Geert Lovink on Thu, 5 Jun 1997 23:18:52 +0200 (MET DST) |
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<nettime> interview with David Brown |
Digital Accountability An Interview with David Brown By Geert Lovink David Brown, Cybertrends, Viking Press, London, 1997 There is a new figure, the moderate net critic. David Brown is one of those. They come with very official, worrying reports about the impact of new technologies. Brown is one of those distinguished intellectual journalists, focussing on economics. He has seen the corporate world from the inside while keeping a cool, professional distance. He does not have to sell an attitude or meme. I had a strong sense that he was speaking to another, distant audience, an audience very different from the cybercultural workers. Since he is more or less outside of the fancy world of theory production, he can come up with hard-boiled facts and doom-laden anecdotes. His style is very different from cultural theorists and academics. In his function as a business reporter, Brown is formulating his analysis of the digital world very carefully, avoiding all kinds of radical statements. 'Cybertrends' is his first book. He is a US writer, now living in Western Europe, a correspondent for the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune and a European contributing editor of Business magazine. 'Cybertrends' warns against the short-sightedness of the 'cyberdeck elite' or the 'Masters of Code'. They are creating a 'wired' world of economic growth without jobs or security, 'a realm of 'connections' without communication, a frontier without citizens - only consumers.' This sober, alternative perspective states that there are not only 'cyber rights' but also 'cyber responsibilities'. In this appeal to the senior business world, Brown is pointing at an 'absence of frank dialogue.' Is there even such a thing a 'accountable codemasters'? The Net seems more like an empire than a civilization, heading for a clash between the real and the virtual, with the Mexican monetary crisis as a first sign and model. There is no longer a growth in accumulated economic wealth, despite all the commercial promises. This seems to be the key point that current economic analysis is making - as does Brown. Digital efficiency makes people work harder for less money. The result might be a 'Great Depression with a digital twist.' Instead of a 'cybernetic Renaissance' the technology is only destroying jobs. And the digirati are refusing to speak about this economic reality. Perhaps they might listen. Or will 'the train roll off its rails'? The interview took place in Amsterdam, in the foyer of the filmmuseum, on a mild and friendly spring day. GL: You are neither an optimist, nor a pessimist when it comes to emerging cybertechnologies. Instead, you warn against the imminent dangers of job cuts and crashing stock markets. What is wrong with the current views that we tend not see those developments? DB: Who knows? Maybe we are living under a tyranny of relentless optimism! ThatÕs certainly the American way. Plus, over the years, we have developed an almost mystical belief that technology can solve problems that are basically human at root. This optimism has strong economic and political overtones too. It helps to advantageously condition the legal and social framework under which commercial interests pursue their specific interests. The problem is, if we accept this myth that technology is really the solution to all of our woes, then it becomes a kind of heresy to express what might otherwise be considered healthy skepticism. The whole thing strikes me as a kind of black comedy. It is as if we were thrown back to the days of the old American West - with wagon trains rolling towards the golden frontier. ItÕs also reminiscent of the Cold War. Either you are with us or you are not - that sort of idea. It's an atmosphere where reasonable skeptics are transformed in Luddite 'reactionaries' - 'bugs' that threaten the system. GL: A few years ago we had to study program languages. Now we have to focus our attention on economics in order to understand new media. In what way can be benefit from this? DB: Well, for one thing, we can acquire an antidote to the prevailing myth of technological 'determinism.' This idea that 'the machine is out of control'. It is easy to forget that technology is an important but nevertheless subsidiary part of a much a wider social and economic continuum. Bringing economics into the equation gives a more holistic and pragmatic perspective. The uptake and implementation of technology is powerfully conditioned by commercial considerations, by regulation, and by basic human nature. To varying degrees, all of these can be adjusted. We can still direct our collective destiny. For instance, it's clear that education is the key to preserving democracy - and equally clear that our education systems are in a sorry state and that populations have been Ôdumbed downÕ by TV. We have the technology to change this. We could educate vast numbers of people to a much higher standard with the political will and a commitment of resources. But is there money in those hills? Most investment dollars are chasing a completely different dream: thereÕs an effort to hard-wire everybody into a kind of Panopticon consumer society where there are electronic devices embedded in our clothes, telescreens on our walls. Gibson is right: cyberspace is being