Attached herewith is the latest column "Straight-Talk" [D O T C O M D E L U S I O N S] by John Samuel which was published in Humanscape ( www.humanscapeindia.org ) in June 2000, which may be of interest to you.
Kindly acknowledge the same.
Thaking you,
Yours sincerely
Balram Khandare
For NCAS Team.
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by *John Samuel
The new mantra is `Information is power'. But who is being empowered by the dotcom revolution? The consumers who are rushing for their daily online fix? The thirsty villagers who have access to neither technology nor plastic money? Or the merchants and brokers of information, money and images?
There's tonnes of information floating around the information highways
these days. And there
are hoards of Internet junkies swimming around in dotcom waters. But
what does this
information do for the hungry child or the thirsty village? How much
of this information can fill
an empty stomach? My concern is not about the validity of information,
but that this
contagious information fever is eclipsing reality.
All of a sudden all of Mumbai was filled with dotcom hoardings promising
instant information
nirvana for any problem under the sky: from dating to dancing, from
soyabeans to salvation,
from cars to cricket, and from houses to headaches. The message was
that you would not be
able to survive without a dotcom connection for your daily fix of information.
This was the
direct outcome of the climbing sensex and the boom in the infotech
sector.
The important thing to consider here is not the newfound enthusiasm
for information. The
important thing is that there's a process at work here in which information,
image and money
become more vital than the ideas, reality or resources they are supposed
to represent.
There is a connection between the predominance of finance capital or
the money market, the
high-pitched information market and the emerging politics of images.
The connecting link is
that all these three new protagonists of the market are not real but
something that represents
the real. In other words money, information and image are signifiers
of something else. Money
in itself is useless unless it represents other resources. Money cannot
fill the stomach or
quench thirst unless someone is ready to exchange the real resources
(ie food, drink, clothing,
commodities etc) for money. Money is not wealth. It is something which
signifies wealth,
consisting of material things and services necessary for the survival
and improvement of living
conditions. It is the same with information. Information becomes important
because it tells us
about something else that exists in reality: about things, processes,
situations, people, contexts
etc. An image is some visual or perception that represents something
else: a person, a
situation, an idea etc. They are all in a sense mediums of exchange.
In any society, social, political and economic exchanges and negotiations
happen through
these signifiers that serve as the medium of exchange. The story of
each civilization is also the
story of different kinds of mediations that serve social, political
and economic functions in a
given society at a particular time.
From ancient rock paintings and pictograms, indigenous modes of social
exchange and barter
systems of exchange, socio-cultural history evolved to innovate mediums
and modes of
exchange. The barter system gave way to metallic forms of representation
like coins and later
paper money, and then plastic money, which is giving way to the concept
of info-money. One
can trace a parallel socio-historical process that has helped to collate
information from local
specificity and utilities to a broader arena of dissemination. This
happened in the case of
images as well, starting with images of the divine, going on to those
of the king, and later
becoming a broader socio-cultural phenomenon.
So what is so peculiar about the present predominance of the three key
signifiers ---
information, money and images -- in our lives? It has, after all, been
a fairly long historical
process. The key difference is that earlier there was a very strong
and balanced link between
the signifier and the signified; between paper money and the resources
it signified; between
information and the reality the information sought to convey; between
the image and the
situation or the person behind the image. With the dotcom revolution,
the free-floating money
market and image merchandising, this vital link has been considerably
strained. In the process
money has taken precedence over resources, information has taken precedence
over real life,
and image has taken precedence over reality.
When the medium itself becomes the message, those who control the `mediation'
become
powerful. That is why Rupert Murdoch becomes more powerful than citizens
or even political
rulers. Because it is not the what and why of information that matters,
it is the how of
information delivery that defines the information itself. When the
means itself becomes an end,
the end becomes redundant.
Why has the sensex all of a sudden turned so sexy? Because the sensex
operates on money,
information and images. If there is a comparative advantage of market
information and
corporate image, the money market is influenced. In the early-'90s,
there was a lot of money
market euphoria over the image boost of the `tiger' economies. The
image of skyscrapers,
hi-tech flyovers and swanky cars in Bangkok and Jakarta propelled the
money market to new
heights. But the hi-tech image of Bangkok concealed the ugly face of
poverty-stricken villages
in northern Thailand. Information about macro-economic growth in terms
of GDP and GNP
said little about the increasing vulnerability of the rural masses.
