http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/HRC/ci/calif.html
see also
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/VD/MF/MFContents.html
The Californian Ideology
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron
"Not to lie about the future is impossible and
one can lie about it at will" - Naum Gabo 1
As the Dam Bursts...
At the end of the twentieth century, the long predicted
convergence of the media, computing and telecommunications into
hypermedia is finally happening. 2 Once again, capitalism's
relentless drive to diversify and intensify the creative powers of
human labour is on the verge of qualitatively transforming the way
in which we work, play and live together. By integrating different
technologies around common protocols, something is being created
which is more than the sum of its parts. When the ability to pro-
duce and receive unlimited amounts of information in any form is
combined with the reach of the global telephone networks, existing
forms of work and leisure can be fundamentally transformed. New
industries will be born and current stock market favourites will
swept away. At such moments of profound social change, anyone who
can offer a simple explanation of what is happening will be lis-
tened to with great interest. At this crucial juncture, a loose
alliance of writers, hackers, capitalists and artists from the
West Coast of the USA have succeeded in defining a heterogeneous
orthodoxy for the coming information age: the Californian
Ideology.
This new faith has emerged from a bizarre fusion of the cultural
bohemianism of San Francisco with the hi-tech industries of
Silicon Valley. Promoted in magazines, books, tv programmes, Web
sites, newsgroups and Net conferences, the Californian Ideology
promiscuously combines the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and
the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies. This amalgamation of
opposites has been achieved through a profound faith in the eman-
cipatory potential of the new information technologies. In the
digital utopia, everybody will be both hip and rich. Not
surprisingly, this optimistic vision of the future has been
enthusiastically embraced by computer nerds, slacker students,
innovative capitalists, social activists, trendy academics,
futurist bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians across the USA.
As usual, Europeans have not been slow in copying the latest fad
from America. While a recent EU Commission report recommends
following the Californian 'free market' model for building the
'information superhighway', cutting-edge artists and academics
eagerly imitate the 'post-human' philosophers of the West Coast's
Extropian cult. 3 With no obvious rivals, the triumph of the
Californian Ideology appears to be complete.
The widespread appeal of these West Coast ideologues isn't simply
the result of their infectious optimism. Above all, they are
passionate advocates of what appears to be an impeccably
libertarian form of politics - they want information technologies
to be used to create a new 'Jeffersonian democracy' where all
individuals will be able to express themselves freely within
cyberspace. 4 However, by championing this seemingly admirable
ideal, these techno-boosters are at the same time reproducing some
of the most atavistic features of American society, especially
those derived from the bitter legacy of slavery. Their utopian
vision of California depends upon a wilful blindness towards the
other - much less positive - features of life on the West Coast:
racism, poverty and environmental degradation. 5 Ironically, in
the not too distant past, the intellectuals and artists of the Bay
Area were passionately concerned about these issues.
Ronald Reagan v. the hippies
On 15 May 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan ordered armed police to
carry out a dawn raid against hippie protesters who had occupied
People's Park near the Berkeley campus of the University of
California. During the subsequent battle, one man was shot dead
and 128 other people needed hospital treatment. 6 On that day, the
'straight' world and the counter-culture appeared to be implacably
opposed. On one side of the barricades, Governor Reagan and his
followers advocated unfettered private enterprise and supported
the invasion of Vietnam. On the other side, the hippies championed
a social revolution at home and opposed imperial expansion abroad.
In the year of the raid on People's Park, it seemed that the
historical choice between these two opposing visions of America's
future could only be settled through violent conflict. As Jerry
Rubin, one of the Yippie leaders, said at the time: 'Our search
for adventure and heroism takes us outside America, to a life of
self-creation and rebellion. In response, America is ready to
destroy us...' 7
During in the '60s, radicals from the Bay Area pioneered the
political outlook and cultural style of New Left movements across
the world. Breaking with the narrow politics of the post-war era,
they launched campaigns against militarism, racism, sexual discri-
mination, homophobia, mindless consumerism and pollution. In place
of the traditional left's rigid hierarchies, they created
collective and democratic structures which supposedly prefigured
the libertarian society of the future. Above all, the Californian
New Left combined political struggle with cultural rebellion.
Unlike their parents, the hippies refused to conform to the rigid
social conventions imposed on organisation men by the military,
the universities, the corporations and even left-wing political
parties. Instead they openly declared their rejection of the
straight world through their casual dress, sexual promiscuity,
loud music and recreational drugs. 8 The radical hippies were
liberals in the social sense of the word. They championed
universalist, rational and progressive ideals, such as democracy,
tolerance, self-fulfillment and social justice. Emboldened by over
twenty years of economic growth, they believed that history was on
their side. In sci-fi novels, they dreamt of 'ecotopia': a future
California where cars had disappeared, industrial production was
ecologically viable, sexual relationships were egalitarian and
daily life was lived in community groups. 9 For some hippies, this
vision could only be realised by rejecting scientific progress as
a false God and returning to nature. Others, in contrast, believed
that technological progress would inevitably turn their li-
bertarian principles into social fact. Crucially, influenced by
the theories of Marshall McLuhan, these technophiliacs thought
that the convergence of media, computing and telecommunications
would inevitably create the electronic agora - a virtual place
where everyone would be able to express their opinions without
fear of censorship. Despite being a middle-aged English professor,
McLuhan preached the radical message that the power of big
business and big government would be imminently overthrown by the
intrinsically empowering effects of new technology on individuals.
'Electronic media...abolish the spatial dimension... By
electricity, we everywhere resume person-to-person relations as if
on the smallest village scale. It is a relation in depth, and
without delegation of functions or powers... Dialogue supersedes
the lecture.' 10
Encouraged by McLuhan's predictions, West Coast radicals became
involved in developing new information technologies for the
alternative press, community radio stations, home-brew computer
clubs and video collectives. These community media activists
believed that they were in the forefront of the fight to build a
new America. The creation of the electronic agora was the first
step towards the implementation of direct democracy within all
social institutions. 11 The struggle might be hard, but 'ecotopia'
was almost at hand. The Rise of the 'Virtual Class'
Who would have predicted that, in less than 30 years after the
battle for People's Park, squares and hippies would together
create the Californian Ideology? Who would have thought that such
a contradictory mix of technological determinism and libertarian
individualism would becoming the hybrid orthodoxy of the informa-
tion age? And who would have suspected that as technology and
freedom were worshipped more and more, it would become less and
less possible to say anything sensible about the society in which
they were applied?
