[ICTs-and-Society] Socialist technologies in the service of capitalism

[Mustafa.Ali]

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
_______________________________________________
Discussion mailing list
Discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net

-- 
The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).