mean that we are deprived of our natural basis. In biogenetics, if it’s possible to manipulate even our genetic base, the same things happen.
So my point is that we have to look for possible proletarian positions . By proletarian positions, I mean in the sense that we are reduced to the zero level and all objective conditions of our work are taken away from us. This is why I agree with those who claim that the first Matrix movie is, in a way, a proletarian film. There is a wonderful scene, which the director didn’t exploit further in the movie, where, if you remember, they lie down as if they are dead and the energy is sucked from them. Aren’t we, again, reduced to some kind of proletarian position?
Of course, some people are excluded – and this is crucial for me. I think what is sad about what we are witnessing now is that Marx was too optimistic. For Marx, capitalist exploitation has to take place in conditions of legal freedom and equality. That is to say, we all have the same rights formally and legally and we are free, but then, in effect, if you don’t have money, you have to sell yourself and you are exploited . But now, I claim that worldwide capitalism can no longer sustain or tolerate this global equality . It’s just too much. I think that, more and more, illegal immigrants or refugees are in this problem of what Giorgio Agamben called “ Homo Sacer .” They are in or out, and reduced to a bare existence outside the polis. We are all potentially homo sacer , and the only way to avoid actually becoming so is to take preventative measures. This, I think, will be another proletarian position in our time.
And again, look at the proletarian position on the internet. It’s clear who will control the internet. What is really worrying, with so-called cloud computing, is a massive reprivatization of global spaces. Instead of having big computers with all the data, we will just have our individual machines – PCs, iPhones, etc. – to be connected with limited access; all effective power will be out there. Of course, in a way this is nice. We will have instant access to all the movies, etc. Everything thus becomes accessible, but only when mediated through a company that owns it all: software and hardware, content and computers. The question is, what is this everything ? Everything will be censored. So cloud computing offers individual users an unprecedented wealth of choice – but isn’t this freedom of choice sustained by the initial choice of a provider, in respect to which we have less and less freedom?
To take one obvious example, it’s horrendous that Apple made a deal with Rupert Murdoch allowing the news on the Apple cloud to be supplied by Murdoch’s media empire. The news you will get from iPhones will be Murdoch’s news. This is a problem. The internet interests me as, to use an old-fashioned term, “a field of class struggle.” The fight has been going on there from the very beginning. Steve Jobs was no better than Bill Gates. Now I discover Steve Jobs was even worse. Because it’s clear how he manipulates it with these machines. It’s pure manipulation.
As you may know, the first version of the iPod didn’t have a function for phone calls or have a USB connection. It became clear to me, after speaking with someone who is connected with Apple, that he knew the first one would sell well and he wanted people to buy the next generation immediately after. It’s pretty horrible. You see that it’s not as simple as that. Global access is increasingly grounded in the virtually monopolistic privatization of the cloud which provides this access. The more an individual user is given access to universal public space, the more that space is privatized. I think the key is to prevent these clouds from being privately owned. This is not a technological problem; indeed, it is a purely ideological economic decision.
Again, here we have a proletarian problem. In the sense that apparently you have it
So my point is that we have to look for possible proletarian positions . By proletarian positions, I mean in the sense that we are reduced to the zero level and all objective conditions of our work are taken away from us. This is why I agree with those who claim that the first Matrix movie is, in a way, a proletarian film. There is a wonderful scene, which the director didn’t exploit further in the movie, where, if you remember, they lie down as if they are dead and the energy is sucked from them. Aren’t we, again, reduced to some kind of proletarian position?
Of course, some people are excluded – and this is crucial for me. I think what is sad about what we are witnessing now is that Marx was too optimistic. For Marx, capitalist exploitation has to take place in conditions of legal freedom and equality. That is to say, we all have the same rights formally and legally and we are free, but then, in effect, if you don’t have money, you have to sell yourself and you are exploited . But now, I claim that worldwide capitalism can no longer sustain or tolerate this global equality . It’s just too much. I think that, more and more, illegal immigrants or refugees are in this problem of what Giorgio Agamben called “ Homo Sacer .” They are in or out, and reduced to a bare existence outside the polis. We are all potentially homo sacer , and the only way to avoid actually becoming so is to take preventative measures. This, I think, will be another proletarian position in our time.
And again, look at the proletarian position on the internet. It’s clear who will control the internet. What is really worrying, with so-called cloud computing, is a massive reprivatization of global spaces. Instead of having big computers with all the data, we will just have our individual machines – PCs, iPhones, etc. – to be connected with limited access; all effective power will be out there. Of course, in a way this is nice. We will have instant access to all the movies, etc. Everything thus becomes accessible, but only when mediated through a company that owns it all: software and hardware, content and computers. The question is, what is this everything ? Everything will be censored. So cloud computing offers individual users an unprecedented wealth of choice – but isn’t this freedom of choice sustained by the initial choice of a provider, in respect to which we have less and less freedom?
To take one obvious example, it’s horrendous that Apple made a deal with Rupert Murdoch allowing the news on the Apple cloud to be supplied by Murdoch’s media empire. The news you will get from iPhones will be Murdoch’s news. This is a problem. The internet interests me as, to use an old-fashioned term, “a field of class struggle.” The fight has been going on there from the very beginning. Steve Jobs was no better than Bill Gates. Now I discover Steve Jobs was even worse. Because it’s clear how he manipulates it with these machines. It’s pure manipulation.
As you may know, the first version of the iPod didn’t have a function for phone calls or have a USB connection. It became clear to me, after speaking with someone who is connected with Apple, that he knew the first one would sell well and he wanted people to buy the next generation immediately after. It’s pretty horrible. You see that it’s not as simple as that. Global access is increasingly grounded in the virtually monopolistic privatization of the cloud which provides this access. The more an individual user is given access to universal public space, the more that space is privatized. I think the key is to prevent these clouds from being privately owned. This is not a technological problem; indeed, it is a purely ideological economic decision.
Again, here we have a proletarian problem. In the sense that apparently you have it
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