The Californian Ideology derives its popularity from the very
ambiguity of its precepts. Over the last few decades, the
pioneering work of the community media activists has been largely
recuperated by the hi-tech and media industries. Although com-
panies in these sectors can mechanise and sub-contract much of
their labour needs, they remain dependent on key people who can
research and create original products, from software programs and
computer chips to books and tv programmes. Along with some hi-tech
entrepreneurs, these skilled workers form the so-called 'virtual
class': '...the techno-intelligentsia of cognitive scientists,
engineers, computer scientists, video-game developers, and all the
other communications specialists...' Unable to subject them to
the discipline of the assembly-line or replace them by machines,
managers have organised such intellectual workers through fixed-
term contracts. Like the 'labour aristocracy' of the last century,
core personnel in the media, computing and telecoms industries
experience the rewards and insecurities of the marketplace. On the
one hand, these hi-tech artisans not only tend to be well-paid,
but also have considerable autonomy over their pace of work and
place of employment. As a result, the cultural divide between the
hippie and the organisation man has now become rather fuzzy. Yet,
on the other hand, these workers are tied by the terms of their
contracts and have no guarantee of continued employment. Lacking
the free time of the hippies, work itself has become the main
route to self-fulfillment for much of the 'virtual class'. 13
The Californian Ideology offers a way of understanding the lived
reality of these hi-tech artisans. On the one hand, these core
workers are a privileged part of the labour force. On the other
hand, they are the heirs of the radical ideas of the community me-
dia activists. The Californian Ideology, therefore, simultaneously
reflects the disciplines of market economics and the freedoms of
hippie artisanship. This bizarre hybrid is only made possible
through a nearly universal belief in technological determinism.
Ever since the '60s, liberals - in the social sense of the word -
have hoped that the new information technologies would realise
their ideals. Responding to the challenge of the New Left, the New
Right has resurrected an older form of liberalism: economic
liberalism. In place of the collective freedom sought by the
hippie radicals, they have championed the liberty of individuals
within the marketplace. Yet even these conservatives couldn't
resist the romance of the new information technologies. Back in
the '60s, McLuhan's predictions were reinterpreted as an adverti-
sement for new forms of media, computers and telecommunications
being developed by the private sector. From the '70s onwards,
Toffler, de Sola Pool and other gurus attempted to prove that the
advent of hypermedia would paradoxically involve a return to the
economic liberalism of the past. 14 This retro-utopia echoed the
predictions of Asimov, Heinlein and other macho sci-fi novelists
whose future worlds were always filled with space traders,
superslick salesmen, genius scientists, pirate captains and other
rugged individualists. 15 The path of technological progress
didn't always lead to 'ecotopia' - it could instead lead back to
the America of the Founding Fathers.
Electronic Agora or Electronic Marketplace?
The ambiguity of the Californian Ideology is most pronounced in
its contradictory visions of the digital future. The development
of hypermedia is a key component of the next stage of capitalism.
As Zuboff points out, the introduction of media, computing and
telecommunications technologies directly into the factory and the
office is the culmination of a long process of separation of the
workforce from direct involvement in production. 16 If only for
competitive reasons, all major industrial economies will
eventually be forced to wire up their populations to obtain the
productivity gains of digital working. What is unknown is the so-
cial and cultural impact of allowing people to produce and ex-
change almost unlimited quantities of information on a global
scale. Above all, will the advent of hypermedia will realise the
utopias of either the New Left or the New Right? As a hybrid
faith, the Californian Ideology happily answers this conundrum by
believing in both visions at the same time - and by not critici-
sing either of them.
On the one hand, the anti-corporate purity of the New Left has
been preserved by the advocates of the 'virtual community'.
According to their guru, Howard Rheingold, the values of the
counterDculture baby boomers are shaping the development of new
information technologies. As a consequence, community activists
will be able to use hypermedia to replace corporate capitalism and
big government with a hi-tech 'gift economy'. Already bulletin
board systems, Net real-time conferences and chat facilities rely
on the voluntary exchange of information and knowledge between
their participants. In Rheingold's view, the members of the
'virtual class' are still in the forefront of the struggle for
social liberation. Despite the frenzied commercial and political
involvement in building the 'information superhighway', the
electronic agora will inevitably triumph over its corporate and
bureaucratic enemies. 17
On the other hand, other West Coast ideologues have embraced the
laissez faire ideology of their erstwhile conservative enemy. For
example, Wired - the monthly bible of the 'virtual class' - has
uncritically reproduced the views of Newt Gingrich, the extreme-
right Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and the
Tofflers, who are his close advisors. 18 Ignoring their policies
for welfare cutbacks, the magazine is instead mesmerised by their
enthusiasm for the libertarian possibilities offered by new
information technologies. However, although they borrow McLuhan's
technological determinism, Gingrich and the Tofflers aren't
advocates of the electronic agora. On the contrary, they claim
that the convergence of the media, computing and telecom-
munications will produce an electronic marketplace: 'In
cyberspace..., market after market is being transformed by
technological progress from a "natural monopoly" to one in which
competition is the rule.' 19
In this version of the Californian Ideology, each member of the
'virtual class' is promised the opportunity to become a successful
hi-tech entrepreneur. Information technologies, so the argument
goes, empower the individual, enhance personal freedom, and
radically reduce the power of the nation-state. Existing social,
political and legal power structures will wither away to be repla-
ced by unfettered interactions between autonomous individuals and
their software. These restyled McLuhanites vigorously argue that
big government should stay off the backs of resourceful
entrepreneurs who are the only people cool and courageous enough
to take risks. In place of counter-productive regulations,
visionary engineers are inventing the tools needed to create a
'free market' within cyberspace, such as encryption, digital money
and verification procedures. Indeed, attempts to interfere with
the emergent properties of these technological and economic
forces, particularly by the government, merely rebound on those
who are foolish enough to defy the primary laws of nature.
