Essays

‘The Red Army Faction – Ideology, Mythology and the ‘Legitimate’ and ‘Illegitimate’ uses of Violence’

The ‘Red Army Faction’, founded by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, was a terrorist group operational in West Germany from 1970 to 1998. What started as the relatively benign firebombing of a department store in 1968, by the then ‘Baader-Meinhof Gang’, began a movement that would continue long after the founding members of the RAF were in jail. Three successive generations of RAF members waged a campaign of bombing, assassination, kidnapping, bank robbery and hostage taking, resulting in a total of 34 deaths, as well as the deaths in custody of RAF members Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Holger Meins and Baader’s long-time partner, Gudrun Esslin. Drawing inspiration from left-wing guerrillas like Che Guevara, the Tupamaros of Uruguay and the Vietcong, the RAF identified with the socialist doctrine of worldwide, armed struggle against what they saw as the crypto-fascist West German state and the wider war against ‘Imperialism’. Figurehead of the RAF, mother of two and journalist-turned-revolutionary Ulrike Meinhof’s writings are summed up by Meinhof scholar Karin Bauer, as “rooted in the concerns of her time: the global march of capitalism, consumerism, the curtailment of civil liberties, the increasing surveillance by the state, the intrusion of the state into the private life of citizens, the manipulation of the media, the mind-numbing stupidity of television and the entertainment industry, the war in Vietnam and the moral responsibility to stop the slaughter of women and children”. (Bauer. 2009) In the modern context of the ‘Global War on Terror’ some of these ideas might seem moderate or even bourgeois, but the rise and fall of the BMG/RAF has a lasting usefulness in understanding the ideology and mythology of radicalisation, the State, and how terrorist actors are prosecuted and depicted as “outlaws” or “monsters, as entities that manifest against the law”. (Chambers. 2012, p31)

The 1970’s was a period of unparalleled, worldwide, violent and non-violent left-wing activism and during that time, “a surprising number” of former Nazi’s occupied numerous high ranking positions within the West German government.  (Beste, et al. 2012) Gudrun Esslin, posthumously described by the ‘Daily Mail’ as “a dope-smoking, anti-nuclear protester with serial boyfriends who had previously given a child away for adoption” stated bluntly, “This is the generation of Auschwitz. You can’t reason with them! They have weapons and we haven’t, we must arm ourselves too”.  (Burleigh. 2008) The uncompromising language of both Esslin and ‘The Daily Mail’, shows a complete breakdown in the capacity and desire for dialogue between the ‘terrorist’ actors and the ‘establishment’. If each actor perceives the ‘other’ as the enemy in “A WAR AGAINST EVIL”, (Ruddock. 2006, P4) the end result can only be violent catharsis.  Of course, the RAF were far less concerned with ‘The Daily Mail’ than they were with ‘Bild’, the right-wing German tabloid owned by Axel Springer, but the example helps to illuminate the role of the ‘Fourth Estate’ and the role it can play in solidifying collective identity via a process of “outlawing” or “monstration” (Chambers. 2009, p48) in regards to those that apparently “DETEST THE VALUES, FREEDOMS AND DEMOCRATIC TRADITIONS OF THE CIVILISED WORLD”. (Ruddock, Tobin. 2003, p5)

If we look to Weber’s analysis that a State can be defined by having a “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force” (Weber. 1918, pg3) then the notion of being “against the law”, is essential to distinguishing between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” uses of violence and thus helping define what constitutes ‘terrorist’ action.  The ‘sheriff’ and the ‘outlaw’ both carry guns, but only one of them reserves the right to use them with impunity. The State, when confronted with the “illegitimate” use of force, can employ techniques such as the ‘Wanted poster’ to demarcate and reinforce the boundaries of discourse and action in the minds of its citizenry.  In relation to the BMG/RAF the (Wanted) “poster was omnipresent in German public life for decades. Every post office, every public place there’d be one. And it constantly changed: People who were captured or shot dead were crossed out. That was a very shocking and brutal image and thus it provided us with a powerful visual shorthand”. (Eichinger. 2009) The need for a “powerful visual shorthand” might lead some to question exactly how well defined the line is between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” uses of violence, but in any case, it leaves no doubt in the mind as to who is “with us” and who is “against us”. The ‘outlaw’ or ‘terrorist’ as defined by the ‘Wanted Poster’ provides an opportunity to reiterate the scope and legitimacy of the State via a process of othering. “External frontiers have to be imagined constantly as a projection and protection of an internal collective personality”. (Balibar. p95) To the BMG/RAF, the “internal collective personality” of the West German State was an oppressive, fascist regime to be resisted and ultimately destroyed through violent means.

The irrepressibly elitist Christopher Hitchens frames the RAF as having been seduced by the “sexual charisma of the outlaw” and points out that “West Germany, during the 1970’s was not holding any political prisoners”. (Hitchens. 2009) Although deliberately disingenuous, Hitchens’ categorisation of the BMG/RAF as a bunch of psychotic romanticists, provides insight into the ‘mythical’ dimensions of terrorism and the kind of broad ideological notions that help constitute ‘terrorist’ action. Stephan Aust, author of the book, ‘The Baader-Meinhof Complex’ says, “the RAF had a quasi-religious character more than a rational political character. They acted like political or religious martyrs to show that the state was as brutal as they thought it was. It was an experiment with their own-and others’-lives”. (Aust. 2009)  Gudrun Esslin, was responsible for the “11th Commandment” to the RAF of “Thou Shalt Kill”, (Burleigh. 2008) a declaration of both irreconcilable opposition to, and a disavowal of the authority of the West German government. Martyrdom is a recurrent theme in resistance to established authority and even in the absence of any religious conviction, such as with the BMG/RAF, the ‘struggle’ becomes an end in itself, an apocalyptic battle between good and evil, what Jeremy Prestholdt calls “the forever war”. (Prestholdt. 2009, p6)

On some level, the RAF must have realised the impossibility of overthrowing the West-German State and in the absence of any genuine ability to effect a utopian, “totalizing transformation”, (Amoore. De Goede. 2005, p2) Holger Meins opted instead for a symbolic gesture. Meins began a hunger-strike that lead to his eventual death in Stammheim prison, and left-wing activists at the time saw his death as proof of “murder” at the hands of the State. Even the starkly unsympathetic film, “The Baader-Meinhof Complex” (Eichinger, 2008) suggests a certain level of culpability on the part of the authorities. However, the murky death of Meins and the much less controversial, subsequent suicides of Baader, Esslin and Meinhof suggest an unerring determination to die in the pursuit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, realised as the ultimate form of protest. Conversely, the ubiquitous phrase, “We do not negotiate with terrorists”, serves as an everlasting reminder that should one seek change through “illegitimate” means, Jean-Paul Sartre’s assessment, after an interview with Andreas Baader in 1974, that “this system is precisely against the human person and destroys it”, (Sartre. 1974) will almost certainly hold true.

