On "Anarchist Prophets: Disappointing Vision and the Power of Collective Sight"

Abstract: In my talk, I am going to consider the internet as a potentially anarchist space. I will begin by distinguishing anarchism from what I like to call archism, the main mode of political and economic organization that is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t usually even have a name. Archism is hierarchical and dominant. It includes many variants like capitalism, liberalism and fascism. Anarchism, when placed besides archism changes from being simply the name of a particular European tradition of leftist thought to something more like the infinite other ways that a community could organize itself besides the top down (or faux democratic) model that we generally see.

With this distinction in mind, we can see that the change from so called “public” to “private” modalities of regulating the internet make no real difference insofar as both public and private partake in archest forms of logic and organization. Although the internet has long been touted for its revolutionary potential, in practice it has been completely (or nearly completely) coopted and commercialized.

I will talk about how and if the internet can realize its potential as a properly anarchist space, perhaps one of the most significant anarchist spaces available in the West. Insofar as anarchist forms of organization require a forum in which workers and political participants can meet to hammer out the kind of self governance that they wish to engage in, the internet always has the potential to offer just such a forum. As long as it is captured by commercial interests, right wing ideology and consumerism, the internet will remain largely what it is, an archest space with anarchist aspects but that does not mean that it is condemned to permanent archism. I will make some suggestions about how this space can be reclaimed for the anarchist potential that the internet has always had (regardless of the original intentions of its founders) but which is rarely recognized, so eclipsed is it by commercial and other forms of representation.

game theoryhuman-computer interactionsocial and information networkslaw and economics

Audience: researchers in the topic

( chat | video )

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Metagovernance Seminar

Series comments: The Metagovernance Seminar invites individuals working in online governance to present their work to a community of other researchers and practitioners. Topics of the seminar include, but are not limited to, computational tools for governance, governance incidents and case studies from online communities, topics in cryptoeconomics, and the design of digital constitutions.

See archived videos: archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Metagovernance%20Seminar%22

The seminar is intended for researchers and practitioners in online governance, broadly defined. We welcome guests and curious members of the public, but please note that the discussion is moderated. Our governance structure is defined here: metagov.pubpub.org/metagov-governance

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