According to the executive editor of Wired, the 'invisible hand'
of the marketplace and the blind forces of Darwinian evolution are
actually one and the same thing. 20 As in Heinlein's and Asimov's
sci-fi novels, the path forwards to the future seems to lead back
to the past. The twenty-first century information age will be the
realisation of the eighteenth century liberal ideals of Thomas
Jefferson: '...the...creation of a new civilisation, founded in
the eternal truths of the American Idea.' 21
The Myth of the 'Free Market'
Following the victory of Gingrich's party in the 1994 legislative
elections, this right-wing version of the Californian Ideology is
now in the ascendant. Yet, the sacred tenets of economic
liberalism are contradicted by the actual history of hypermedia.
For instance, the iconic technologies of the computer and the Net
could only have been invented with the aid of massive state
subsidies and the enthusiastic involvement of amateurs. Private
enterprise has played an important role, but only as one part of a
mixed economy.
For example, the first computer - the Difference Engine - was
designed and built by private companies, but its development was
only made possible through a British Government grant of 17,470,
which was a small fortune in 1834. 22 From Colossus to EDVAC, from
flight simulators to virtual reality, the development of computing
has depended at key moments on public research handouts or fat
contracts with public agencies. The IBM corporation only built the
first programmable digital computer after it was requested to do
so by the US Defense Department during the Korean War. 23 Ever
since, the development of successive generations of computers has
been directly or indirectly subsidised by the American defence
budget. As well as state aid, the evolution of computing has also
depended upon the involvement of d.i.y. culture. For instance, the
personal computer was invented by amateur techies who wanted to
construct their own cheap machines. The existence of a 'gift eco-
nomy' amongst hobbyists was a necessary precondition for the
subsequent success of products made by Apple and Microsoft. Even
now, shareware programs still play a vital role in advancing
software design.
The history of the Internet also contradicts the tenets of the
'free market' ideologues. For the first twenty years of its
existence, the Net's development was almost completely dependent
on the much reviled American federal government. Whether via the
US military or through the universities, large amounts of tax
payers' dollars went into building the Net infrastructure and
subsidising the cost of using its services. At the same time, many
of the key Net programs and applications were invented either by
hobbyists or by professionals working in their spare-time. For
instance, the MUD program which allows real-time Net conferencing
was invented by a group of students who wanted to play fantasy
games over a computer network. 24
One of the weirdest things about the rightwards drift of the
Californian Ideology is that the West Coast itself is a creation
of the mixed economy. Government dollars were used to build the
irrigation systems, highways, schools, universities and other
infrastructural projects which makes the good life possible in
California. On top of these public subsidies, the West Coast hi-
tech industrial complex has been feasting off the fattest pork
barrel in history for decades. The US government has poured
billions of tax dollars into buying planes, missiles, electronics
and nuclear bombs from Californian companies. For those not
blinded by 'free market' dogmas, it was obvious that the Americans
have always had state planning: only they call it the defence
budget. 25 At the same time, key elements of the West Coast's
lifestyle come from its long tradition of cultural bohemianism.
Although they were later commercialised, community media, 'new
age' spiritualism, surfing, health food, recreational drugs, pop
music and many other forms of cultural heterodoxy all emerged from
the decidedly non-commercial scenes based around university campu-
ses, artists' communities and rural communes. Without its d.i.y.
culture, California's myths wouldn't have the global resonance
which they have today. 26
All of this public funding and community involvement has had an
enormously beneficial - albeit unacknowledged and uncosted -
effect on the development of Silicon Valley and other hi-tech
industries. Capitalist entrepreneurs often have an inflated sense
of their own resourcefulness in developing new ideas and give
little recognition to the contributions made by either the state,
their own labour force or the wider community. All technological
progress is cumulative - it depends on the results of a collective
historical process and must be counted, at least in part, as a
collective achievement. Hence, as in every other industrialised
country, American entrepreneurs have inevitably relied on state
intervention and d.i.y. initiatives to nurture and develop their
industries. When Japanese companies threatened to take over the
American microchip market, the libertarian computer capitalists of
California had no ideological qualms about joining a state-sponso-
red cartel organised to fight off the invaders from the East.
Until the Net programs allowing community participation within
cyberspace could be included, Bill Gates believed that Microsoft
had no choice but to delay the launch of 'Windows '95'. 27 As in
other sectors of the modern economy, the question facing the
emerging hypermedia industry isn't whether or not it will be
organised as a mixed economy, but what sort of mixed economy it
will be.
Freedom is Slavery
If its holy precepts are refuted by profane history, why have the
myths of the 'free market' so influenced the proponents of the
Californian Ideology? Living within a contract culture, the hi-
tech artisans lead a schizophrenic existence. On the one hand,
they cannot challenge the primacy of the marketplace over their
lives. On the other hand, they resent attempts by those in
authority to encroach on their individual autonomy. By mixing New
Left and New Right, the Californian Ideology provides a mystical
resolution of the contradictory attitudes held by members of the
'virtual class'. Crucially, anti-statism provides the means to
reconcile radical and reactionary ideas about technological
progress. While the New Left dislikes the government for funding
the military-industrial complex, the New Right attacks the state
for interfering with the spontaneous dissemination of new
technologies by market competition. Despite the central role
played by public intervention in developing hypermedia, the
Californian ideologues preach an anti-statist gospel of hi-tech
libertarianism: a bizarre mish-mash of hippie anarchism and
economic liberalism beefed up with lots of technological determi-
nism. Rather than comprehend really existing capitalism, gurus
from both New Left and New Right much prefer to advocate rival
versions of a digital 'Jeffersonian democracy'. For instance,
Howard Rheingold on the New Left believes that the electronic
agora will allow individuals to exercise the sort of media freedom
advocated by the Founding Fathers. Similarly, the New Right claim
that the removal of all regulatory curbs on the private enterprise
will create media freedom worthy of a 'Jefferson democracy'. 28
The triumph of this retro-futurism is a result of the failure of
renewal in the USA during the late '60s and early '70s. Following
the confrontation at People's Park, the struggle between the
American establishment and the counter-culture entered into a
downward spiral of violent confrontation. While the Vietnamese -
at the cost of enormous human suffering - were able to expel the
American invaders from their country, the hippies and their allies
in the black civil rights movement were eventually crushed by a
combination of state repression and cultural co-option. The
Californian Ideology perfectly encapsulates the consequences of
this defeat for members of the 'virtual class'. Although they
enjoy cultural freedoms won by the hippies, most of them are no
longer actively involved in the struggle to build 'ecotopia'.
