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

[Prof. Dr. Rudi Schmiede]

Hi Baris,

I very much appreciate Alfred Sohn-Rethel and his work, but I don't understand your point really.

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: "Isik Baris Fidaner" <fidaner at alternatifbilisim.org>
To: discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net; 
Dated: 24.01.2013 17:27:00
Subject: Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Socialist technologies in the service ofcapitalism

hi,
i think, in Intellectual and Manual Labour, Alfred Sohn-Rethel is
convincing enough for one to suspect any diagram that involves boxes
with 'input-output' links.

Marx was explaining in Capital what we now call 'input' and 'output',
where he told about the two metamorphoses of commodities.

baris


On 1/24/13 10:12 AM, Mustafa.Ali wrote:
> 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
>

_______________________________________________
Discussion mailing list
Discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.icts-and-society.net/pipermail/discussion-icts-and-society.net/attachments/20130124/e51c8428/attachment-0002.htm>