Image, information and the
money market reinforced each other. The high sensex ratings did not
have a strong
connection with real productivity, natural resources and the distribution
of services. For
instance, during the financial boom in Thailand, agricultural production
actually declined and
the manufacturing sector was more or less stagnant. The magic sensex
euphoria had more to
do with the pattern of spending money in the consumer market than the
pattern of productivity
that creates real material wealth. Eventually, the `tiger' turned out
to be so much market
bubblegum.
In India recently the sensex rating of infotech companies rose to magical
heights, creating a
whole string of dotcom dreams. The dominant images of infotech companies
and the
favourable information flow helped increase the vigour of the money
market. Here the
problem is that finance capital gets value addition without a corresponding
increase in real
assets or productivity. The ever-growing finance capital market is
increasingly becoming a
global casino driven by information and images. Speculative strategies
and money laundering
are akin to gambling. When the link between money/currency and the
productive
assets/resources it seeks to represent is broken, the economic foundations
of a society
become precarious. With the mind-boggling growth of a pure money market,
the very future
of the so-called global economy is on shifting sands.
The so-called movement of international capital is more a movement of
magic numbers in the
computer system and on the information highways than a real movement
of commodities,
services and goods. In a traditional economic setting, the creation
of money is intrinsically
linked to the creation of real wealth or productive assets. Money is
created in balanced
proportion to allow for the effective exchange of goods and services.
Under finance
capitalism, driven by a sort of monetarism, this vital link between
money and real material
resources is broken. As a result, one can create financial assets through
market gambling,
without making any real contribution to the creation of wealth. In
this process those who have
a comparative advantage over information and image can manipulate money
market, with
more claims to wealth but without actually creating any wealth. Such
a delusion of wealth in
fact further marginalises the bargaining power of the real wage-earners,
labourers and
entrepreneurs who are involved in the creation of real wealth.
In the stock market, the money that is invested to buy a new issue of
a company is what is
used for productive assets. Other stock transactions are not always
linked to the creation of
productive resources. One study on US corporations shows that in terms
of the money that
corporations use to support the expansion of their production, only
4 per cent comes from the
share market; most of the money comes from the retained earnings and
the lion's share of the
rest comes from borrowings.
In a sense the ongoing dotcom euphoria is a corollary to finance-driven
sensex capitalism. In
a speculative market, one expects high returns. It has been reported
that in recent years, the
highest investment returns in the US were in the finance sector. Similarly,
the high-pitched
images of dotcom money-making kids propelled a gold rush to the information
highways. As
the dominant image of quick returns is in favour of the finance and
information sectors, a large
number of highly qualified and high-calibre people jumped from the
real process of asset
creation to that of a much quicker process of making money in the finance
and information
sector. Hence, the visible boom in the finance and information sector
may also undermine the
real validity of actual resources. As a result, those who control the
mediation of finance and
information become much more powerful than the real producers of material
and social
resources. This will create development delusions based on the well-being
and welfare of a
section of visible people, wonder stories and magic entrepreneurs.
We may be thrilled about
the fact that anything can be ordered through the Internet, provided
you have access to plastic
money through credit cards. But we may also conveniently forget that
the dotcom revolution
will bring food, water and sex to only a privileged few who have access
to technology and
plastic money. The dotcom revolution will not bring food to a hungry
child or water to a
thirsty village. Because they neither have access to the technology
nor to plastic money,
though they contribute more than the info-entrepreneurs to the real
production of real material
and social resources. That is how the signifiers actually swallow the
signified. That is how the
mediators of information, money and images become more powerful than
the creators and
producers of real material or social assets.
These days the frequently quoted one-line rationale for the marketing
of information is that
`Information is Power'. So get dotcommed and get empowered. It's as
simple as that! In that
case, all that we need to empower the people of the world is to ensure
that like water,
electricity and telephone connections, everyone will have dotcom connections
as well. But
alas our problems are more complex. They will not be wished away with
online mantras. If
information is indeed power, why has the ongoing information revolution
not brought about a
socio-political revolution? Why is it that wider information dissemination
manages to inform
but fails to empower ? Why is the right to information failing to check
corruption in
governance?