Instead of openly rebelling against the system, these hi-tech
artisans now accept that individual freedom can only be achieved
by working within the constraints of technological progress and
the 'free market'. In many cyberpunk novels, this asocial liberta-
rianism is portrayed by the central character of the hacker, who
is a lone individual fighting for survival within the virtual
world of information. 29
The drift towards the right by the Californian ideologues is the
helped by their unquestioning acceptance of the liberal ideal of
the self-sufficient individual. In American folklore, the nation
was built out of a wilderness by free-booting individuals - the
trappers, cowboys, preachers, and settlers of the frontier. The
American revolution itself was fought to protect the freedoms and
property of individuals against oppressive laws and unjust taxes
imposed by a foreign monarch. For both the New Left and the New
Right, the early years of the American republic provide a potent
model for their rival versions of individual freedom. Yet there is
a profound contradiction at the centre of this primordial American
dream: individuals in this period only prospered through the
suffering of others. Nowhere is this clearer than in the life of
Thomas Jefferson - the chief icon of the Californian Ideology.
Thomas Jefferson was the man who wrote the inspiring call for
democracy and liberty in the American Declaration of Independence
and - at the same time - owned nearly 200 human beings as slaves.
As a politician, he championed the right of American peasants and
artisans to determine their own destinies without being subject to
the restrictions of feudal Europe. Like other liberals of the pe-
riod, he thought that political liberties could only be protected
from authoritarian governments by the widespread ownership of
individual private property. The rights of citizens were derived
from this fundamental natural right. In order to encourage self-
sufficiency, he proposed that every American should be given at
least 50 acres of land to guarantee their economic independence.
Yet, while idealising the small farmers and businessmen of the
frontier, Jefferson was actually a Virginian plantation-owner
living off the labour of his slaves. Although the South's
'peculiar institution' troubled his conscience, he still believed
that the natural rights of man included the right to own human
beings as private property. In 'Jeffersonian democracy', freedom
for white folks was based upon slavery for black people. 30
Forward Into the Past
Despite the eventual emancipation of the slaves and the victories
of the civil rights movement, racial segregation still lies at the
centre of American politics - especially on the West Coast. In the
1994 election for governor in California, Pete Wilson, the
Republican candidate, won through a vicious anti-immigrant cam-
paign. Nationally, the triumph of Gingrich's Republican party in
the legislative elections was based on the mobilisation of 'angry
white males' against the supposed threat from black welfare
scroungers, immigrants from Mexico and other uppity minorities.
These politicians have reaped the electoral benefits of the in-
creasing polarisation between the mainly white, affluent
suburbanites - most of whom vote - and the largely non-white,
poorer inner city dwellers - most of whom don't vote. Although
they retain some hippie ideals, many Californian ideologues have
found it impossible to take a clear stand against the divisive
policies of the Republicans. This is because the hi-tech and media
industries are a key element of the New Right electoral coalition.
In part, both capitalists and well-paid workers fear that the open
acknowledgement of public funding of their companies would justify
tax rises to pay for desperately needed spending on health care,
environmental protection, housing, public transport and education.
More importantly, many members of the 'virtual class' want to be
seduced by the libertarian rhetoric and technological enthusiasm
of the New Right. Working for hi-tech and media companies, they
would like to believe that the electronic marketplace can somehow
solve America's pressing social and economic problems without any
sacrifices on their part. Caught in the contradictions of the
Californian Ideology, Gingrich is - as one Wired contributor put
it - both their 'friend and foe'. 32
In the USA, a major redistribution of wealth is urgently needed in
the long-term economic well-being of the country. However, this is
against the short-term interests of rich white folks, including
many members of the 'virtual class'. Rather than share with their
poor black or hispanic neighbours, the yuppies instead retreat
into their affluent suburbs, protected by armed guards and secure
with their private welfare services. 33 The deprived only partici-
pate in the information age by providing cheap non-unionised la-
bour for the unhealthy factories of the Silicon Valley chip
manufacturers. 34 Even the construction of cyberspace has become
an integral part of the fragmentation of American society into
antagonistic, racially-determined classes. Already 'red-lined' by
profit-hungry telcos, the inhabitants of poor inner city areas are
prevented from accessing the new on-line services through lack of
money. 35 In contrast, members of the 'virtual class' and other
professionals can play at being cyberpunks within hyper-reality
without having to meet any of their impoverished neighbours.
Alongside the ever-widening social divisions, another apartheid is
being created between the 'information-rich' and the 'information-
poor'. In this hi-tech 'Jeffersonian democracy', the difference
between masters and slaves endures in a new form.
Cyborg Masters and Robot Slaves
The fear of the rebellious 'underclass' has now corrupted the most
fundamental tenet of the Californian Ideology: its belief in the
emancipatory potentiality of the new information technologies.
While the proponents of the electronic agora and the electronic
marketplace promise to liberate individuals from the hierarchies
of the state and private monopolies, the social polarisation of
American society is bringing forth a more oppressive vision of the
digital future. The technologies of freedom are turning into the
machines of dominance.
