Interrogating Digital Capitalism: a series of events organised by Breaking the Frame
Digital technology powers neoliberal capitalism: it is central to globalisation, financialisation, the ‘flexible economy’, ongoing waves of automation and now, ‘big data capitalism’. Liberals and many leftists assume that, the problem is not the technology but its abuse by corporations, the military and the state. But what if we are in a techno-social regime, in which technology is shaped by those interests and it, in turn, shapes capitalism in a way that reinforces itself? What if we are in a digital technocracy in which cybernetic principles of information capture and flexible control are becoming embedded throughout society? What if – in short – it is not just a matter of ‘rescuing the digital baby from the capitalist bathwater’?
This series of monthly events will look at current challenges raised by digital capitalism. It will question liberal ideas of progress through technology that inform the mainstream debate.
Event 1: Digital Technology and Neoliberalism – the Basics
July 6th 2017, 7.15pm. Apple Tree pub function room. 45 Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, London WC1X 0AE
How does digital technology function in and shape neoliberal capitalism? Is it just a question of corporations using technology to their advantage or has digital technology fundamentally reshaped the whole system? Are we already, as a key anarchist critique, The Cybernetic Hypothesis suggests, enmeshed in a control system in which conventional resistance just strengthens the system?
Ursula Huws (University of Hertfordshire) will describe the nuts and bolts of how digital capitalism works.
Richard Hall of De Montfort University will look at a critique of digital capitalism developed by French anarchists in the 1990s.
Free/donation.
7.15pm, July 6th 2017
Apple Tree pub function room. 45 Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, London WC1X 0AE. We apologise that this venue has no wheelchair access. Other events will be at accessible venues.
For more information contact [email protected], or visit Events at http://breakingtheframe.org.uk
Event 2: Digital Technology as Heavy Industrial Technology: iSlavery and Environmental Destruction
September 6th 2017, 7.15pm. Feminist Library meeting room, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW
Digital technology is often seen as ‘immaterial’ and ‘smart’, defining a new industrial and social paradigm. Yet digital gadgets are produced within an ‘old-fashioned’ highly exploitative regime that has been likened to slavery, whilst the industry creates massive environmental destruction and makes a major contribution to climate change.
Jack Linchuan Qiu, (Hong Kong University) author of Goodbye iSlave will describe the conditions in Chinese electronics factories, such as Foxconn, which were brought to international attention by a wave of worker suicides in 2010.
TBC will look at the environmental impacts of digital technology and its role in causing conflicts.
Free/donation.
7.15pm, September 6th
Feminist Library meeting room, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW. Venue is accessible, we would advise wheelchair users to contact us in advance if possible.
For more information contact [email protected], or visit Events at http://breakingtheframe.org.uk
For later events in the series, on:
Digital technology and automation: the end of capitalism or a new Lucas Plan
Race, Gender and Digital Capitalism
Big data: state, corporate and social surveillance
visit Events at http://breakingtheframe.org.uk