<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
body {
font-family: Verdana;
font-size: 10pt;
font-weight: normal;
color: black;
background-color: white;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>Hi Baris,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I very much appreciate Alfred Sohn-Rethel and his work, but I don't understand your point really.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Rudi</div>
<div> </div>
<div id="41298,9845958218">
<div>_________________________________________________________________________________________ </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Prof. Dr. Rudi Schmiede </div>
<div>Inst. f. Soziologie / Dpt. of Sociology </div>
<div>Techn. Univ. Darmstadt / Darmstadt University of Technology </div>
<div>Residenzschloss, Marktplatz 15, D-64283 Darmstadt </div>
<div>Tel. +49 6151 16-2809 Fax +49 6151 16-6042 </div>
<div><a href="http://www.ifs.tu-darmstadt.de/index.php?id=schmiede_00">http://www.ifs.tu-darmstadt.de/index.php?id=schmiede_00</a></div>
<div><a href="http://person.yasni.de/rudi+schmiede+161003">http://person.yasni.de/rudi+schmiede+161003</a></div>
<div>_________________________________________________________________________________________ </div>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px; border-left: #000000 3px solid; padding-right: 5px" align="left">
<hr />Original message<br />From: "Isik Baris Fidaner" <fidaner@alternatifbilisim.org><br />To: discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net; <br />Dated: 24.01.2013 17:27:00<br />Subject: Re: [ICTs-and-Society] Socialist technologies in the service ofcapitalism<br /><br />hi,<br />i think, in Intellectual and Manual Labour, Alfred Sohn-Rethel is<br />convincing enough for one to suspect any diagram that involves boxes<br />with 'input-output' links.<br /><br />Marx was explaining in Capital what we now call 'input' and 'output',<br />where he told about the two metamorphoses of commodities.<br /><br />baris<br /><br /><br />On 1/24/13 10:12 AM, Mustafa.Ali wrote:<br />> Greetings, Bob!<br />><br />> 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.<br />><br />> 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:<br />><br />> <a href="http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/324">http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/324</a><br />><br />> Kind regards<br />><br />> (Syed) Mustafa (Ali)<br />><br />> The Open University, UK<br />> ________________________________________<br />> From: Bob Hughes <a href="mailto:[bob@dustormagic.net]">[bob@dustormagic.net]</a><br />> Sent: 23 January 2013 19:57<br />> To: <a href="mailto:discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net">discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net</a><br />> Subject: [ICTs-and-Society] Socialist technologies in the service of capitalism<br />><br />> Dear listmembers,<br />><br />> Linear programming (and other mathematical/cybernetic planning<br />> techniques) were seen by many people in the 1940s and 1950s as<br />> heralding the end of markets, as they offered radically more<br />> efficient means of distribution.<br />><br />> Instead, I get the impression these techniques ended up helping Big<br />> Capital to push markets to new limits, via Enterprise Resource<br />> Planning (ERP) apps like SAP.<br />><br />> Certainly, I understand that people trained in cybernetics and OR<br />> during the 1960s increasingly found they could only get work in<br />> corporate situations, where it was impossible to work on 'whole<br />> systems' in the proper, cybernetic sense.<br />><br />> And linear programming seems to be the basis of the 'combinatorial<br />> auction' systems that have been so very profitably developed for<br />> handling sell-offs of public assets (UK buses in 1995, followed by<br />> the auctions for 3G and now 4G bandwidth, and I guess auctions for<br />> airline routes ... and maybe finding further, similar markets in<br />> countries that come under IMF privatisation-orders).<br />><br />> If this is the case then there's a ginormously bitter irony here:<br />> what should have led to an age of low-impact abundance ended up being<br />> a power-tool for the manufacture of high-impact scarcity.<br />><br />> Has anyone researched this, or can anyone point me in the direction<br />> of someone who has? Do you think the above is broadly correct?<br />><br />> Best regards,<br />><br />> Bob Hughes<br />> --<br />> Home: +44 (0)1865 726804 * Mobile: +44 (0)7968 292499 * Mail:<br />> <a href="mailto:bob@dustormagic.net">bob@dustormagic.net</a><br />> Personal site: <a href="http://www.dustormagic.net/">http://www.dustormagic.net</a> | No One Is Illegal:<br />> <a href="http://www.noii.org.uk/">http://www.noii.org.uk</a><br />> _______________________________________________<br />> Discussion mailing list<br />> <a href="mailto:Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net">Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net</a><br />> <a href="http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net">http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net</a><br />><br /><br />_______________________________________________<br />Discussion mailing list<br /><a href="mailto:Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net">Discussion@lists.icts-and-society.net</a><br /><a href="http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net">http://lists.icts-and-society.net/listinfo.cgi/discussion-icts-and-society.net</a><br />
</div>
</body>
</html>