At his estate at Monticello, Jefferson invented many clever
gadgets for his house, such as a 'dumb waiter' to deliver food
from the kitchen into the dining room. By mediating his contacts
with his slaves through technology, this revolutionary indivi-
dualist spared himself from facing the reality of his dependence
upon the forced labour of his fellow human beings. 36 In the late-
twentieth century, technology is once again being used to
reinforce the difference between the masters and the slaves.
According to some visionaries, the search for the perfection of
mind, body and spirit will inevitably lead to the emergence of the
'post-human': a bio-technological manifestation of the social
privileges of the 'virtual class'. While the hippies saw self-de-
velopment as part of social liberation, the hi-tech artisans of
contemporary California are more likely to seek individual self-
fulfillment through therapy, spiritualism, exercise or other
narcissistic pursuits. Their desire to escape into the gated
suburb of the hyper-real is only one aspect of this deep self-ob-
session. 37 Emboldened by supposed advances in 'Artificial
Intelligence' and medical science, the Extropian cult fantasises
of abandoning the 'wetware' of the human state altogether to
become living machines. 38 Just like Virek and the Tessier-
Ashpools in Gibson's 'Sprawl' novels, they believe that social
privilege will eventually endow them with immortality. 39 Instead
of predicting the emancipation of humanity, this form of
technological determinism can only envisage a deepening of social
segregation.
Despite these fantasies, white people in California remain
dependent on their darker-skinned fellow humans to work in their
factories, pick their crops, look after their children and tend
their gardens. Following the L.A. riots, they increasingly fear
that this 'underclass' will someday demand its liberation. If
human slaves are ultimately unreliable, then mechanical ones will
have to be invented. The search for the holy grail of 'Artificial
Intelligence' reveals this desire for the Golem - a strong and
loyal slave whose skin is the colour of the earth and whose
innards are made of sand. As in Asimov's 'Robot' novels, the
techno-utopians imagine that it is possible to obtain slaveDlike
labour from inanimate machines. 40 Yet, although technology can
store or amplify labour, it can never remove the necessity for
humans to invent, build and maintain these machines in the first
place. Slave labour cannot be obtained without somebody being
enslaved.
Across the world, the Californian Ideology has been embraced as an
optimistic and emancipatory form of technological determinism.
Yet, this utopian fantasy of the West Coast depends upon its
blindness towards - and dependence on - the social and racial
polarisation of the society from which it was born. Despite its
radical rhetoric, the Californian Ideology is ultimately pessi-
mistic about real social change. Unlike the hippies, its advocates
are not struggling to build 'ecotopia' or even to help revive the
New Deal. Instead, the social liberalism of New Left and the
economic liberalism of New Right have converged into an ambiguous
dream of a hi-tech 'Jeffersonian democracy'. Interpreted
generously, this retro-futurism could be a vision of a cybernetic
frontier where hi-tech artisans discover their individual self-
fulfillment in either the electronic agora or the electronic
marketplace. However, as the zeitgeist of the 'virtual class', the
Californian Ideology is at the same time an exclusive faith. If
only some people have access to the new information technologies,
'Jeffersonian democracy' can become a hi-tech version of the plan-
tation economy of the Old South. Reflecting its deep ambiguity,
the Californian Ideology's technological determinism is not simply
optimistic and emancipatory. It is simultaneously a deeply
pessimistic and repressive vision of the future.
There are Alternatives
Despite its deep contradictions, people across the world still
believe that the Californian Ideology expresses the only way
forward to the future. With the increasing globalisation of the
world economy, many members of the 'virtual class' in Europe and
Asia feel more affinity with their Californian peers than other
workers within their own country. Yet, in reality, debate has
never been more possible or more necessary. The Californian
Ideology was developed by a group of people living within one
specific country with a particular mix of socio-economic and
technological choices. Its eclectic and contradictory blend of
conservative economics and hippie radicalism reflects the history
of the West Coast - and not the inevitable future of the rest of
the world. For instance, the anti-statist assumptions of the
Californian ideologues are rather parochial. In Singapore, the
government is not only organising the construction of a fibre-
optic network, but also trying to control the ideological suit-
ability of the information distributed over it. Given the much
faster growth rates of the Asian 'tigers', the digital future will
not necessarily first arrive in California. 41
Despite the recommendations of the Bangemann Report, most European
authorities are also determined to be closely involved within the
development of new information technologies. Minitel - the first
successful on-line network in the world - was the deliberate crea-
tion of the French state. Responding to an official report on the
potential impact of hypermedia, the government decided to pour
resources into developing 'cutting edge' technologies. In 1981,
France Telecom launched the Minitel system which provided a mix of
text-based information and communications facilities. As a
monopoly, this nationalised telco was able to build up a critical
mass of users for its pioneering on-line system by giving away
free terminals to anyone willing to forgo paper telephone
directories. Once the market had been created, commercial and
community providers were then able to find enough customers or
participants to thrive within the system. Ever since, millions of
French people from all social backgrounds have happily booked
tickets, chatted each other up and politically organised on-line
without realising they were breaking the libertarian precepts of
the Californian Ideology. 42
Far from demonising the state, the overwhelming majority of the
French population believe that more public intervention is needed
for an efficient and healthy society. 43 In the recent
presidential elections, almost every candidate had to advocate -
at least rhetorically - greater state intervention to end social
exclusion of the unemployed and homeless. Unlike its American
equivalent, the French revolution went beyond economic liberalism
to popular democracy. Following the victory of the Jacobins over
their liberal opponents in 1792, the democratic republic in France
became the embodiment of the 'general will'. As such, the state
was believed to defend the interests of all citizens, rather than
just to protect the rights of individual property-owners. The
discourse of French politics allows for collective action by the
state to mitigate - or even remove - problems encountered by
society. While the Californian ideologues try to ignore the
taxpayers' dollars subsidising the development of hypermedia, the
French government can openly intervene in this sector of the
economy. 44
Although its technology is now dated, the history of Minitel
clearly refutes the anti-statist prejudices of the Californian
ideologues - and of the Bangemann committee. The digital future
can be a hybrid of state intervention, capitalist entrepreneurship
and d.i.y. culture. Crucially, if the state can foster the deve-
lopment of hypermedia, conscious action could also be taken to
prevent the emergence of the social apartheid between the
'information rich' and the 'information poor'. By not leaving
everything up to the vagaries of market forces, the EU and its
member states could ensure that every citizen has the opportunity
to be connected to a broadband fibre-optic network at the lowest
possible price.
