[Reader-list] Net activism and rules of the new actonomy

Jeebesh Bagchi jeebesh at sarai.net
Mon Jul 30 17:54:48 IST 2001


Joe Joe writes:
>Again how is this to be tested? The straight logical derivation of 
>massive surveillance is that it is a
>mechanism of squeezing the orange as dry as possible. And this can 
>be tested. Lot of acts we could >do earlier without impunity is no 
>longer tolerated now. The permissible illegalities have decreased
>  historically.

This is a very intriguing problem.

Post second world war we witness a rapid increase in the intensity of 
production and also one sees a phenomenal growth in the apparatus and 
rationalization of surveillance. So at one level we can say that 
increase in productivity is directly linked with surveillance (at 
least on the shopfloor and transportation areas). i.e if you relax 
this level of surveillance the productivity will fall. This argument 
connects surveillance with resistances and maps the invisible hidden 
transcript of resistance by the level of surveillance.

But one can also argue that surveillance and legality are the two 
sides of the same coin and would underpin most acts of control and 
productivity. The orange metaphor explains this best.

The question remains: How do we negotiate the complex web of 
surveillance and legality at an everyday level? and will not these 
negotiations be contingent and provisional and thus difficult to 
bring under the question of "whys"?

OR maybe we are asking the wrong question?

What do you think?

Cheers
Jeebesh

J







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