New Power is in Networks

There are many ‘coming of age’ moments for social media, Twitter is said to have ‘come of age’ during last years attempted Iranian counter-revolution, or Facebook ‘came of age’ during the 2008 US Presidential campaign .  However, the most telling connection of social networks, micro-payments and actual social movement was the Christmas 2009 campaign to install LA rock band, Rage Against the Machine as the Number One hit song in the UK.  For the past number of years the UK Christmas Number One single has been set-up by Simon Cowell’s X-factor TV talent show series – the winner usually goes on to achieve the Number One slot for Christmas.  However, this year in a grassroots rebellion a Facebook group was started to topple this monopoly and install the Rage Against the Machine single, ‘Killing in the Name“, [the song feature the key protest line, "F*ck you I won't do what you tell me"] as Number One.

Back when the song was originally released in 1992 the chances of Rage Against the Machine effecting any direct social change were minimal [although the music was a instant revolutionary soundtrack], but due to the restructuring of global information networks a cause, such as this, can gain power – and through the use of micro-payments [in this case music downloads] can effect real-life change through a virtual medium.  The power to shape opinion has migrated from old media to grassroots virtually networked campaigns.  This is a real power shift.  So while the Iranian Twitter moments were interesting they are yet to be decisive, whereas the power to conduct grassroots real social change lies in democratic wired countries.  These tools have yet to be fully harnessed and there are systemic cut-outs which prevent this virtual nirvana or dystopia [depending on your perspective] from currently coming to fruition.  These cut-outs will diminish with time.

For example the UK’s general election is scheduled to be held within six months, an insurgent political party could harness the Rage Against the Machine effect to break down old power structures by electing a new political party or giving the Liberal Democrats a chance.  However, there is a physical disconnect between a virtual campaign and a political vote in a way that doesn’t exist with a ‘Rage Against the Machine campaign’.  With music downloads you can vote virtually and instantly by paying to download the music.  In political campaigns you have to wait until the day of the election and physically go to a polling station.  Therefore, the virtual chain is disrupted. Additionally, not all areas of democratic countries are equally wired or comfortable with online activity.  These barriers will collapse as citizens are offered more services online – indeed the UK experimented with online voting in 2003 and 2004 in local elections. Technology is neutral as to whether it would be a good or bad turn of events to have traditional power structures broken from below and there is a substantial danger than extremists could hijack these new levers.

Power shifts have clearly knocked established media industries over the past few years [mostly to the benefit of the consumer] but these same changes will displace a variety of established interests over time as networks become more powerful – this may not be beneficial to citizens.  This overall point is not a new one, but understanding how social networks, micro payment structures, rapid access to information and geo-coded data are rapidly meshing together is the key to understanding emerging bottom-up power structures and planning for their arrival.

Book Cover of the 1929 version of 'The Crab Cannery Ship'

This against the backdrop of over a decade of economic stagnation and a global economic crash – if the Japanese Communist Party had an opening this was certainly it.  There had been an increasing interest in the ideas surrounding the Japanese Communist Party – exemplified by the unexpected publishing success of 2008, Kanikōsen 蟹工船, (The Crab Cannery Ship).  Written in 1929 by Kobayashi Takiji, the book tells the story of a cannery ship and its workers in northern Japan: their desperation, their wretched prospects, their exploitation at the hands of the ruling class and eventually what they do about it.  Kobayashi later joined the Communist Party and was tortured to death by the police in 1933.  The book had combined total sales of 1.5 million until 2008, when it was re-printed and it sold out across Japan equaling sales of the book for its entire lifetime in one year.  This looked like a pre-cursor to a political re-alignment.  However, this has not translated either to revolutionary action or even a greater number of votes for the Communist Party of Japan.  Therefore, something else must be going on.

Manga Version of 'The Crab Cannery Ship'

This ties into the start of 2009 when there were a number of predictions (mainly by European police and intelligence agencies) that the world was likely to see a ‘summer of rage’ and a concurrent potential revival of left-wing terrorism.  This clearly has not happened and the risk (if it ever existed) is receding as the financial system stabilizes.  The failure of communist parties and other left-leaning movements to exploit the financial crisis politically or on the street could have the opposite effect than that predicted at the start of 2008, that is a re-thinking of revolutionary action and politics away from traditional models.  There is some revolutionary theory developing in this space through the publication of the ‘Coming Insurrection’ jumping out of France and the Tarnac9 case.  This manifesto pulls together the hopelessness of the consumer age, impending environmental destruction and packages it with the flavor of an Internet manifesto.  Similarly, from a tactical standpoint the riots in Greece, should have shown the way to other western street protest movements, but these tactics involving rapidly networked information flow have not been picked up or used effectively elsewhere.  Therefore, while traditional left-wing revolution may have lost its appeal it is too early to say whether an Internet enabled revolutionary doctrine could take hold of activists’ imagination.  So far, the traditional left-wing sources of resistance have been shown to be as bankrupt as the banks, which precipitated the crisis.  It will be interesting to see what, if anything takes their place.