In the first instance, this would be a much needed job creation
scheme in a period of mass unemployment. As Keynesian employment
measure, nothing beats paying people to dig holes in the road and
fill them in again. Even more importantly, the construction of a
fibre-optic network into homes and businesses could give everyone
access to new on-line services and create a large vibrant commu-
nity of shared expertise. The long-term gains to the economy and
to society from the building of the 'infobahn' would be
immeasurable. It would allow industry to work more efficiently and
market new products. It would ensure that education and infor-
mation services were available to all. No doubt the 'infobahn'
will create a mass market for private companies to sell existing
information commodities - films, tv programmes, music and books -
across the Net. At the same time, once people can distribute as
well as receive hypermedia, a flourishing of community media and
special interest groups will quickly emerge. For all this to
happen, collective intervention will be needed to ensure that all
citizens are included within the digital future.
The Rebirth of the Modern
Even if it is not in circumstances of their own choosing, it is
now necessary for Europeans to assert their own vision of the
future. There are varying ways forward towards the information
society and some paths are more desirable than others. In order to
make an informed choice, European hi-tech artisans need to develop
a more coherent analysis of the impact of hypermedia than can be
found within the ambiguities of the Californian Ideology. The
members of the European 'virtual class' must create their own
distinctive self-identity.
This alternative understanding of the future starts from a
rejection of any form of social apartheid - both inside and
outside cyberspace. Any programme for developing hypermedia must
ensure that the whole population can have access to the new on-
line services. In place of New Left or New Right anarchism, a
European strategy for developing the new information technologies
must openly acknowledge the inevitability of some form of mixed
economy - the creative and antagonistic mix of state, corporate
and d.i.y. initiatives. The indeterminacy of the digital future is
a result of the ubiquity of this mixed economy within the modern
world. No one knows exactly what the relative strengths of each
component will be, but collective action can ensure that no social
group is deliberately excluded from cyberspace. A European
strategy for the information age must also celebrate the creative
powers of the hi-tech artisans. Because their labour cannot be
deskilled or mechanised, members of the 'virtual class' exercise
great control over their own work. Rather than succumbing to the
fatalism of the Californian Ideology, we should embrace the
Promethean possibilities of hypermedia. Within the limitations of
the mixed economy, hi-tech artisans are able to invent something
completely new - something which has not been predicted in any
sci-fi novel. These innovative forms of knowledge and
communications will sample the achievements of others, including
some aspects of the Californian Ideology. It is now impossible for
any serious movement for social emancipation not to include de-
mands for feminism, drug culture, gay liberation, ethnic identity
and other issues pioneered by West Coast radicals. Similarly, any
attempt to develop hypermedia within Europe will need some of the
entrepreneurial zeal and can-do attitude championed by the
Californian New Right. Yet, at the same time, the development of
hypermedia means innovation, creativity and invention. There are
no precedents for all aspects of the digital future.
As pioneers of the new, the hi-tech artisans need to reconnect
themselves with the theory and practice of productive art. They
are not just employees of others - or even would-be cybernetic
entrepreneurs. They are also artist-engineers - designers of the
next stage of modernity. Drawing on the experience of the Saint-
Simonists and Constructivists, the hi-tech artisans can create a
new machine aesthetic for the information age. 45 For instance,
musicians have used computers to develop purely digital forms of
music, such as jungle and techno. 46 Interactive artists have
explored the potentiality of CD-rom technologies, such as Sass's
Anti-Rom. The Hypermedia Research Centre has constructed an expe-
rimental virtual social space called J's Joint. 47 In each
instance, artist-engineers are trying to push beyond the
limitations of both the technologies and their own creativity.
Above all, these new forms of expression and communications are
connected with the wider culture. The developers of hypermedia
must reassert the possibility of rational and conscious control
over the shape of the digital future. Unlike the elitism of the
Californian Ideology, the European artist-engineers must construct
a cyberspace which is inclusive and universal. Now is the time for
the rebirth of the Modern.
'Present circumstances favour making luxury national. Luxury will
become useful and moral when it is enjoyed by the whole nation.
the honour and advantage of employing directly, in political
arrangements, the progress of exact sciences and the fine
arts...have been reserved for our century.' 48
Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron are members of the Hypermedia
Research Centre of the University of Westminster, London. We would
like to thank Andrej kerlep, Dick Pountain, Helen Barbrook, Jim
McLellan, John Barker, John Wyver, Rhiannon Patterson and the
members of the HRC for their help in writing this article.
For the theory and practice of the Hypermedia Research Centre,
see: http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/
1 Naum Gabo and Anton Pevsner, 'The Realistic Manifesto, 1920',
in John E. Bowlt (ed.), Russian Art of the Avant-Garde: Theory and
Criticism, London 1976, p. 214.
2 For over 25 years, experts have been predicting the imminent
arrival of the information age, see Alain Touraine, La Soci t
post-industrielle, Paris 1969; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two
Ages: America's role in the Technetronic Era, New York 1970;
Daniel Bell, The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society, New York
1973; Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave, London 1980; Simon Nora and
Alain Minc, The Computerisation of Society, Cambridge 1980 and
Ithiel de Sola Pool, Technologies of Freedom, Harvard 1983.
3 See Martin Bangemann, Europe and the global information
society, Brussels, 1994 (available through http://www.echo.lu) and
the programme and abstracts of the Warwick University's 'Virtual
Futures '95 Conference' on
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/WWW/faculties/so-
cial_studies/Philosophy/events/vf
4 See Mitch Kapor, 'Where is the Digital Highway Really Heading?'
in Wired, July/August 1993.