The questions we need to ask are: In whose hands does information become
powerful? Who
controls, disseminates and mediates information? What is the difference
between data,
information and knowledge? Who controls the production and dissemination
of knowledge?
Such questions will ensure that we are not carried away by the dotcom
syndrome. Such
questions are age-old questions that arose at every historical juncture
and political transition.
What we need to realise is that information in itself may not have intrinsic
value. Information
derives importance because of the fact that it helps us understand
something else in a given
context. It is the `mediation' process of information that makes information
powerful. Hence,
it is not necessarily the consumers of information who get empowered,
it is the merchants,
traders and brokers of information who get empowered. By controlling
information they can
control the market as well as power politics. When an election survey
is commissioned by a
major newspaper or a popular newsmagazine, it is not the readers of
these magazines who
become powerful, but the editors and owners of the newsmagazines. This
comparative
advantage of `mediating' and `brokering' information is what makes
them the power-brokers
who bargain their way to ministerial chairs and the backdoor of parliament.
One of the biggest information banks is controlled by the financial
banks which control plastic
money -- Citibank, Standard Chartered, American Express etc. They know
who buys what,
when, where and how. By interpreting their data the bank can also know
why a particular
group of people buys a particular product. Yes, in the hands of media
empires, software
companies, market enterprises and political power-brokers, information
becomes powerful;
because they are in the business of mediating and controlling information.
Meanwhile, the
consumers of information have only the illusion of empowerment.
We have to make a distinction between data, information and knowledge.
Data by itself does
not necessarily convey much. For instance, if one has the data on primary
school enrollment,
one does not necessarily get a picture of primary education in the
country. When one
contextualises the data in a particular situation, the data becomes
information. If one
contextualises the data of primary school enrollment in a particular
district or state in the
overall context of literacy levels, social development etc, that data
makes sense. When you
interpret the data with a particular political, ideological or analytical
framework, information is
transformed into modules of knowledge. Hence the interpretation of
information on primary
school enrollment may be different for people with differing ideological
or analytical
perspectives. Knowledge is often value-loaded. That is why the leftists,
rightists and liberals
interpret historical information in entirely different ways. That is
why fanatical Hindutva
elements were worried about the `knowledge' propounded by an Amartya
Sen, Romila
Thapar, Bipan Chandra or Irfan Habib. The actual powerplay is not in
the information market
but in the production and dissemination of knowledge. In a way, Ignatius
Loyola is one of the
most powerful visionaries in history; precisely because he identified
the power of
disseminating knowledge through the institutionalisation and control
of education. In fact,
colonisation was not merely about the extraction of goods and resources,
it was about the
production and creation of a market for the knowledge system that ensured
hegemony
through creating consent. All of history is recorded and interpreted
in order to sustain political
power.
The dotcom revolution is going to lead to even more information anarchy.
The global
information order will thrive on the confusion propelled by that anarchy.
Information anarchy
and information order are in fact two sides of the same coin. At the
receiving end there will be
so much information output that one will find it difficult to know
what is useful and what is
junk. One will have no time to interpret such information and transform
it into a strong
knowledge base. On the contrary, the information explosion via your
dotcom receiver can
create a sort of information-immunity wherein the information will
fail to affect your feeling,
thinking and action. Now there is so much information about corruption,
people are no longer
shocked by any scams; they have got used to it. It is not because of
lack of information that
Dalits are still burnt alive in India, but because information about
atrocities and arson no
longer shocks you; you have got used to it.
The emerging information order, finance market capitalism and image-driven
politics will in the
long run create more social and political insecurity in real life.
Because the delusions of
development, wealth and participation they create will not effectively
change the ground
realities of inequality, mistrust, social paranoia and moral degeneration.
When a signifier
eclipses the signified and the link between them is broken, it will
create a crisis in the very
process of socio-political and economic exchange. In the new age, it
is the comparative
advantage of technology and time that determines the `mediation' process
of money,
information and images. However, the overemphasis of such technology-driven
mediation can
in effect adversely affect the real creative and productive potential
of human beings. Such a
scenario calls for an urgent rethink on the present information euphoria.
______________________
*John Samuel writes on social change. He works with the National Centre
for Advocacy
Studies, Pune
For electronic version of this article visit: http://www.humanscapeindia.org
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