[ICTs-and-Society] Fwd: Socialist technologies in the service ofcapitalism

[José María Díaz Nafría]

Thank you so much, dear Rudi,

I really appreciate the historical reconstruction from Helmut Wenzel that
you have put on my hands, I will surely enjoy its reading.

Probably you know about the book recetly published from David Pouvreau:
“Ultimate biography” of Ludwig von Bertalanffy (2011, as part of BCSSS Book
Series <http://www.bertalanffy.org/research/book-series> “Exploring Unity
Through Diversity”), which is also due to David's doctoral research.

Best wishes,
J.

2013/1/24 Prof. Dr. Rudi Schmiede <schmiede at ifs.tu-darmstadt.de>

 Dear José,
>
> I agree to your call against over-simplification, and I appreciate
> especially your mention of Bertalanffy and the traditions of system
> thinking. My Darmstadt colleague Helmut Wenzel years ago (2000) has written
> his Ph.D. thesis on "Subjekt, Information and System" (unfortunately,
> available only in German via
> http://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/epda/000060/) where he reconstructs
> the history of system thinking and awards appropriate attention to
> Bertalanffy and the development of Cybernetics.
>
> All the best,
> Rudi
>
>  _________________________________________________________________________________________
>
>
> Prof. Dr. Rudi Schmiede
> Inst. f. Soziologie / Dpt. of Sociology
> Techn. Univ. Darmstadt / Darmstadt University of Technology
> Residenzschloss, Marktplatz 15, D-64283 Darmstadt
> Tel. +49 6151 16-2809 Fax +49 6151 16-6042
> http://www.ifs.tu-darmstadt.de/index.php?id=schmiede_00
> http://person.yasni.de/rudi+schmiede+161003
> _________________________________________________________________________________________
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> Original message
> From: "José María Díaz Nafría" <diaz-naf at hm.edu>
> To: Mustafa.Ali at open.ac.uk;
> Dated: 24.01.2013 15:30:52
> Subject: Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Socialist technologies in the service
> ofcapitalism
>
> Dear Mustafa,
>
> Though I agree about the role played by capitalism in the early history of
> cybernetics, I think it is important not to oversimplify the history of
> cybernetics. Some months ago I was discussing about the origin of
> electromagnetism with a professor who intended to sustain its very
> beginnings in Maxwell, forgetting that Schelling mentioned 70 years before
> the possibility of finding a connection between the two forces as a
> different manifestation of a common root. Orstead was follower of
> Schelling, Faraday was indirectly encouraged by the project, etc, etc. What
> I want to highlight is that the american school of cybernetics is just a
> manifestation of the system thinking which roots can be traced back at
> least to Spinoza, and particularly passing through Schelling (R. Zimmermann
> has a nice book referred to the historical development of this thinking:
> "Die Kreativität der Materie"). The same thing could be said for many other
> historicist categorisations of scientific production. The social and
> historical dimension is often underestimated... But turning back to the
> case of system-thinking, Bertalanfy represents a significant figure in this
> picture (with his "Kritische Theorie der Formbildung", 1928), as well as
> Hermann Schmidt's "Regelungskunde" (1930) -to name but a few-. Segal talks
> -in the aforementioned book- about some of this in his book devoted about
> the history of the scientific notion of information... Furthermore,
> Wiener's letter to the Automotive Unions from 1949 is important to remind
> for assessing the real position of cyberneticians. Similarly, it is worth
> recalling the event occurred (the over reaction, could be said) when Peter
> Fleissner predicted a significant bad development for eastern Germany
> people's life after its entrance in the market economy using cybernetic
> models -as it actually was the case according to the variables predicted-...
>
> Best regards,
> J.
>
> 2013/1/24 Mustafa.Ali <Mustafa.Ali at open.ac.uk>
>
>> Greetings, Bob!
>>
>> I dispute the necessity of a socialist / progressive / radical
>> interpretation of cybernetics and that it has been co-opted by capitalism;
>> in my view, cybernetics, while not 'neutral' was forged in capitalist
>> contexts, irrespective of whether they were private / individual capital or
>> public / state capital. In this connection, I would refer you to the work
>> of Steve Heims and others who have documented the history of cybernetics,
>> both from US-centric and Soviet-centric perspectives.
>>
>> I should also like to refer you to my recently published tripleC article,
>> "Race: The Difference That Makes  Difference" which briefly examines
>> cybernetics from a critical race theoretical perspective:
>>
>> http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/324
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>> (Syed) Mustafa (Ali)
>>
>> The Open University, UK
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Bob Hughes [bob at dustormagic.net]
>> Sent: 23 January 2013 19:57
>> To: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
>> Subject: [ICTs-and-Society] Socialist technologies in the service of
>>  capitalism
>>
>> Dear listmembers,
>>
>> Linear programming (and other mathematical/cybernetic planning
>> techniques) were seen by many people in the 1940s and 1950s as
>> heralding the end of markets, as they offered radically more
>> efficient means of distribution.
>>
>> Instead, I get the impression these techniques ended up helping Big
>> Capital to push markets to new limits, via Enterprise Resource
>> Planning (ERP) apps like SAP.
>>
>> Certainly, I understand that people trained in cybernetics and OR
>> during the 1960s increasingly found they could only get work in
>> corporate situations, where it was impossible to work on 'whole
>> systems' in the proper, cybernetic sense.
>>
>> And linear programming seems to be the basis of the 'combinatorial
>> auction' systems that have been so very profitably developed for
>> handling sell-offs of public assets (UK buses in 1995, followed by
>> the auctions for 3G and now 4G bandwidth, and I guess auctions for
>> airline routes ... and maybe finding further, similar markets in
>> countries that come under IMF privatisation-orders).
>>
>> If this is the case then there's a ginormously bitter irony here:
>> what should have led to an age of low-impact abundance ended up being
>> a power-tool for the manufacture of high-impact scarcity.
>>
>> Has anyone researched this, or can anyone point me in the direction
>> of someone who has? Do you think the above is broadly correct?
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Bob Hughes
>> --
>> Home: +44 (0)1865 726804 * Mobile: +44 (0)7968 292499 * Mail:
>> bob at dustormagic.net
>> Personal site: http://www.dustormagic.net | No One Is Illegal:
>> http://www.noii.org.uk
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>>
>> --
>> The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an
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>> 038302).
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Jose Maria Diaz Nafria
>
> Visiting Professor at the *Hochschule München* (HM, Germany,
> http://www.fh-muenchen.de/)
>     Postal Adress: Fakultät 13-Studium Generale, Dachauerstr. 100A, 80663
> München, GERMANY
> *Universidad de León *(ULE, Spain, http://www.unileon.es/)
>     Postal address: Esc.de Ingenierías Industrial e Informática, Campus de
> Vegazana s/n, 24071 Leon, SPAIN
>
> Coordination of *BITrum* Research Group (http://bitrum.unileon.es/)
> Coordination of *Glossarium BITri* (http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/)
> Coordination of *DomusBITae* initiative (
> http://stylusbitae.bitrum.unileon.es/)
> *myUniversity* research team (http://www.e-myuniversity.eu/ule/)
> Board of Director, Institut für Design Science (IfDS, Munich, Germany,
> http://www.designscience.de/)
> Board of Directors, *Science of Information Institute* (SoII, Washington,
> USA, http://www.soii.info/)
> Board of Directors, *International Society for Information Studies* (ISIS,
> Vienna, Austria, http://is4is.unileon.es/)
> *Unified Theory of Information* Research Group (UTI, Austria,
> http://www.uti.at/)
> Editorial Board, *TripleC* Journal (http://www.triple-c.at)
> Editorial Board, *IRIE* Journal (http://www.i-r-i-e.net)
>
> Tf: HM (Germany): +49 89 1265 3110; ULE (Spain):  +34 987 091630; Fax: +34 987
> 29 11 35; +34 657 516306
>  Skype: Jose Maria Diaz Nafria, jnafria
>



