The informational network society (Feb. 22)

We've seen how the "information society" concept, despite its popularity, is limited and how a "knowledge society" might be a better label that includes context. There is, however, a third alternative, proposed by one of the most influential scholars in the subject, Manuel Castells, which is the "informational society". Castells has published already three editions of his gigantic three-volume work "The Information Age" where he established the informational society as more meaningful and radical than the information society. He compares this to the industrial society to indicate that we don't say the "industry society" (one in which society uses industry or in which industry is present), but rather an industrial society which is modeled according to an industrial mode of development. In the same way, the informational society indicates a society shaped according to the interaction between ICT and economy, culture and politics; rather than an "information society" which might only indicate a society where ICT is present and influential.

Moreover, this "informationalism" also agrees with ALAI in that it is by nature a capitalist model of society. In other words, we are speaking about informational capitalism, where informationalism is the mode of development and capitalism is the mode of production. Informationalism is linked to the expansion and rejuvenation of capitalism on a global scale: flexibility in management, decentralization of firms, empowering of capital as opposed to labor, increasing individualization and diversification of working relationships, massive incorporation of women to the labor force, deregulation of markets, and undoing of the welfare state. This, of course implies also that the capitalist mode of production shapes social relationships over the entire planet, and accordingly that socialism ans statism are not part of this informational society. This is due in part to the failure of socialist countries to embrace emerging ICT at the right time, but also to the fact that informationalism and capitalism fit each other better.

However, Castells does not go as far as ALAI in saying that this is a result of an hegemonic imperialistic project. Though the Internet did indeed stem from a military-industrial complex during the Cold War, it did not grow into a global phenomenon until 20 years later. In fact, Castells is clear in saying that no country (nor society as a whole) can determine technology; it is, as we have discussed earlier, a mutually interrelated evolutionary process. The notion of an American Empire can thus be critically re-examined in Anotnio Negri's terms as a simplification of the real Empire which goes well beyond the USA. Indeed, for Negri the US, as well as the rest of us, are all "within Empire", indicating this globalization of a capitalist mode of production tahat acts, as Castells would say as a "global automaton" which cannot be controlled by any given nation-state (in fact, one of the consequences of the informational society is the decline of the nation-state or of its capacity to control and regulate social action). Accordingly, there is increasing consensus that the era of superpowers is over because it belongs to the "industrial society". Neither China, nor Europe, nor any of the emerging countries will take over the position of the US in this new multi-polar informational society.

The "network society" then enters the picture because the structure of the informational society, its shape and properties, are based on (or rather result in) a network model. This (open and dynamic) network is a natural instrument for a capitalist economy based on innovation, globalization and decentralization, where the power of flows replaces the flows of power. But this network has also contributed to restructuring capitalism itself. Instead of the traditional mode of capitalism where capitalists are the owners of the modes of production, today we have many different capitalists at different places and with different roles: corporate managers, the bourgeoisie, bankers, speculators, entrepreneurs, tycoons, public corporations and even mafia organizations. It is a "faceless collective capitalist", rather than a class. Accordingly, in Castells view, it cannot be identified, it cannot be fought, it cannot be regulated. The financial crisis that erupted in 2008 is a clear example of this which Castells uses to prove that his original ideas (from the 1996 1st edition) still hold in his latest 2010 edition.

He still, however, believes in the role of civil society and in the influence of rational meaningful social action. For example, he points out the feminization of the work force and the reduction of the digital divide in recent years (through it is still a huge gap as we saw using the ICT Development Index figures from the ITU). Rather than assuming that the trend indicates the already discussed "end of history", Castells says that "history is just beginning". The problem, though, is that we are not sure where it is heading, so the first step is to understand it if we want to influence its evolution towards the benefit of humanity.