Jean Baudrillard describes terrorism as “a kind of negative reaction on the part of the world itself against globalisation”. (Baudrillard. 2007, p22) This suggests the inevitability of violent confrontation should ‘utopian’ ideologies, or perhaps mythologies, such as that of a worldwide Socialist government or an international Islamic Caliphate, come into contact with the organised power structures of the State.  No matter how well justified the grievances, those who seek political goals through “illegitimate” means will inevitably be subjected to a process of “outlawing”, “monstration” (Chambers. 2009, p4) or exclusion that leaves dead the possibility of dialogue and engages the relevant parties in an endless conflict until one side prevails over the ‘other’. Battle-lines are drawn in the blood of collective memory and in the case of the RAF, their fears found traction as a belief in the possibility of a Nazi resurgence, a notion no doubt confirmed in their minds by the ex-Nazi presence in the West German Government. Ulrike Meinhof said, “Objection is saying that something doesn’t suit me, resistance is when I make sure what doesn’t suit me never happens again”.  (Meinhof. 197*) The phrase “never again”, uttered frequently in the post 9-11 world, is indicative of a distinctly utopian worldview and hence a somewhat mythological expectation of political outcomes. One unfortunate and recurrent consequence of the absolutist mindset which seems to pervade all conflict between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” actors is that ‘the end’ becomes seen to justify ‘the means’, a stance that often leads to the forfeiture of moral authority on both sides. “The others- the terrorists, cultists, freedom fighters, urban guerrillas. And what are they doing? Beheading captives on television; photographing hostages begging for their lives… did they learn this from us or did we pick it up from them? Or are we both under the same zombie’s spell?” (Cohen. 2005, p30)

References:

Amoore, Louise. De Goeder, Marieke. ‘Governance, Risk and Dataveillance in the war on terror’, Springer, 2005

Aust, Stephan. Interview, 2009

http://www.baader-meinhof.com/interview-stefan-aust-author-of-der-baader-meinhof-komplex/

Balibar, Etienne. ‘The Nation Form: History and Ideology’.

Baudrillard, Jean. ‘The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact’, Oxford, 2007

Beste, Ralph. Bonisch, Georg. Darnstaedt, Thomas. Friedman, Jan. Frohlingsdorf, Michael. Wiegrefe, Klaus. ‘The Role ex-Nazis played in early West Germany’, Das Spiegel, 2012

http://www.saloforum.com/index.php?threads/the-role-ex-nazis-played-in-early-west-germany.2090/

Burleigh, Michael. ‘Clowns of Terror’, Daily Mail, 2008

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-528611/Clowns-terror-The-Baader-Meinhof-gang-hopelessly-incompetent-befuddled-drugs-casual-sex.html

Chambers, Peter. ‘Abu Masab Al Zarqawi: The making and unmasking of an American monster’, Sage, 2012

Cohen, Stanley. ‘Post Moral Torture’, Sage, 2005

Eichinger, Bernd. ‘The Baader-Meinhof Complex’ (film) 2008,

Eichinger, Bernd. Interview, 2009

(http://www.baader-meinhof.com/interview-bernd-eichinger-writer-and-producer-of-the-baader-meinhof-complex/)

Hitchens, Christopher. ‘Once Upon a Time in Germany’, Vanity Fair, 2009

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/hitchens-guerrillas200908

Karin Bauer. Interview.  2009

http://www.baader-meinhof.com/interview-with-meinhof-scholar-karin-bauer/

Meinhof, Ulrike. Quote.

 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/u/ulrike_meinhof.html

Prestholdt, Jeremy. ‘Phantom of the Forever War’, Duke, 2009

Ruddock, Phillip. ‘The Commonwealth Response to September 11th: The Rule of Law and National Security’, Gilbert and Tobin centre of public law, 2003

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Interview with Andreas Baader, Liberation, 1974.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1974/baader.htm

Weber, Max. ‘Politik als Beruf,’ Gesammelte Politische Schriften (Muenchen, l921), pp. 396-450. Originally a speech at Munich University, 1918, published in 1919 by Duncker & Humblodt, Munich. From H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (Translated and edited), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 77-128, New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.

 

Regime Change We Can Believe In

Abstract:

In this essay I will challenge George Bush’s contention that “this is a new war, a war that will require a new way of thinking”, by exploring the themes of responsibility, necessity and to a lesser extent credibility, in relation to the speeches that started and ended the Iraq war. These two speeches, the first by Bush and the second by Obama, while different in tone, express recurrent themes in American Presidential rhetoric, the behaviour of America, and empires in general. Obama mostly avoids the hyperbolic proclamations of Bush, but in many ways restates the same position – that due to its exceptional nature, it is America’s duty to act as the policeman of the world, and that if America fails to fulfil this role, there are enemies who will seek to destroy the nation itself. Although American presidents address every audience through the rhetorical prism of being ‘the most powerful person in the world’, Obama has not been able to close Guantanamo Bay any more than George Bush was able to transform Afghanistan and Iraq into havens of democracy. Consequence unfolds irrespective of how it is framed, but heads of state face a constant necessity to self-justify that stems from the requirement for validation via their national constituents, staff and international partners. However, war is a multi-billion-dollar industry and in one way, expresses its power as a seamless continuation through the Bush and Obama administrations.  The so-called ‘soft-power’ of Obama still carries the notions of responsibility, credibility and necessity that obscure a powerful network of transnational actors playing out self-interested negotiations, mediated through and entwined with governments and the wider sphere of public relations. Rhetorical devices, whether sincere or insincere, therefore function as a way to reinforce and reconstitute specific ways of being, grounded in specific historical and cultural practices – in the case of Bush and Obama – America’s status as exceptional and its mission to bring culture to the world via a program of radical interventionism.