-- 
Dr. Jose Maria Diaz Nafria

Visiting Professor at the *Hochschule München* (HM, Germany,
http://www.fh-muenchen.de/)
    Postal Adress: Fakultät 13-Studium Generale, Dachauerstr. 100A, 80663
München, GERMANY
*Universidad de León *(ULE, Spain, http://www.unileon.es/)
    Postal address: Esc.de Ingenierías Industrial e Informática, Campus de
Vegazana s/n, 24071 Leon, SPAIN

Coordination of *BITrum* Research Group (http://bitrum.unileon.es/)
Coordination of *Glossarium BITri* (http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/)
Coordination of *DomusBITae* initiative (
http://stylusbitae.bitrum.unileon.es/)
*myUniversity* research team (http://www.e-myuniversity.eu/ule/)
Board of Director, Institut für Design Science (IfDS, Munich, Germany,
http://www.designscience.de/)
Board of Directors, *Science of Information Institute* (SoII, Washington,
USA, http://www.soii.info/)
Board of Directors, *International Society for Information Studies* (ISIS,
Vienna, Austria, http://is4is.unileon.es/)
*Unified Theory of Information* Research Group (UTI, Austria,
http://www.uti.at/)
Editorial Board, *TripleC* Journal (http://www.triple-c.at)
Editorial Board, *IRIE* Journal (http://www.i-r-i-e.net)

Tf: HM (Germany): +49 89 1265 3110; ULE (Spain):  +34 987 091630; Fax: +34 987
29 11 35; +34 657 516306
Skype: Jose Maria Diaz Nafria, jnafria



-- 
Dr. Jose Maria Diaz Nafria

Visiting Professor at the *Hochschule München* (HM, Germany,
http://www.fh-muenchen.de/)
    Postal Adress: Fakultät 13-Studium Generale, Dachauerstr. 100A, 80663
München, GERMANY
*Universidad de León *(ULE, Spain, http://www.unileon.es/)
    Postal address: Esc.de Ingenierías Industrial e Informática, Campus de
Vegazana s/n, 24071 Leon, SPAIN

Coordination of *BITrum* Research Group (http://bitrum.unileon.es/)
Coordination of *Glossarium BITri* (http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/)
Coordination of *DomusBITae* initiative (
http://stylusbitae.bitrum.unileon.es/)
*myUniversity* research team (http://www.e-myuniversity.eu/ule/)
Board of Director, Institut für Design Science (IfDS, Munich, Germany,
http://www.designscience.de/)
Board of Directors, *Science of Information Institute* (SoII, Washington,
USA, http://www.soii.info/)
Board of Directors, *International Society for Information Studies* (ISIS,
Vienna, Austria, http://is4is.unileon.es/)
*Unified Theory of Information* Research Group (UTI, Austria,
http://www.uti.at/)
Editorial Board, *TripleC* Journal (http://www.triple-c.at)
Editorial Board, *IRIE* Journal (http://www.i-r-i-e.net)

Tf: HM (Germany): +49 89 1265 3110; ULE (Spain):  +34 987 091630;
Fax: +34 987 29 11 35; +34 657 516306
Skype: Jose Maria Diaz Nafria, jnafria
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