Computer-Linked Social Movements and the Global Threat to Capitalism

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Essay: Computer-Linked Social Movements and the Global Threat to Capitalism. Harry Cleaver [1]

URL = http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/cleaver2.html


Abstract:

"Of all the emerging roles of computer communications in social conflict, this paper argues that the most serious challenge to the basic institutional structures of modern society flow from the emergence of computer-linked global social movements that are, increasingly, challenging both nationa and supranational policy-making institutions. The suggestion is that we are currently witnessing an accelerating circulation of social conflicts whose participants recognize a common enemy: contemporary capitalism. In their increasingly common rejection of business priorities their struggles cannot but recall Marxist notions of "class warfare." Yet the common opposition to capitalism is not accompanied by the old notion of a unified alternative project of socialism. On the contrary, such a vision has been displaced by a proliferation of diverse projects and the notion that there is no need for universal rules. In response to these struggles, the threatened institutions are responding in various ways, sometimes by military and paramilitary force, sometimes by co-optation aimed at reintegrating the antagonistic forcs. The problem for us is finding ever new ways to defeat these responses and continue to build new worlds." (http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/cleaver2.html)