Proletariat Bourgeoisie Remix

Last night I began a PBR induced debate about the modern day proletariat. Really not any new ground for me, as I truly enjoy both arguing and communism.

Newly discovered to me were the pontifications of Wark McKenzie who identifies a new struggle for the working class masses.

Inside A Hacker Manifesto Wark explores new ideas of ownership and thus arises new ideas of control and submission. The rise of the internet has brought the rise of new commodities by what he identifies as the "Vectoralist" class. These new commodities are information and the avenues information is channeled through. I had difficulty differentiating this from a straight forward post-marxist concept and an all together modern version of The Communist Manifesto.

Speaking for communism and anarchic ideals is a pursuit of mine because nearly everyone disagrees with me. It is a wonderful way to say, "Hey, I'm going to start an argument that I can't win because it has been historically proven not to work. And yes, I am incredibly self righteous. Ready? GO!"

In order to make an argument such as this successful one needs to pick tangible points.

I, wrongfully chose music as information, and thus as a commodity.

My friend's counterpoint was that music is not information.

I did not see this.

Music, she said, is a product made by a group or individual just like a lamp or a chair or any other tangible, and thus purchasable, product.

My thoughts were that music is now a purchasable product because it has already been commodified. Basically I was reiterating McKenzie's thoughts into, "The Vectoral class owns the rights to music say and sells it as property. Music, in and of itself is just sound. The creation of sound is most sensibly owned by the waves of air pushed and vibrated upon to produce it. Then the artist who created that sound. Is the sound the property of the one who sold the sound making device, the recording studio the sound was recorded in? Where along this line does something such as sound become property? When it is made illegal to posses without paying for it? The Vector class needs information or in this case sound in order to thrive. It needs to have something that can not be obtained without the vector class' assistance. The hacker class undermines this by releasing this information without charge, taking away it’s property identification. It is then the necessity of the vector class to develop a new property that is unobtainable without being purchased. The process repeats and both are proven to be dependent upon one another."

Last night I was, however, not this articulate.

We also moved into the realm of plagiarism as something that the vector class does a good job of policing and prohibiting. I disagreed, of course, saying something to the effect of, "You can't like own a potato, man."

This, as is usually the case with me, was quoted from an episode of The Simpsons. So, to be affable in conversation I am required, at times, to plagiarize. Is quoting a song or a line from a book or television show then plagiarism?

We both agreed that this was not.

When then does something become plagiarized?

Modern culture is inherently based on plagiarism in my opinion. All culture is. We are the summation of the civilized world. Our entire argument was fueled by things we've read, seen, and heard. Isn't that plagiarism? The words we used to make our points are taken from words we have remembered from other contexts. Language in and of itself is plagiarized from older forms and older languages and in the end sounds to represent objects. Language was originally then a way of uncommodifying (is that a word?) something. A way of making something abstract. An avenue to make reference to a thing without it happening or being there. Language then in and of itself is plagiarized from emotions and objects. (With this in mind I would like to see someone communicate strictly with emotion, rock, dirt, and possibly water. You know, as a performance piece.)

Plagiarism is nothing new.

Why then is plagiarism and copyright infringement something to be prosecuted for? Why is there a hacker class?

Because information has been commodified, it has been turned into a product. Further, not thought, but the avenue to convey thought has been commodified. In order to express myself for this class I need to obtain a computer, get on the internet, find a website that allows me to post my thoughts, and finally type (a plagiarized for of communication dating back to the 1800's. Stolen from the more traditional pen and paper genre). The avenue for information is now brought to me by Comcast and Apple and it is filled with impulse distractions.

This is of course not a new concept either. 25 years ago my thoughts would be the culmination of RandomHouse Publishing (for example) and Remington & Sons (makers of the first typewriter). An interesting side note on this is that when I just now typed in typewriter to Google (another company commodifiying information) the first suggestions were not information on typewriters but places I could purchase one. I suppose this shows us existing on the cusp of information commodity and that of the tangible.

The idea of turning information into product is nothing new. It is the base for a capital driven system to give things value. Without value how can one thing be weighed against another. Without values how can a decision be right or wrong? Without a given value nothing could be decided. These values are based upon past experience and historical evidence. Are our values then not plagiarized?

In a given society where one is, through the culmination of plagiarized civil history, brought to the opinion that all things have a both moral and tangible value why then not make that leap of assimilating information into the same realm as something that took information to make.

In a digital realm information is the product of the information needed to convey said message. Programmers develop language in order for laypeople to communicate. By the very nature of things language and the ideas needed to create language are commodified by the vector class. Without this process there is no way to convey an idea. If a vector or bourgeoisie did not control the means of production of information who would?
Where can a proletariat class thrive?

How would information be communicated and shared without an avenue, or language, to convey it it through?

The term itself, proletariat, is plagiarized from the Latin, proles, meaning "offspring." In modern terms the hacker class is an offspring of the vector class, the class in control of the means of production. It thrives because of the reaction to and manipulation of information and emerging forms of communication brought about by the interplay between itself and the vector class.

The two have been codependent in various forms since the introduction of private property, be it physical or intellectual. The ability to communicate, to convey information, has always been a commodity cherished by those in possession of it and used as a tool to make submissive those without it or trying to seek it.

Yes, knowledge is still free but you will need to buy a mac book and have a high speed internet connection to contribute.

And no, none of this knowledge is new.

And yes, I will have another PBR.