The American response to the September 11th attacks prompted George W. Bush to declare that the coming ‘Global War on Terrorism’, was “a new war, a war that will require a new way of thinking”, (Patman. 2006, P963) but over the course of the last twelve years, this ‘new way of thinking’, hasn’t been overtly apparent in the administrations of either George Bush or Barack Obama. George W. Bush’s ‘Global War on Terror’, now known by Obama’s administration as ‘Countering Violent Extremism’, is an ongoing project that describes the world in terms that harmonise with American interests at both the pragmatic and mythological ends of the spectrum. At the pragmatic end, notions of ‘security’ communicate ‘necessity’. At the mythological end, terms like ‘responsibility’ communicate America’s special role on the world stage, but these terms do not exist independently of one another and are often conflated to be understood as one and the same. ‘Credibility’ exists at a fluid nexus between the two and is reflective of both ideology and or ‘realism’, depending on perspective. The speeches that started and ended the Iraq war each contain numerous references to ‘responsibility’ and ‘necessity’ but will be used as anchor-points to understand the reconstituted attitudes of Imperial, and currently American-power in the world, illuminating a conspicuous absence of any ‘new way of thinking’.

It was the Reagan administration that coined the term “perception management”, (Curtis, Adam. 2007, 30”27’) to express the need to bring publics into line with the intentions of government and this is one significant end that rhetoric pursues. “Rhetoric generates attitudes that simultaneously motivate action and affirm divisions”. (Loehwing & Motter. 2009, P236) It is the rhetoric of ‘responsibility’ that helps affirm divisions and as a concept, invokes a persistent Orientalism in the attitude of Western powers. On August 31st 2010, Barack Obama delivered the speech that would signal the end of official American involvement in Iraq. “We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war – a new beginning can be born in this cradle of civilisation. Throughout this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility, now it’s time to turn the page”. (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obamas-speech-on-iraq-time-to-turn-the-page-full-text/) When Obama says ‘we have met our responsibility’ he is effectively placing any future failure on the shoulders of the Iraqis and in doing so, inadvertently recalls “the high point of nineteenth-century liberal imperialism in which liberals justified the exercise by ‘construct[ing] the colonial subjects … as passive victims needful of tutelage, capable of self-government only after a spell of European supremacy’”. (Ryan et al. 2010, p4) Alongside the conceit of professing to speak for Iraqis with, “a belief we share”, the statement indicates neither, ‘Change We Can Believe In’, or any attempt at a ‘new way of thinking’. Three years on, it remains unclear how much ‘responsibility’ America can claim towards the establishment of Iraq as a free-market democracy. ‘Time Magazine’ reported in October 2013 of imminent civil-war in the ‘cradle of civilisation’. (http://world.time.com/2013/10/01/iraqs-months-of-sectarian-violence-threaten-to-trigger-a-civil-war/)

When George W. Bush delivered his ultimatum to Saddam, Congress and the world, ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’, served as a powerful rhetorical tool for conflating necessity and responsibility. “The United Nations Security Council has failed to live up to its responsibilities, so now we will live up to ours”. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/18/usa.iraq) This statement not only captures the well-explored idea of American exceptionalism – that being America’s role in the world to “deliver freedom, not as a gift from the United States but as a gift from God” (Curtis. 2011, p166) – it also conjures an imminent threat that must be tackled head-on. To get a sense of how these themes have been reused to ‘motivate action’, refer back to Ronald Reagan’s justification for intervention in Latin America. “Reagan told America that Nicaragua was part of an axis of rogue states that together with Iran and North Korea supported an international network of terror”. (Curtis, Adam. 2007, 30”27’) In retrospect, the idea that Nicaragua posed a threat to the United States seems ludicrous but the modern version of the terrorist ‘other’, and the subsequent necessity for action has been assisted largely due to the fact that “following 9-11, public rhetoric in the United States equated Islam with terror… and leant inevitability to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”. (Scanlan. 2011, p266) If “the manipulation of intensive reactions and affect has been crucial in maintaining support for America’s open-ended ‘War on Terror’”, (Livingston. 2012, p274) we can observe an uncomfortable mirroring of the prelude to Iraq in Donald Rumsfeld’s 1976 address to the media regarding the threat of Soviet weapons of mass-destruction.  “They’ve been busy expanding their capabilities… they’ve demonstrated they have steadiness of purpose… but the question remains, what ought one to be doing about that?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg2q6ZofewM) This implies both a responsibility for security and the potential necessity for action. However, with the memories of September 11 fresh in the mind of Americans, Bush’s rhetoric concerning “destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth”,  may not have seemed too extreme or the threat of an apocalyptic confrontation unrealistic. In any case, as Bush presented the case to continue his father’s work towards the mythical ‘New World Order’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byxeOG_pZ1o) no ‘new way of thinking’ is discernible.

Reality has impeded Obama’s ability to invoke the totalising narratives of Bush. By making indirect reference to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib in saying, “Our relations abroad were strained. Our unity at home was tested”, Obama acknowledges that “concepts that are the bedrock of Western collective consciousness and implicit sense of superiority – for example, freedom, justice and democracy – have become seriously tarnished by recent national and international events”. (Vertigans. 2010, p35) With a mind to the partial restoration of America’s image, Obama prohibited the use of “enhanced interrogation”, but on a macroscopic level, responsibility and necessity remain centre stage. “We must never lose sight of what’s at stake. As we speak, Al-Qaeda continues to plot against us”. Responsibility and necessity are here again conflated directly with ‘security’ and by reconstituting the memory of September 11 – “what’s at stake” – Obama can “influence the conditions through which international relations are formally conducted… and generate psychological and emotional states that continue to divide the world and shape how contemporary global politics play out”. (Hutchison. 2008, p7) Obama goes on to refer to Afghanistan and Pakistan as the regions in which this ‘plotting’ is taking place, as a tacit justification for the use of ‘drones’ or ‘unmanned aerial vehicles’. Given that Obama “shares a conception of the imperative of reducing the (terrorist) threat to the US”, (McCrisken. 2011, p1) it would be “irresponsible not to take the prudent, preventative and/or precautionary measures to protect oneself and others from it. It would also be irresponsible to critique those offering protection from the risk and taking the necessary measures”. (Leander. 2009, p4) John Keegan sums up Obama’s abhorrence of ‘terrorism’ but willing use of drones for ‘extra-judicial killing’. “We are hardened to what we know, and we rationalise and even justify cruelties practised by us and our like while retaining the capacity to be outraged, even disgusted by practises equally cruel which, under the hands of strangers, take a different form”. (Keegan, p9. 1994) The process of ‘othering’ is integral to narratives of responsibility and necessity in maintaining support for ‘radical interventionism’.