transformed into a great big electronic supermarket - a place where products and spectacles can be profitably delivered to audiences of one. Now, if we buy into this vision, then this is the brave new world we can look forward to. But thereÕs nothing inevitable about it. First, people will have to buy hardware. TheyÕll have to subscribe to software and services. PeopleÕs buying decisions will partly determine the shape of the future we get. So I think we need to pay more attention to these commercial considerations and leave the rhetoric behind. But the rhetoric is ready-made and it gives journalists the stuff of easy stories. And besides, many of us - I mean reporters and pundits and media critics - tend to think ourselves as being on the cutting edge. We have an inflated sense of our own importance and often an insufficient regard to the decisive influence of money and markets. We're in love with Chaos Theory, which tells us that small cadres of enlightened souls like ourselves, armed with modems and PCÕs, are capable of using technology to trigger a far-reaching and even revolutionary change. I think we overestimate our strength. When you look at the way computing power, networking resources, and informational content are increasingly concentrated into a handful of very large networked enterprises, then you have to ask yourself whether the relative power balance has really changed. GL: It is said that the size of the Internet is irrelevant compared to the vast, closed computer networks of the financial world. Is this a correct description? Is it really a small net in a big world which is occupying us so much? DB: Well, the so-called ÔcultureÕ that's often associated with the Internet exists in a pretty miniscule portion of a much wider information space. And that portion is diminishing. Nine-point-eight out of ten people on this planet donÕt have modems and PCÕs. The information space that they inhabit - at least in the industrial world - is still most visibly shaped by TV - and invisibly by the less visible networks on which world financial transactions take place. So even if the Net is a terrific thing, I think those of us who are interested in promoting cultural vitality, and who believe in a diversity of information sources, need keep a sense of perspective. We need to acknowledge that, however important our newsgroups, they still play a very limited role in the wider information space. We have limited influence in the corridors of real financial and political power. We could do more by lobbying for a strong financial commitment to independent national public broadcasting networks that we could achieve on any number of global newsgroups alone. This is one of many instances where the low-tech solution is arguably the best. ThereÕs another important point. The configuration of the Internet is changing. It's being transformed into a series of intranets - in other words a collection of closed loops that are primarily designed to facilitate commercial interaction. So, even if it's comforting to lay back like a child in a baby carriage, and imagine ourselves lying in some benign technical embrace, a wonderland of newsgroups and chat sessions and MUDs, we should not be overly distracted by all these bright lights and colored toys. WhatÕs qualitatively new about quote-unquote networks? Networking has been an feature of human society since Adam and Eve. The only thing thatÕs changing is the speed and the context in which interactions take place. Electronic connections are overtaking the physical ones. For instance, many of us organize our finances on-screen - not at the bank. 'Connections' like these are qualitatively different. Obviously, they are more impersonal. TheyÕre also a lot more discontinuous. Easier to throw up and pull down. The shops and cafes of the French village square give way, literally and metaphorically, to a kind of supermarket-style electronic monoculture. Another thing that distinguishes electronic networks is that they are potentially a lot more opaque. Business relationships and anti-competitive agglomerations of power are harder to identify - even as they reshape our lives. If technology becomes the means whereby markets are allowed to operate according to opaque and self-imposed rules, and not the transparent disciplines imposed by social consensus, then we are setting themselves up for a big fall. We can't allow some vaguely-defined notion of economic freedom to become the only workable default parameter in a networked world. Without corresponding networks of accountability, which in turn generate trust, then our advanced economies and democratic systems will grow vulnerable indeed. GL: Do you think it is possible to address computer professionals and point out their accountability to them? DB: A sense of accountability can be discovered or imposed at many different levels in society. Debates over which levels of restraint are appropriate to which problems are obviously some of the most explosive confronting us today. One persons' anti-pornography law is another personsÕ idea of narrow-minded censorship. But to approach these kinds of dialog in a constructive way, I think we have to jettison this fashionable doctrine that anarchic individualism should always prevail on the Net. No society, electronic or otherwise, is totally 'free.' You canÕt escape the need for choice - balance - a statement of priorities. A lot of people who talk