Hi Kasper I wrote this couple of years ago. Chances are you find it interesting :
Muela Meza, Z.M., 2006. The age of the corporate State versus the informational and cognitive public domain. *Information for Social Change*, (23), pp.75-98. http://eprints.uanl.mx/1740/ Cheers Zapopan Muela El nov 27, 2017 5:10 AM, "Kasper Skov" <kasper.s...@gmail.com> escribió: > Wow, so many (lengthy) replies. Did not expects this amount of references. > Will get the books, read and hopefully gain some new knowledge on the way. > > Thanks everyone! > > Med venlig hilsen/Kind regards > Kasper Skov Christensen > Phone: 42 41 93 98 > > *Ph.d. Student #digitaldesign @ Aarhus University Denmark* > *Design and Tech Consultant,** Techno DJ and producer, Hacker* > > On 26 Nov 2017, at 19:22, t byfield <tbyfi...@panix.com> wrote: > > All these suggestions so far seem good, but they mainly focus on 'tech' > corporations, as if to suggest that some diffuse idea of technology is > categorically different from everything else that corporations have been > doing for centuries. One big problem with this is the relationship between > these corporations and technology — say, whether it's a product or service, > an instrument, or a mechanism for some sort of arbitrage. If we lump all > those things together under a category like 'tech,' it's no wonder that the > result seems mysterious. So it's also worth thinking of 'technology' as yet > another potent widget. There have been and are other potent widgets: uppers > (sugar, caffeine, tobacco, coca) and downers (alcohol), opiates, weapons, > ~crops (cotton, indigo), and fuels (fossil fuels and even wood), 'media' > (film, journalism), and of course human beings (slavery and other forms of > peonage). Obviously, there are brilliant histories of how these other > ~widgets have served, if you like, as arbitrary platforms or media or > whatever for exploiting and distorting societies at every level. Thinking > about technology in this light is helpful for developing a more articulate, > less mystified model of what 'tech' corporations are, how they work, and > their changing place in wider human ecologies. One benefit of this is that > it helps us to recognize the corporation *as such* as a technology, which > opens up another kind of critical literature — about their history and > evolution. I only have a passing knowledge of that field, but I think the > 1970s and early 1980s were a good time for work was both critical and > accessible, like Richard Barnet and Ronald Müller's _Global Reach: The > Power of Multinational Corporations_. If we want to understand current tech > corporations, it's helpful to understand how their expertise in > manipulating jurisdictional and regional disparities regarding data is > rooted in older techniques — for example, technology transfer arrangements > in which a multinational would sell its manufacturing assets to its foreign > subsidiaries in order to exploit multiple national tax regimes — by writing > off the initial capital investment, depreciating it, 'selling' it at a > notional loss, writing it off as a capital investment, ad nauseam — and > profiting every step of the way. In that sense, as they used to say, data > really is the new oil — not as the supposed 'smart' fuel or engine of 'new > economies,' but as yet another arbitrary dumb commodity that can be used to > exploit relational differences. That's borne out by, for example, the > high-level chicanery of techniques like the 'double Irish' exemption, in > which a few pages of legal documents translate into billions of profit by > companies like Google. This approach to thinking about corporations is also > validated by a few crucial current developments, mainly the rising power of > 'offshore' jurisdictions and multilateral trade treaties. These two > phenomena aren't at all concerned with the visible specific concerns of > particular corporations — for example, whether they're 'tech.' Instead, > these developments are concerned with corporations as such — their supposed > rights, powers, and obligations relative to states and societies. > Regulating data *on the basis of its specificity* is important, as Wolfie > Christl and Sarah Spiekermann argue, but we shouldn't confuse it with > regulating corporations as such. The wild claim that 'technology' has > changed everything so we need radically totalizing new laissez-faire > regional and global regimes, masks how little has changed; and it distracts > us from the need to revitalize global regulatory regimes focused on the > mundane procedures and structures that, ultimately, define what > corporations are are do, whatever their business happens to be. > > To be clear, I'm not saying technology is the 'same' as tobacco or > whatever — it isn't. But a good rule is to assume that everything is always > different and, on that basis, to try to understand the effects of those > differences in various contexts. Which is why it's important to demystify > 'tech,' rather than treating it as a diffuse power that enshrouds a handful > of corporations. > > Cheers, > Ted > > On 25 Nov 2017, at 15:04, Vesna Manojlovic wrote: > > Hi Kasper, > > 0. "I Hate the Internet" = a novel by Jarett Kobe > > <...> > > > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: >
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