John Keegan’s ‘A History of Warfare’, shows convincingly that the current wars are not ‘new’, but resemble more the result of diminishing resources, Imperial posturing and man’s ageless desire for competition and conquest. Further, the use of mercenaries, enemies who don’t play by the rules, attempts to ‘civilise’ the invaded, insurgents, alliances of convenience, necessity and responsibility all have numerous precedents in recorded history. There are many passages in Keegan’s book that could so easily be applied to the current wars that one is left to wonder if the behaviour of empire – and those who resist it – will always remain so standardised. As a brief aside, note the words of John Michael Greer comparing the German invasion of France to the American invasion of Iraq. “In 1940 as in 2003, the invader’s victory was followed promptly by a sustained insurgency against the occupying forces”. (http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/search?q=iraq) Two thousand years ago the Chinese felt a ‘responsibility’ to ‘civilise’ the Mongolians, a notion borne from the necessity of self-preservation. Chinese “policy was based on a set of assumptions, all of which reinforced the notion of the supremacy of Chinese institutions and culture and of their acceptability to the barbarians; the idea that the latter might not have had any need for Chinese culture was never entertained”. (Keegan, p202. 1994) There is no leap of imagination required to see how this applies to the current situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. After outlining the deadly threat to America over the course of his speech, Bush urges the Iraqis to “set an example to all the middle-east of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation”, following their imminent “liberation”. Obama also implores Iraq to form a government that is “just, representative and accountable to the Iraqi people”. Like the Chinese and many more, “Americans have historically found it difficult to step outside of themselves when judging others. And they have rarely realized how much their own values unconsciously smudged the lenses through which they viewed the world.’” (Patman. 2006, p965) Uncompromising attempts to superimpose one culture over another are by far more accurately characterised by failure than success. Curiously, Keegan goes on to assert that the greatest gains for Chinese security were the result of a cultural osmosis that occurred over long periods, while their military attempts at taming the Mongolians only exacerbated the problem.

‘A History of Warfare’, charts the rise and fall of civilisations and in a sense gives some of the ideas in Oswald Spengler’s 1922 tome, ‘The Decline of the West’, a new breath of life. Although Spengler has been brutally attacked and largely ignored for some time, John Michael Greer makes an eloquent case for why this might be. In short, that Spengler’s theory of the eventual decline of all civilisations “makes most people in the modern West acutely uncomfortable”. (http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/search?q=spengler) Spengler’s ideas fly in the face of notions of American exceptionalism, destiny and Western superiority and from this perspective, rhetoric could be seen primarily as a tool for ‘managing perceptions’, regarding the well-documented behaviour of hegemonic powers. There must certainly be inconsistencies in Spengler’s didactically morphological view of history, but the following passage read in conjunction with ‘A History of Warfare’, supports an adversarial reading of the rhetoric surrounding both the ‘Global War on Terror’ and its euphemistically titled progeny, ‘Countering Violent Extremism’.

 “It is a quite indefensible method of presenting world-history to begin by giving rein to one’s religious, political or social convictions and endowing them with the sacrosanct three phase system, (ancient, mediaeval and modern) with tendencies that bring it exactly to one’s own standpoint. This is, in effect, the making of some formula – say, the ‘Age of Reason’, humanity, the greatest happiness for the greatest number, enlightenment, economic progress, national freedom, the conquest of nature, world-peace – a criterion whereby to judge whole millennia of history. And so we judge that they were ignorant of the ‘true-path’, or that they failed to follow it, when the fact is simply that their will and purposes were not the same as ours. Goethe’s saying ‘What is important in life, is life and not a result of life’ is the answer to any and every senseless attempt to solve the riddle of historical form by means of a programme”. (Spengler, p16. 1922)

To temper these words one could argue that ‘life’, whatever that happens to be, is already happening and rhetoric is more than just hollow words floating on a sea of inevitability. Histories form over time and are a product of collective and individual memory, refracted through a language for understanding the world and mediated through individual, social, religious and ethnic spheres of reference; to say, ‘I am the President of the United States’, ‘or I am Islamic’, or to make any other identification, carries a historical locating that is impossible to avoid. The gradual accumulation of words, knowledge and memory help reform understandings about who belongs where and why. “Collective memory is created through the extended circulation and appropriation of images over time”. (Harriman, in Kennedy. 2012, p261) In, ‘The Nation Form: History and Ideology’, Etienne Balibar makes a similar case to Spengler’s in reference to the French revolution having occurred as a result of, “a succession of contingent events, the causes of which have nothing to do with the destiny of ‘France’, the projects of its ‘Kings’ or the aspirations of its ‘people’”. However, Balibar adds the useful addendum that, “this critique should not, however prevent our perceiving the continuing power of myths of national origins”. (Balibar. p86) Responsibility and necessity, as far as America has been concerned, relate directly to ideas rooted in the myths of their political founding.

With the advent of an increasingly interconnected world, these ‘myths of national origins’ partly communicated through ‘responsibility’ and ‘necessity’, have assisted Dwight Eisenhower’s famous ‘Military Industrial Complex’ to take on, for want of a better word, ‘Orwellian’ proportions. This is a sentiment best summarised by the words of George W. Bush when he said, “When we talk about war, we are really talking about peace”. (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewbu169319.html) Despite the fact we should be careful of totalising and apocalyptic narratives about the nature and scope of this activity as it is more of a return to form, rather than ‘a new war’ – “mercenary forces were once the dominant armed instrument of the state because they were an economical alternative to more expensive standing armies” – (Armstrong. 2008, p77) persistent narratives “in which Arabs, and today Muslims generally, are portrayed in Western media to be exotic, uncivilised, a constant threat to freedom and democracy, largely demarcated as ‘oil suppliers’ and ‘terrorists’”, (Vertigans, 2010. P30) should be regarded with a good deal of scepticism given the historical precedents from which these ‘modern’ conflicts draw their inspiration. Even within the scope of the 20th century, America’s consistently inconsistent approach to fostering democratically elected governments around the world – Iran, Chile and Panama being notable examples – (Perkins. 2004) make statements like ‘a new way of thinking’, cringingly inconsistent with observable behaviours, past and present.

The continuities between the Bush and Obama administrations have been documented to the point of redundancy but for purposes of clarity, Jay Carafano, member of conservative think-tank, ‘The Heritage Foundation’, is quoted in the ‘New York Times’ as saying, “I don’t think it’s even fair to call it (Obama) Bush Lite”, he said. “It’s Bush. It’s really, really hard to find a difference that’s meaningful and not atmospheric. You see a lot of straining on things trying to make things look repackaged, but they’re really not that different”. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) One explanation for this might be that “money… is turned into force, and its quantity determines the intensity of its working influence”. (Spengler, p394. 1922) An Anglo-American war industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars has no interest in preventing or ending conflict and to a large extent, “rhetoric of a moral imperative masks the geo-political realities that are the true motor of this war”. (Curtis, 2011. p153) However, one recurrent and more explicitly 20th century political narrative, that seems to require no moral justification – in the same way that ‘responsibility’ and ‘necessity’ are understood as reflective of, for example, destiny and security – is the idea of ‘credibility’.

