Abstract
Contemporary cultural theory has given us various terms to refer to the social changes that have accompanied developments in information and communications technologies: the network society (Castells, 1996), post-industrial society (Bell, 1973), information society, convergence culture (Jenkins, 2006), digital culture, digimodernism (Kirby, 2009), etc. At the heart of these terms lies the assumption that we have entered a novel phase of social organization that requires rethinking of fundamental concepts. Moreover, it is often assumed or argued that technological change will bring about greater democratization and increased equality to those who adopt such systems. This is precisely the notion that Robert Wilkie seeks to debunk in his first book, The Digital Condition.
Wilkie’s book is an attempt to determine the meaning of our ‘digital times’ (p. 2). Arguing against what he views as an overly celebratory assessment of digital technologies as novel, emancipatory or democratizing, Wilkie reasserts the need for cultural theory to take seriously the ‘contradictory relation of property’ at the heart of capitalism that was identified by Marx and Engels, and argues that this contradiction ‘will ultimately determine the direction that the digital takes’ (p. 2). Wilkie strongly asserts the notion of class throughout his analysis. He sees in cultural theory a ‘hollowed out’ notion of class that is not used as an explanatory concept but, rather, ‘a safe concept that can be discussed in polite company’ (p. 5). Working from this critical framework, Wilkie organizes his book into four chapters that engage with both theories and practices of digital culture.
Throughout the book, Wilkie relies on the fundamental tension between those who own the means of production and those who only own their labour power as a way to explain the disparities at the heart of digital capitalism. In other words, capitalism by any other name is still capitalism, replete with class disparities and with the division of labour at its core. He argues that what is necessary is not a theory of network capitalism but a theory of ‘capital networks’, and that his book is ‘a contribution to the struggle of working people to bring about a society in which technology is placed not in the service of profit but in the interests of the meeting and expansion of the needs of all’ (p. 8). Wilkie’s vision for a theory of capital networks would focus on the ways in which capital is put to use as a way to keep workers of the world from realizing their true revolutionary potential. While Wilkie is willing to admit that ‘what is becoming possible as a result of the productivity of labor is the material conditions for bringing about the end of an alienated society,’ his criticism is that the end to alienated society will only come about when ‘the end of the private ownership of the means of production will allow each individual to develop fully the differences of their talents and aspirations’ (p. 46). Importantly, in such a society, individuals’ talents and aspirations would be directed toward satisfying the needs of all.
In the largest chapter of the book (chapter 2, ‘Global networks and the materiality of immaterial labor’), Wilkie’s critical lens is directed at theorists who argue that ‘digital technologies change the way in which value is produced’ and that the production of ‘immaterial commodities, including information and affect’ are altering our economy and ‘the terms of life itself’ (p. 50). In response, Wilkie argues that this line of argument ‘functions ideologically to banish any discussion of the exploitation of labor … by substituting changes in how something is produced or where production takes place for a transformation in the fundamental logic that governs production under capitalism’ (p. 52). This theme becomes familiar to the reader of Wilkie’s book as he raises this critique against multiple cultural theorists for situating critiques at the level of consumption rather than examining the underlying logic of production. In Wilkie’s view, truly revolutionary change will come when the underlying exploitative logic of capitalism is transformed at the level of production – mainly, when individuals are no longer pitted against one another in a competitive capitalist system.
This, perhaps, is the major takeaway from Wilkie’s work. He urges us not to get caught up in the rhetoric that lauds transformations in digital technologies as somehow more democratizing or more equal. Rather, his critique reminds us to focus our attention on the level of production, for it is only when the exploitative relations between those who own the means of production and those who own only their labour power are abolished that we have reached a truly revolutionary period of change. Undoubtedly, Wilkie’s critique and conclusion are likely to be met with resistance by those who disavow unabashedly Marxist perspectives, while those who hold certain affinities for the approach will welcome Wilkie’s work as an important contribution to our thinking about the digital era.
Whatever one’s affinities, Wilkie’s work challenges us to reconsider whether we have truly reached a revolutionary moment in our history. The accelerating pace of technological change can seem bewildering at times, especially as we try to determine its effect on social relations. Wilkie’s critical contribution to that debate deserves to be read, whether as a way to challenge previously held assumptions or as a way to witness an effective Marxist critique of digital cultural theory.