5 See Mike Davis, City of Quartz, Verso, London 1990, Richard
Walker, 'California Rages Against the Dying of the Light', NLR 209
January-February 1995 and the records of Ice-T, Snoop Dog, Dr Dre,
Ice Cube, NWA and many other West Coast rappers.
6 See George Katsiaficas, The Imagination of the New Left: a
Global Analysis of 1968, Boston 1987, p. 124. Jerry Rubin, 'An
Emergency Letter to my Brothers and Sisters in the Movement' in
Peter Stansill and David Zane Mairowitz (eds.), BAMN: Outlaw
Manifestos and Ephemera 1965-70, London 1971, p. 244.
7 For the key role played by popular culture in the self-identity
of
the American New Left, see Katsiaficas, op. cit., and Charles
Reich, The
Greening of America, New York 1970.
8 In a best-selling novel of the mid-'70s, the northern half of
the West Coast has seceded from the rest of the USA to form a
hippie utopia, see Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia, New York 1975.
This idealisation of Californian community life can also be found
in John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider, London 1975, and even in
later works, such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Pacific Edge, London
1990.
9 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, London 1964, pp. 255-6.
Also see Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the
Massage, London 1967; Gerald Emanuel Stern (ed.), McLuhan: Hot &
Cool, London 1968.
10 See John Downing, Radical Media, Boston 1984.
11 Arthur Kroker and Michael A. Weinstein, Data Trash: the theory
of the virtual class, Montreal 1994, p. 15. Back in the '60s, some
New Left theorists believed that these scientific-technical
workers were leading the struggle for social liberation through
their factory occupations and demands for self-management, see
Serge Mallet, The New Working Class, Nottingham 1975. In contrast,
futurologists thought that members of these professions as an
embryo of a new ruling class, see Daniel Bell, op. cit..
12 See Dennis Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain, London 1989, for
a description of contract work in Silicon Valley. For more
theoretical examinations of post-Fordist labour organisation, see
Alain Lipietz, L'audace ou l'enlisement, Paris 1984; Mirages and
Miracles, Verso London 1987; Benjamin Coriat, L'atelier et le
robot, Paris 1990; and Toni Negri, Revolution Retrieved: Selected
Writings on Marx, Keynes, Capitalist Crisis & New Social Subjects
1967-83, London 1988.
13 For McLuhan's success on the corporate junket circuit, see Tom
Wolfe, 'What If He Is Right?', The Pump House Gang, London 1968.
For the
use of his ideas by more conservative thinkers, see Alvin Toffler,
op.
cit., Ithiel de Sola Pool, op. cit., Daniel Bell, op. cit., and
Zbigniew
Brzezinski, op. cit.
14 Heroic males are common throughout classic sci-fi novels, see
D. D. Harriman in Robert Heinlein, The Man Who Sold the Moon, New
York 1950, or the leading characters in Isaac Asimov, The
Foundation Trilogy, New York 1953, I, Robot, London 1968, and The
Rest of the Robots, London 1968. Hagbard Celine - a more
psychedelic version of this male archetype - is the central
character in Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminati
Trilogy, New York 1975. In the timechart of 'future history' at
the front of Robert Heinlein's novel, it predicts that, after a
period of social crisis caused by rapid technological advance,
stability would restored in the 1980s and '90s through '...an
opening of new frontiers and a return to nineteenth-century
economy'!
15 See Shoshana Zuboff, In the Age of the Smart Machine: the
future of work and power, New York 1988. Of course, this analysis
is derived from Karl Marx, Grundrisse, London 1973; and 'Results
of the Immediate Process of Production' in Albert Dragstedt (ed.),
Value Studies by Marx, London 1976.
16 See Howard Rheingold, Virtual Communities, London 1994, and
his home pages on http://www.well.com/user/hlr/
17 See the gushing interview with the Tofflers in Peter Schwartz,
'Shock Wave (Anti) Warrior', Wired, November 1993, and, for the
magazine's characteristic ambiguity over the Speaker of the
House's reactionary political programme, see the aptly named in-
terview with Newt Gingrich in Esther Dyson, 'Friend and Foe',
Wired, August 1995.
18 The Progress and Freedom Foundation, Cyberspace and the
American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age,
http://www.pff.org/position.html, p. 5.
19 See Kevin Kelly, Out of Control: the New Biology of Machines,
London 1994.
20 Progress and Freedom Foundation, op. cit., p. 13. Toffler and
friends also proudly proclaim that: 'America...remains the land of
individual freedom, and this freedom clearly extends to
cyberspace', op. cit., p. 6. Also see Mitch Kapor, op. cit..
22 Simon Schaffer, Babbage's Intelligence: Calculating Engines
and the Factory System,
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/schaffer/schaffer01.html
23 The Dream Machine, Palfreman and Swade, London 1991. See pages
32 - 36 for an account of how a lack of state intervention meant
that Nazi Germany lost the opportunity to build the world's first
electronic computer. In 1941 the German High Command refused
further funding to Konrad Zuze, who had pioneered the use of
binary code, stored programs and electronic logic gates.
24 See Howard Rheingold, op. cit..
25 See Ann Markusen, Peter Hall, Scott Campbell and Sabina
Detrick, The Rise of the Gunbelt, New York 1991.
26 For an account of how these cultural innovations emerged from
the early acid scene, see Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid
Test, New York 1968. Interestingly, one of the drivers of the fa-
mous bus was Stewart Brand, who is now a leading contributor to
Wired.
27 Dennis Hayes, op. cit., points out that the American computer
industry has already encouraged by the Pentagon to form cartels
against foreign competition. Gates admits that he'd only recently
realised the 'massive structural change' being caused by the Net,
see 'The Bill Gates Column', The Guardian, 20 July 1995.