‘Credibility’ is an enduring concept based around the idea that failure to act in some fashion will set a precedent to ignore future requests or directives. A brief discussion of credibility is relevant because it does show one incidence of a ‘new way of thinking’, in so far as the speeches of Bush and Obama are concerned, if not in the wider expression of American foreign policy. Christopher J. Fettweis challenges the “credibility imperative”. Despite having “occupied a central position in every foreign policy debate in the last 50 years… most scholars remain unconvinced”. (Fettweis. 2008, p607) On one hand, Bush was able to speak so forcefully because he and indeed America had not yet had to face up to the realities of failure in the Middle-East. It is unlikely that anyone doubted George W. Bush when he vowed “serious consequences, if Iraq did not immediately disarm”. Obama on the other hand, faced with the debts accumulated by years of war and the embarrassing prospect of attempting a face-saving Afghan withdrawal, is comparatively timid. “One of the lessons of our effort in Iraq is that American influence around the world is not a function of military force alone”. Here Obama is acknowledging damaged American credibility and their inevitable failure to ‘solve the riddle of historical form’. Yet despite this relatively humble statement, Obama still asserts that “while I am President we will maintain the finest fighting force that the world has ever known”, one loose translation of this statement being, ‘we will punish any who stand against America’. Even despite this temporary diversion, Obama brings the ‘credibility imperative’ back into the debate surrounding the Syrian conflict. “If we fail to act, Assad will see no reason not to continue using chemical weapons”. (http://www.theage.com.au/world/barack-obama-pulls-us-back-from-the-brink-of-syria-strike-20130911-2tjjz.html) Even as ‘Countering Violent Extremism’, “the reputation of the United States is always endangered by inaction, not action… the reputation for good policy judgement never seems to be important as the reputation for belligerence”. (Fettweis. 2012, p620) Lyndon B. Johnson encapsulated this thinking in a private comment reported in ‘The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President’. “If… you can’t fuck a man in the ass, at least pecker-slap him, better to let him know you’re in charge than to let him think he’s got the keys to the car”. (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson) However misguided Fettweis asserts the ‘credibility imperative’ to be, it does seem to be an internally consistent form of rhetoric, when compared to more convenient and contingent ideas of ‘responsibility’ and ‘necessity’.

This is not to suggest that ‘terrorists’ pose no threat and it must of course be acknowledged that an element of belief comprises at least part of the motivation for radical interventionism.  When Osama Bin Laden made statements like “I tell them that these events have divided the world into two camps, the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidels… Every Muslim must rise up to defend his religion. The wind of faith is blowing and the wind of change is blowing to remove evil from the peninsula of Mohammed”, (Middleton. 2011, p55) it is easy to see how Bush desired a ‘new way of thinking’ from American security experts, even if only in asking them to “imagine your most unthinkable nightmare of the next terror attack. Then imagine something even worse”. (Fagan, in De Goede. 2008, p 155)  Like Bush and Obama, Richard Nixon made similarly paranoid overtures when he said “Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting”. (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/richard_m_nixon.html) However, when the same reasons are perpetually recycled as justifications for behaviour that, in some fashion, mimics almost every pre-existing Imperial project, it is nearly impossible not to interpret these words from a cynical standpoint. Obama’s offering that “throughout our history, America has been willing bear the burden of promoting liberty and human dignity overseas, understanding its own link to our own liberty and security”, might be easier to take seriously if not for “the mind-boggling, almost unbelievable, ineptness of Western states’ post-conflict peace-building efforts that Foley describes firsthand in Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Afghanistan”. (Ryan et al. 2010, p6) The closing line of George W. Bush’s speech, that “free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility”, captures the themes explored so far and in a sense, directly contradicts the idea that ‘this is a new war, a war that will require a new way of thinking’. Bush’s statement, to its credit, does lay bare the fundamental position from which America chooses to act.

Over the course of the 20th century, and beforehand in various guises, ‘responsibility’ and ‘necessity’ have been deployed to justify various projects that have at least cosmetically, expressed the perennially misguided conceit of being able to ‘solve the riddle of historical form by means of a program’. As tempting as it can be to view the rhetoric of Imperial powers and their emissaries as ‘empty’, by acknowledging that “transformed publicity is the key to the re-invention of political power”, (Loehwing & Motter. 2009, p224) it remains that rhetoric does reflect an underlying belief system – even if only expressed as the superiority of one culture over another. Whether British, German, Roman, Chinese, Persian or American; powerful states have all flirted with expansionism. ‘Responsibility’ and ‘necessity’ are two powerful externalisations of the ‘othering’ process required to ‘motivate action’, though these are – where possible – tied to genuine fears. ‘Credibility’ on the other hand, seems to represent an internal justification of the pursuit of realpolitik. John Keegan suggests that “war may be, among other things, the perpetuation of a culture by its own means” (Keegan, p46. 1994) but also warns that “cultures are not infinitely self-sustaining. They have fragilities which are vulnerable to hostile influences, and among those influences, war-making is one of the most potent”. (Keegan, p387. 1994)

Jacques Attali’s, 2004 text, ‘Brief History of the Future’ explores the idea that overextended militaries often signal the beginning of a relative decline in the ability to project power. Spengler says in his own, slightly more poetic fashion, that maintaining “the heroic posture for centuries on end is beyond the power of any people”. (Spengler. 1922, p28) This is acknowledged grudgingly by Obama with statements like “only Iraqi’s can build a democracy within their borders”. Rather than adopt ‘a new way of thinking’, empires will use whatever language necessary to justify their behaviours to themselves and the world. ”Rorty suggests that each of us have a ‘final vocabulary’ by which we justify our beliefs and actions”, (Mackenzie. 1995, p285) in America’s case, a large part of that vocabulary comprises ideas about ‘responsibility’ and ‘necessity’, born of a self-image as exceptional and the paranoia that accompanies the status as empire. The purpose of this essay has been to bring to light the recurrent amnesia that assists radical interventionism in the 21st century, and show, at least to some extent that rhetoric, no matter how sincere, cannot bend reality to its convenience.

4101 Words

References:

Armstrong, Steven. ‘War PLC’, 2008. Faber & Faber.