about 'freedom' and 'empowerment' in connection with the so-called Ôdigital revolutionÕ really have much more commercial motivations in mind. TheyÕre adherents of a very specific species of neo-liberal, deregulatory economic dogma. TheyÕre born-again Marxists, in an ironic kind of way: they prophesy the ultimate end to government itself. This is fairly amusing since markets would never function without public policy restraints. But this tendency to equate Ôthe governmentÕ with 'the enemy' is dangerous and anti-democratic. One of the interesting debates that is going on right now revolves around the implementation of digital TV and the allocation of spectrum. Should there be a public service responsibility attached to owning a chunk of the public information space? How should be expressed? This issue will never be solved by the 'invisible hand' of technology. The regulatory framework will be decisive. So we ought to be a lot more skeptical about this anti-government message - and a lot more positive about the kinds of change that can be achieved if public policy can truly be recaptured from the special interests that dominate its formulation today. GL: The most worrying effect you describe in your book is the 'jobless economy'. So far, the visionaries have always claimed that technology is only creating new jobs. In the past, a term like 'automation' still had that connotation of rationalization. Will people in the future associate the Internet with mass unemployment? DB: In the short term there is a great deal of hope and optimism attached to the implementation of technology vis a vis economic growth. But if you look at the numbers, a different picture comes clear. The reorganization of corporate structures along logical, computational lines is certainly creating a much more 'efficient' economy and higher growth. But it is also accompanied by a more polarized distribution of incomes and, in many cases, a drastic reduction of jobs. This is not just on the factory floor. A lot of the 'functions' now being performed by lawyers, doctors and other professionals can just as well be executed by software. So you have this irony: the wiring of society creates initial growth and short-term profits. The question of whether the cost of this transition is sustainable in the longer term is one the market does not address. The visionaries tell us to have faith - the Industrial Age destruction of agricultural modes of life eventually delivered new opportunities. But in many ways the new style of life was inferior to the old. It was characterized by noise, pollution, drudgery and urban alienation. Will the life of the consumer in cyberspace be more desirable than the relativities that prevail today? Like many, IÕm concerned that we may be heading towards a future in which people earn their livelihoods by surfing a radically commercialized Web. Real communication will be replaced by message exchange. E.M. ForsterÕs story - The Machine Stops - where everyone lives in a self-referential little cocoon without connection to the physical world, may yet prove prescient. Is that going to create a sustainable economy and culture? I do not mean to sound like an eco-romanticist. The point is that walking up a hill as supposed to driving up a hill is teaching you a lot about the space. We've sure got a short term problem. There are more unemployed people in Europe now than during the great depression. Even if you accept the optimistic line that new jobs will be created, you have the question of whether an economy can be organized along those lines. GL: It seems that the process of globalization is now taking off. Or is this just another buzzword or even a myth? DB: Globalization is a boogyman. The world is not more global that 100 or 150 years ago under the British mercantilism. What has changed is the internal organisation of the global corporations. The fact that globalization is entering culture is a sensitive issue and it is one that lends itself to exploitation by ideologues and reactionaries. Anytime people's sense of identity is under rapid assult and there is a sense of humiliation of the human spirit; there are radical and volatile energies in the atmosphere. You can't hold influences out in a networked economy and you don't necessarily want to. A strong culture can engage in a dialogue. For example: French films fascinate me even though they might go on for about three hours and nothing really seems to take place. There are a lot of lifted eyebrows and ladies turn their necks. Their conversation refers to cultural memes that are only partially meaningful to me as an outsider. But I know they are very meaningful to the people who watch them. But what if a guy like Micky Kantor goes to Paris and says: 'Films are like hamburgers.' I think that's both culturally and economically a very narrow statement. We have to develop a much more subtle, careful view, a self-limiting attitude about the way in which we enter other people's cultural temples. We should take our shoes off. By forcing the French to compete on our terms, the French 'industry' will be strengthened to produce more commercially viable products. But that's not necessarily a desirable outcome. They divert resources from other, more creative products. The American cultural arrogance is not sustainable in a networked world. There should be more cultural sensibility. --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de