28 See Howard Rheingold's Web pages, op. cit., and Mitch Kapor,
op. cit.. Despite the libertarian instincts of both these writers,
their infatuation with the era of the Founding Fathers is shared
by the neo-fascist Militia and Patriot movements, see Chip Berlet,
Armed Militias, Right Wing Populism & Scapegoating, on
http://www.paul.spu.edu/~sinnfein/progressive.html
29 See the hacker heroes in William Gibson, Neuromancer, London
1984, Count Zero, London 1986, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, London
19889, or in Bruce Sterling (ed.), Mirrorshades, London 1988. A
prototype of this sort of anti-hero is Dekker, the existential
hunter of replicants in Ridley Scott's Bladerunner.
30 According to Miller, Thomas Jefferson believed that black
people could not be members of the Lockean social contract which
bound together citizens of the American republic. 'The rights of
man...while theoretically and ideally the birthright of every
human being, applied in practice in the United States only to
white men: the black slaves were excluded from consideration
because, while admittedly human beings, they were also property,
and where the rights of man conflicted with the rights of pro-
perty, property took precedence', see John Miller, The Wolf by the
Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, New York 1977, p. 13.
Jefferson's opposition to slavery was at best rhetorical. In a
letter of 22
27 Dennis Hayes, op. cit., points out that the American computer
industry has already encouraged by the Pentagon to form cartels
against foreign competition. Gates admits that he'd only recently
realised the 'massive structural change' being caused by the Net,
see 'The Bill Gates Column', The Guardian, 20 July 1995.
28 See Howard Rheingold's Web pages, op. cit., and Mitch Kapor,
op. cit.. Despite the libertarian instincts of both these writers,
their infatuation with the era of the Founding Fathers is shared
by the neo-fascist Militia and Patriot movements, see Chip Berlet,
Armed Militias, Right Wing Populism & Scapegoating, on
http://www.paul.spu.edu/~sinnfein/progressive.html
29 See the hacker heroes in William Gibson, Neuromancer, London
1984, Count Zero, London 1986, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, London
19889, or in Bruce Sterling (ed.), Mirrorshades, London 1988. A
prototype of this sort of anti-hero is Dekker, the existential
hunter of replicants in Ridley Scott's Bladerunner.
30 According to Miller, Thomas Jefferson believed that black
people could not be members of the Lockean social contract which
bound together citizens of the American republic. 'The rights of
man...while theoretically and ideally the birthright of every
human being, applied in practice in the United States only to
white men: the black slaves were excluded from consideration
because, while admittedly human beings, they were also property,
and where the rights of man conflicted with the rights of pro-
perty, property took precedence', see John Miller, The Wolf by the
Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, New York 1977, p.13.
Jefferson's opposition to slavery was at best rhetorical. In a
letter of 22 April 1820, he disingenuously suggested that the best
way to encourage the abolition of slavery would be to legalise the
private ownership of human beings in all States of the Union and
the frontier territories! He claimed that '...their diffusion over
a greater surface would make them individually happier, and
proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their eman-
cipation, by dividing the burden on a greater number of coadjutors
[i.e. slave-owners]', see Merill Peterson (ed.), The Portable
Thomas Jefferson, New York 1975, p. 568. For a description of his
life on his plantation, also see Paul Wilstach, Jefferson and
Monticello, London 1925.
31 For California's turn to the Right, see Richard Walker,
'California Rages Against the Dying of the Light', NLR 209,
January-February 1995.
32 See Esther Dyson, op. cit.. Esther Dyson collaborated with the
Tofflers in the writing of The Peace and Progress Foundation's
Cyberspace and the American Dream, op. cit., which is a futurist
manifesto designed to win votes for Gingrich from members of the
'virtual class'.
33 For the rise of the fortified suburbs, see Mike Davis, City of
Quartz, London 1990 and Urban Control: the Ecology of Fear, New
Jersey 1992. These 'gated suburbs' provide the inspiration for the
alienated background of many cyberpunk sci-fi novels, such as Neal
Stephenson, Snow Crash, New York 1992.
34 See Hayes, op. cit..
35 See Reginald Stuart, 'High-Tech Redlining', Utne Reader, 68
March-April 1995.
36 See Paul Wilstach, op. cit.
37 See Dennis Hayes, op. cit..
38 For an exposition of their futurist programme, see the
Extropians' FAQ on http://www.C2.org/~arkuat/exi/faq/exifaq.html
39 See William Gibson, op. cit..
40 See Isaac Asimov, op. cit..
41 See William Gibson and Sandy Sandfort, 'Disneyland with the
Death Penalty', Wired, September/October 1993. Since these
articles are an attack on Singapore, it is ironic that the real
Disneyland is in California, whose repressive penal code includes
the death penalty!
42 For the report which led to the creation of Minitel, see
Simon Nora and Alain Minc, op. cit.. An account of the early years
of Minitel can be found in Michel Marchand, The Minitel Saga: A
French Success Story, Paris 1988.
43 According to a poll carried out during the 1995 presidential
elections, 67% of the French population supported the proposition
that "the state must intervene more in the economic life of our
country", see 'Une majorit de Fran ais souhaitent un vrai "chef"
pour un vrai "Etat"', Le Monde, 11 Avril 1995, p. 6.
44 For the influence of Jacobinism on French conceptions of
democratic rights, see Richard Barbrook, Media Freedom: the
contradictions of communications in the age of modernity, London
1995. Some French economists believe that the very different his-
tory of Europe has created a specific - and socially superior -
model of capitalism, see Michel Albert, Capitalism v. Capitalism,
New York 1993, and Philippe Delmas, Le Matre des Horloges, Paris
1991.
45 See Keith Taylor (ed.), Henri Saint-Simon 1760-1825: Selected
Writings on Science, Industry and Social Organisation, London
1975, and John E. Bowlt, op. cit..
46 As Goldie, a jungle music-maker, puts it: "We have to take it
forwards and take the drums 'n' bass and push it and push it and
push it. I remember when we were saying that it couldn't be pushed
anymore. It's been pushed tenfold since then...", see Tony Marcus,
'The War is Over', Mixmag, August 1995, p. 46.
47 For information on Anti-Rom, see http://cyan.media.wmin.ac.uk/
If you would like to visit J's Joint, go to:
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/J'sJoint/
---
# distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
# is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
# URL: http://www.desk.nl/nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de