Attali, Jacques. ‘A Brief History of the Future’, 2004.

Baker, Peter. ‘Obama’s War Over Terror’, 2010. New York Times.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&)

Balibar, Etienne. ‘The Nation Form: History and Ideology’. (no publication details)

Bush, George W.

(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/18/usa.iraq)

Bush, George W.

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewbu169319.html)

Bush, George HW.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byxeOG_pZ1o)

Curtis, Adam. ‘The Trap’, 2007. BBC

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZt2HhFXB3M)

Curtis, Neal. ‘Restraining Evil: Apocalyptic Narcissism and the War on Terror’, 2009, Arena Journal, 2009, Issue 32, p.153-175 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

De Goede, Marieke. ‘Beyond Risk: Premeditation and the post-911 security imagination’, 2008. Sage.

 Fettweis, Christopher J. ‘Credibility and the ‘War on Terror’. 2007, Political Science Quarterly, Vol.122(4), pp.607-633 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Greer, John Michael. ‘The End of Gasoline Warfare’, 2012.

(http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/search?q=iraq)

Greer, John Michael. ‘The Religion of Progress’, 2013.

(http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/search?q=spengler)

Hutchison, Emma. ‘The politics of post-trauma emotions: Securing community after the Bali bombings’, 2008. Canberra studies in world affairs.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson)

Keegan, John. ‘A History of Warfare’, 1994. Random House.

Kennedy, Liam. ‘Seeing and Believing: On photography and the War on Terror’, 2012, Public Culture, Duke University Press.

Leander, Anna. ‘Risk and the fabrication of Apolitical, unaccountable military markets: The case for the CIA ‘Killing Program’, 2009. Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School.

Livingston, A. ‘Avoiding Deliberative Democracy?: Micropolitics, Manipulation and the Public Sphere’, 2012, Philosophy And Rhetoric, Vol.45(3), pp.269-294 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Loehwing, Melanie. Motter, Jeff. ‘Publics, Counterpublics and the Promise of Democracy’, 2009, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol.42(3), pp.220-241 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Mackenzie, Ian. ‘Pragmatism, Rhetoric, and History’, 1995, Poetics Today, Vol.16(2), pp.283-299 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

McCrisken, Trevor.  2009 (unable to relocate text)

 Middleton, Karen. ‘An Unwinnable War’, 2011. Melbourne University Press.

Nixon, Richard M.

(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/richard_m_nixon.html)

Obama, Barack.

(http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obamas-speech-on-iraq-time-to-turn-the-page-full-text/)

O’Malley, Nick. ‘Obama pulls US back from the brink of Syria strike’, ‘The Age’ 11/9/13

http://www.theage.com.au/world/barack-obama-pulls-us-back-from-the-brink-of-syria-strike-20130911-2tjjz.html#ixzz2eeSfI172

Patman, Robert G. ‘Globalisation, the New US exceptionalism and the War on Terror’, 2006. Third World Quarterly, 2006, Vol.27(6), p.963-986 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Perkins, John. ‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’, 2008.

Rawlings, Nate. ‘Iraq’s Sectarian Violence May Lead to Civil-War’, 2013, TIME.

(http://world.time.com/2013/10/01/iraqs-months-of-sectarian-violence-threaten-to-trigger-a-civil-war/)

Rumsfeld, Donald.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg2q6ZofewM)

 Ryan, Maria. ‘Intellectuals and the ‘War on Terror’, 2010, Journal of American Studies, Vol.44(1), pp.203-209 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Scanlan, Margaret. ‘Migrating from terror: The Postcolonial Novel After September 11’, 2010

Journal of Postcolonial Writing,Vol.46(3), p.266-278 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Spengler, Oswald. ‘The Decline of the West’, 1922. Random House.

Vertigans, S. ‘British Muslims and the Uk government’s ‘War on Terror’ within: Evidence of a clash of civilisations or emergent decivilising process?’ 2010, British Journal Of Sociology, Vol.61(1), pp.26-44 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

 

Digital Creative Economies

The idea of a ‘digital-creative economy’ has become a defining rhetoric for the 21st century. The proliferation of file-sharing technologies, user-generated-content (UGC), social-networking sites, data-mining, crowd/open-sourcing and the empowerment of ‘informal economies’, ”typically defined as that which escapes the regulatory gaze of the state, occurring outside conventional forms of measurement, governance and taxation”, (Lobato et al. 2011, p3) has led to a drastic re-imagining of how business and government can and will be conducted. While it is undeniable that the ‘information revolution’ has shifted the balance of power between citizens and the traditional institutions that govern them, the DCE has also been embraced by these same institutions and now, we see a push across the board towards a new “governing economic paradigm” (Hay. 2004, p505) imbued with both neo-liberal and Keynesian rationalities. First, it should be acknowledged that this new project of governmentality is a work in progress, “the term ’creative industries’ is more of an idea or a proposition than a neutral descriptor of an industry sector” (Cunningham et al. 2008, p17) but regardless, the new rhetoric surrounding the DCE and the ’disruptive technologies’ (Flew. 2007, p100) embedded in internet culture are helping constitute new kinds of actors, economic activities, social and labour relations. This essay will explore features of the DCE, various arguments surrounding these emergent paradigms, the new kinds of economic activity and the power-relationships involved in the forming-up of a ‘digital-creative economy’.

The ‘democratising’ force of modern communications technology has been “challenging and changing the business models of many industries”. (Cunningham et al. 2008, p23) The music industry is one that has felt this change perhaps more than any other. Since the emergence of ‘disruptive technologies’ like ‘Napster’ and ‘MySpace’, file-sharing has become the norm and there has been an explosion of independent musicians who vie for a public’s attention from what are now numerous internet-based platforms like Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Tumblr, to name a few. It is very easy to see modern musicians as being on the cutting of the DCE, self-motivated actors that bring a set of creative and individual talents to compete in a diverse and competitive marketplace – where their output makes a quantifiable success or failure. Since 2000, the music industry’s profits have been “cut in half” http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/  and in this instance, it would be easy to see the emergence of the DCE, in terms of neo-liberalism, as a resounding success, bringing monopolistic, inefficient business to heel while allowing “high-quality workers to capture their marginal product through indirect signalling of quality”. (Quiggan, Potts. 2008, p148) The emergence of the “micro-enterprise” (Lobato et al. 2011, p24) culture exemplified in MySpace and Napster did more than create “a new site of tension at the edge of the formal economy”, (Lobato et al. 2011, p11) they helped establish relationships between business and consumers, that have begun to define the 21st century, all the while “blurring the distinction between consumer and producer”. (Cunningham et al. 2008, p19)

User Generated Content (UGC) goes far beyond music and the ability of a low-ranking employee to contribute to the marginal utility of an organisation. Cultures of fan-fiction, open/crowd-sourcing, meme-culture, online activism, independent media and citizen journalism all constitute elements of the increasingly significant ‘informal economy’. Cunningham describes the relationships between informal ‘cultures’ and the ‘formal economy’ in four distinct but not mutually exclusive ways, as negative, positive, competitive and emergent. An ‘arts festival’ is seen as having a negative impact, requiring public subsidy with a value that “must lie fundamentally beyond market value”. Napster and MySpace would fit into the ‘competitive model’ facilitating “the regulation and control of excess market power”. The ‘positive’, or ‘growth model’ might be best illustrated by the increasingly close relationship between the advertising industry, social-media and ‘Big Data’ – an industry expected to reach about $50billion dollars in value by 2017. http://www.forbes.com/sites/siliconangle/2012/02/17/big-data-is-big-market-big-business/  The ‘emergent model’ proposes “the coordination of new ideas and technologies to facilitate cultural change”. (Cunningham et al. 2008, pp16-17) A ‘Wired’ article points to an ‘open-source’ project that lead to the crafting of a more efficient IV system to help in the fight against disease. “Open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production”. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensource.html  However, some academics caution against technologically determinist arguments with statements such as “far from being a stage of transition, informality appears to be a historical norm, if not a constant”. (Lobato et al. 2011, p11) In the case of ‘bitcoins’, a digital currency that facilitates the illegal trade of weapons, drugs and child pornography across the untraceable ‘dark web’, Lobato would be completely correct. However, in regards to open-sourcing and the rise of UGC, it would be hard to deny the immediate and quantifiable success of the internet as having been instrumental in “democratising the dissemination of socially valuable forms of knowledge throughout the community”. (Flew. 2007, p101)

Another key feature of the DCE is the need for an almost preternatural capacity for adaptation, for constant change and innovation, to manifest what Nigel Thrift calls “the rule of emergency”. (Thrift. 2005, p1) The internalisation of this modus operandi represents “a new spirit of capitalism” (Gregg. 2011, p31) and is expected not only from businesses, but also from the individual ‘knowledge workers’ who are said to be at the vanguard of the DCE. Now, “agents not only have to learn, they have to learn how to learn”. (Flew. 2007, p101) At the cutting-edge this has led, in terms of organisational culture, to a process of what Adrian Mackenzie calls “horizontalisation”, (Mackenzie, 2008, 151) a new mode of being that will apparently enable workers at any level, to contribute to the productivity of a business. Evan Rosen says in an article for Bloomberg, “Every Worker is a Knowledge Worker”, asserting that under the old command and control structures  “collaboration is dead on arrival, because the organization effectively muzzles front-line workers who know how the business operates… value creation suffers because management makes decisions in a vacuum without broad input”. (http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2011/ca20110110_985915.htm) Rosen calls for the institution of an “information democracy” in companies, to effectively “crowd source” their operations with a mind to enhanced ‘innovation’ and therefore competitiveness in a marketplace that demands these qualities as given. Written from a markedly neo-liberal perspective, Rosen’s article is indicative of the broad rhetorical re-imagining happening at the utopian end of the DCE. At an individual level, the growth of the DCE “is suggested by the growing proportion of creative occupations ‘embedded’ in the broader economy”. (Lobato et al. 2011, p17)  According to an article in ‘The Atlantic’ “Creative class jobs will make up roughly half of all projected U.S. employment growth – adding 6.8 million new jobs by 2018”. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/where-the-creative-class-jobs-will-be/61468/

 

On one hand, this new respect for human-capital and the productive and creative power of the individual seems as if it can only be a good thing. However, intrinsic to the neo-liberal version of the DCE is “a defence of labour market flexibility” (Hay. 2004, p508) entailing the ‘casualisation’ of labour, short-term contracts, the rise of freelance culture and working hours that extend far beyond the established norms of the 20th century. Stemming from “the widespread expectation that work could and should escape the 9-5 office”, (Gregg. 2011, p30) ‘knowledge workers’ existing outside of jobs like ‘Social Media-Manager’, or ‘IT consultant’ for a large company, become the ‘precariat’, freelancers at the mercy of market forces and the potentially unrealistic demands of contractors. Being forced to take business calls during dinner time puts the term ‘disruptive technology’ in a new and unflattering light. Furthermore, the probability of having to drastically underquote projects in order to out-compete other knowledge workers would bolster a Marxist critique of the DCE. Another important counter-narrative to the techno-utopianism surrounding the DCE is the question of who can participate in the creation of ‘knowledge’. ANU professor Michael Smithson writes about “subpopulations of workers lacking any qualifications whatsoever. Yet these are precisely the kinds of workers needed to perform jobs for which everyone else would be over-qualified and, knowledge economy or not, such jobs are likely to continue abounding for some time to come”. (http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/psychology/michael-smithson?tab=blog&blogpostid=13893%2c13893) The DCE, it seems, is not for everyone but this hasn’t stopped the traditional institutions of governance from embracing the concept of the DCE and the ‘knowledge economy’.

Western governments are increasingly championing the idea of a DCE as a solution to waning competitiveness in global markets. Kim Beasley’s ‘Knowledge Nation’ and Kevin Rudd’s ‘National Broadband Network’ were essentially Keynesian attempts at culturally communicating the neo-liberal aspects of the DCE, like competition, innovation and collaboration, to wider Australian society. “The digital economy is estimated … to be worth 3.3 per cent of GDP – but we are currently behind the average of 4.3 per cent of industrialised economies and they are continuing to grow faster than we are. It is also estimated that the NBN could add 1.7 per cent to our long-term average productivity growth by 2020,” Rudd said. http://delimiter.com.au/2013/03/11/return-of-the-king-kevin-rudd-re-joins-the-nbn-campaign/ Some academics are cynical about the capacity of enhanced interconnectivity to provide growth, referring to “cargo-cultish beliefs in economic benefit which are never quite realised”, (Cunningham et al. 2008, p18) but rightly recognise an element of soul-searching in the “element of desperation that accompanies the creative industries trend”. (Gregg. 2011, p27) In any case, the push towards a DCE seems to be an ongoing re-imagining for cities and countries alike – an acknowledgement of the necessity for “a continuation of the growth of knowledge through a process of institutional embedding that creates new markets and organisations”. (Quiggan, Potts. 2008, p149)

In regards to the DCE, whether we see it as hopeful or real, no examination would be complete without mentioning social-networks, data, and the news kinds of economic and social relationships that are involved. Facebook, ubiquitous communication tool and flagship for the DCE that it is, earned 1.33billion dollars in advertising revenue in 2012. http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-earnings-out-mobile-daus-exceeded-web-daus-for-first-time-2013-01 For obvious reasons, advertisers want to know what we want and to this end our personal data is becoming ever more valuable. Mark Zuckerberg is correct to say that “social norms have changed” but we should remember, despite the numerous benefits that Facebook can provide in terms of its potential to assist socialisation and collaboration, the ‘open-world’ concept has very real implications for the future of privacy. Zuckerberg famously referred to Facebook users as “dumb fucks” http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-fucks  for trusting him with their information, re-enforcing the point that “the motivations and mechanisms that create public good need not in themselves be public spirited”. (Quiggan, Potts. 2008, p148) However, offhand remarks like Zuckerberg’s conceal a much scarier world linked into the very formal, digital economy of governmental security apparatus. “A horrified career intelligence officer has provided slides detailing a secret US government spying program in which the NSA and the FBI allegedly have direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, AOL, Skype, Youtube and Apple”. (since confirmed by NBC) http://qz.com/91909/nsa-fbi-secret-surveillance-google-facebook-microsoft-yahoo-aol-and-skype/ What might be seen as the disruptive or ‘democratising’ power of sites like ‘Wikileaks’ seems rather slim in comparison. “In 2011 Congress appropriated 51.6billion for the (US) government’s 16 intelligence agencies”. http://au.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-keeps-raising-its-budget-for-keeping-secrets-2012-7 Spying too, is big business.

This essay has painted a picture of the emerging DCE in terms that discuss its impact on the shaping of the modern world, while simultaneously recognising some of the problems inherent in the creation of a DCE and the mass-interconnectivity that this must entail. The data-mining and spy industries might seem dystopian but given the volume of information now available, the challenge for the future is decoding and making sense of it all. In the instance of the NSA and the FBI, this means getting usable intelligence. In terms of consumer data, turning the information into knowledge that has a direct impact on sales is what will count. “The distinction between knowledge and information has become increasingly important”. (Flew. 2007, p101) At the utopian end, the DCE heralds a new age of co-operation and cross border collaboration, with products and systems that can be refined and tested by an unthinkably large talent pool. Workers, while on one hand, can look forward to a future of less time in the office while having their input taken seriously by those in charge, may have to compensate for this with unpaid hours working from whatever location their mobile device will allow. Businesses too, must navigate the desires of consumers empowered by technology to complain to a wide audience, or like the music industry, simply start making their own content for free, “formal industries can be informalised as a result of disruptive technologies”.  (Lobato et al. 2011, p13) Constant innovation, for workers and business, according to a neo-liberal reading, remains the key to relevancy, yet there will be many workers who simply don’t have the skills to participate. Disruptive, crowd-sourced technologies, and UGC will continue to challenge business and continue to facilitate “the process of market/non-market co-evolution” (Quiggan, Potts. 2008, p149) Government too, must strive to stay relevant, while at the same time, equipping its citizens with the tools to function and thrive in rapidly changing digital environments. If anything, this essay has explored “complex and often counter-intuitive relations of mutual influence that call for further analysis”. (Lobato et al. 2011, p14)

References:

Texts-                                         

Adrian Mackenzie. (2008), ‘The Affect of Efficiency: Personal Productivity Equipment Encounters the Multiple’, Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organisation, 8.2, excerpts.

Colin Hay (2004), ‘The Normalising Role of Rationalist Assumptions in the Institutional Embedding of Neo-Liberalism’, Economy and Society, 33(4), pp.500-527.

John Quiggan and Jason Potts (2008), ‘Economics of Non-Market Innovation and Digital Literacy’, Media International Australia, 128, pp.144-150

Melissa Gregg (2011), ‘Selling the Flexible Workplace: The Creative Economy and New Media Fetishism’, in ‘Work’s Intimacy’, Cambridge, Polity, pp.23-32.

Nigel Thrift. (2008) ‘Re-Inventing Invention: New Tendencies in Capitalist Commodification’, Non-Representational Theory: space/politics/affect, Oxon, Routledge, (excerpts)

Ramon Lobato, Julian Thomas, Dan Hunter. (2011) ‘Histories of User Generated Content: Between Formal and Informal Media Economies’. (online)

Stuart Cunningham, John Banks and Jason Potts (2008), ‘Cultural Economy: The Shape of the Field’ in H. Anheier and Y. Raj Isa reds; ‘The Cultural Economy’, London, Sage, pp.15-26 (excerpts)

Terry Flew (2007), ‘Knowledge Economy’ in ‘Understanding Global Media’, Basingstoke, Hampshire, Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 23-32.

Websites-

Best Thinking Science – ‘An Ignorance Economy?’

http://www.bestthinking.com/thinkers/science/social_sciences/psychology/michael-smithson?tab=blog&blogpostid=13893%2c13893

Bloomberg Business Week – ‘Every Worker is a Knowledge Worker’

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2011/ca20110110_985915.htm

Business Insider Australia – ‘The US Government Keeps Raising its Secret Keeping Budget’

http://au.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-keeps-raising-its-budget-for-keeping-secrets-2012-7

CNN Money – ‘Music’s Lost Decade: Sales Cut in Half’

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/

Delimiter – ‘Return of the King: Kevin Rudd Re-joins the NBN Campaign’

http://delimiter.com.au/2013/03/11/return-of-the-king-kevin-rudd-re-joins-the-nbn-campaign/

Forbes Tech – ‘Big Data is Big Market and Big Business’

http://www.forbes.com/sites/siliconangle/2012/02/17/big-data-is-big-market-big-business/

Gawker – ‘Facebook CEO admits to calling users “Dumb Fucks”’

http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-fucks

Quartz – ‘Google, Facebook, Microsoft, others, allegedly allow the government to “watch your ideas form as you type”’

http://qz.com/91909/nsa-fbi-secret-surveillance-google-facebook-microsoft-yahoo-aol-and-skype/

The Atlantic – ‘Where the Creative Class Jobs will be’

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/where-the-creative-class-jobs-will-be/61468/

Web Pro News Business – ‘Zuckerberg: Facebook is a mobile Company Now’

http://www.webpronews.com/facebook-earnings-out-mobile-daus-exceeded-web-daus-for-first-time-2013-01

Wired – ‘Open Source Everywhere’

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensource.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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