Political Philosophy-Dr. Laurie M Johnson

Hackers, Marx and the Tape Guy (Wark 2, Audio)

Feb 3, 2020

17:23

We move into Chapter 2 of McKenzie Wark’s Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse. Wark thinks that people on the left as well as the right need to end their love affair with capitalism and summon their inner punk rock goddess and try something new. The something new entails detournement of old ideas–an irreverant use of parts and neglect of other parts in order to account for an economy that Marx would not recognize. There’s a hint that the hacker class should somehow organize by first seeing what they have in common–they do not control the information they manipulate in order to monetize it for the vectoralist class. Wark very clearly explains the connection between the current state of property law and the power of this new class of people, a class responsible for the “disintegrating spectacle” of our world, information, entertainment, commerce and therapy become so intertwined that we are constantly confused, suspicious and mentally exhausted. I comment on that phenomenon and the relative lack of reference to government institutions in this part of the book, but there is the political implication that the hacker class is potentially powerful. Should they take aim at property law? It’s too early to tell, but that’s one possibility.