky) Illusions of democracy and information networks as 'anarchy' divert political focus away from the real power imbedded in electronic information networks. "At home, the state has often employed force to curb dissent, and there have been regular and quite self-conscious campaigns by business to control 'the public mind' and suppress challenges to private power when implicit controls do not suffice." (necillu pp. 28) There are a number of competing conceptions of the emerging environment. Many different factions are eager to describe the new scape, identifying what should receive emphasis, and what should not. The technological change is followed by a proliferation of language directed towards understanding and acting in the face of such dramatic change. However language has been controled by the cultural hegemony that has been the american empire. Misconceptions of power, and it's inherent relationship to the current technologies still characterize much of the current debate. "Leading technologies and sectors of the old prardigm are giving way to the new." (Wolfe, pp. 36) This last sentence should read: ..are giving birth to the new... "The Pentagon system, a device used to make the public finance high-technology industry by means of the state-guaranteed market for the production of high-technology waste and thus to contribute to the programme of public subsidy, private profit, called 'free enterprise'" (Noam Chomsky, Pirates And Emperors, pp. 14) Traditional power interests have existed for centuries, and will probably continue for centuries more, although their numbers may dwindle. The so-called military-industrial complex has driven this integration as a means of evolving into the military-industrial-biological complex. A holistic institution of such totality as to achieve total integration accompanied by total market saturation achieving the state of total visibility. We become a society united by information. "Investments in enhancing technological knowledge at every level of sciety will pay significant dividends in the future. The key to international competitivieness involves the cumulative technological knowledge base of the enterprise, including the production skills and tacit knowledge of much of the workforce." (Wolfe, pp. 36) Universal access becomes the rally call of the elite, co-opting and integrating all into a movement to get wired. Once wired we are all sucsceptable to the analyses of neural networks. We are all members of the global database. We are all members of the process of production that rapes and maims while it colonizes. Integration and synthesis are the creation of the new economy. Integration and synthesis are the creation of the new being. "The integration of television and other news media within computer networks enables polling engineers to reduce the time intervalk between questions and answer, between action and reaction. The potential for manipulating opinions, in such conditions, is greatly amplified. This has many political and social repercussions. Increasingly, the politicians of western-style democracies owe their power base to meticulous computerized analyses of public opinion in any given arena. Campaign managers tailor their responses in locally appropriate media. During political campaigns the world over, TV stuffs its images into the electors' consciousness while computers analyze the polled responses, which are instantly presented as statistical facts. All tihs is supposed to help you make your mind. But when television and computers are integrated in a single feedback loop on urgent issues, that mind is made up for you. Your own mind may hardly be involved at all. It is one thing for polls to reflect, as accurately as possible, the opinions of a given community. It is quite another for the same polls to shape opinions, or present opinions which weren't there before. This is psychotechnology in action. Polls and statistics have a homogenizing effect on public opinion because they highlight, and thus promote, majority responses over dissent. In a culture where the means of making up one's mind are given less weight and time than those which make up the collective mind, it is easier to let the majority hold sway. This is one of the trade-offs between book and television culture." (Derrick de Kerckhove, Skin Of Culture, pp. 211) http://www.lglobal.com/TAO/ ___ ___ ___ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /:/ / /::\ / /::\ / /:/ / /:/\:\ / /:/\:\ / /::\ / /:/ /::\ / /:/ \:\ /__/:/\:\ /__/:/ /:/\:\ /__/:/ \__\:\ \__\/ \:\ \ \:\/:/__\/ \ \:\ / /:/ \ \:\ \ \::/ \ \:\ /:/ \ \:\ \ \:\ \ \:\/:/ \ \:\ \ \:\ \ \::/ \__\/ \__\/ \__\/ -------------------------------------------------------------- To receive the Anarchives via email send a note to Majordomo@lglobal.com with the message in the body: subscribe anarchives To get off the list, send to the same address but write: unsubscribe anarchives Also check out: