Metastable Shifts in Cognitive Capitalism
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The document discusses metastable shifts in capitalism from a system based on surplus to one based on debt, and from localized industrial labor to distributed cognitive labor. This shift from surplus to debt and localized work to cognitive labor is having profound effects on cultures and individuals. Capitalism can be likened to a battery that was historically powered by localized industrial labor but is increasingly powered by distributed cognitive labor. The mining of cognition from individuals and groups parallels the historical mining of natural resources, producing both positive and negative externalities. Understanding these changes requires grounding the abstract concepts in personal feelings through reflective and recursive processes.
Metastable Shifts in Cognitive Capitalism
- 1. Metastable Shifts in (Cognitive) Capitalism David J. Walczyk 息 David Walczyk
- 2. Capitalism is ! a metastable system ! of beliefs and related actions.! ! Metastable means a system that is able to remain stable during periods of instability. 息 David Walczyk
- 3. The metastability of capitalism is shifting (overheating) from a system based on Surplus ! ! to a system based on Debt! ! Debt is promised libido (energy). It is future oriented - an owed! ! Surplus is excess libido (energy). It is in potentia - an owned 息 David Walczyk
- 4. Capitalism can be likened to a battery. A battery is powered by the energy it stores. ! Historically The capitalist battery was primarily powered by ! localized industrial labor! ! Nowadays its increasingly powered by ! distributed cognitive labor 息 David Walczyk
- 5. Since the world is, or is in the process of becoming, a globalized capitalist economy these two shifts in political economy ! from surplus to debt! and from localized industrial labor to distributed cognitive labor! ! are having profound effects on cultures and the individuals within them. 息 David Walczyk
- 6. For example! Theres a good chance that your (grand)parents experienced ! A more localized industry with surplus ! while you experience ! A more distributed cognition with debt.! ! How might this cultural shift affect the ! meaning of The American Dream? 息 David Walczyk
- 7. Yet! ! While the future isnt what it used to be, old tools can be used for new times. ! Remember that capitalism is metastable. 息 David Walczyk
- 8. Take mining.! ! Historically the process of mining has been applied to natural resources drawn from the earth ! nowadays the process of mining has been applied to cognition drawn from people.! ! (of course this has always occurred but not anywhere near to the extent to which it does contemporarily) 息 David Walczyk
- 9. The mining of cognition is the mining of positive externalities (so-called knowledge) extracted formally and informally from individuals, groups, and entire cultures. 息 David Walczyk
- 10. Like the mining of natural resources the mining of cognition also has negative externalities. ! These are often ignored by those seemingly more interested in the value of the positive externalities. ! Negative externalities include stress, anxiety, depression, substance addiction, cultural homogenization, spectacle, etc 息 David Walczyk
- 11. Like the mining of natural resources! ! Mining cognition includes the mining of what is already known and what is not yet known ! codi鍖ed knowledge (already known) ! and noncodi鍖ed knowledge (not yet known) 息 David Walczyk
- 12. The mining of codi鍖ed knowledge is achieved through a process likened to pattern recognition and its application to a real or created need by way of its concretization (in the form of products and services). 息 David Walczyk
- 13. The mining of noncod鍖ed knowledge is achieved through a process of individual and collective so-called creativity and its re鍖nement into codi鍖ed knowledge ! where it can be used immediately or stored. 息 David Walczyk
- 14. That said! ! As much as we want to intellectually understand the abstraction we call the political economy of new media we also want to grasp what it means to us individually and collectively. ! We need to ground it in feeling. 息 David Walczyk
- 15. This grounding ! is a re鍖ective and recursive process that, ironically perhaps, requires a high degree of cognitive 鍖exibility within a capitalistic system that, at times, may seem to discourage it. 息 David Walczyk
- 16. This grounding process is re鍖ective because it requires an acute willingness and ability to take what we know and learn, turn inward with it, process it, ! and then assign some sort of value to the outcome. 息 David Walczyk
- 17. This grounding process is recursive because it requires an acute willingness and ability to allow the outcomes of re鍖ection to in鍖uence subsequent thoughts and actions ! and then ! for these re鍖ned thoughts and action to participate in the next iteration of the re鍖ective process. 息 David Walczyk
- 18. A way to engage with this grounding process would be to use, and extend, the logic of cognitive capitalism itself. 息 David Walczyk
- 19. To ask What are the positive and negative externalities of my cognitive labor? ! And then, if youre up to it, seek even more ground! ! How do these externalities affect my life? Whom do these externalities bene鍖t? Whom do these externalities impair? The cost of this process is, of course, naivety. ! The gain, perhaps, an increase in consciousness. 息 David Walczyk
- 20. So for us! The political economy of new media is about: (1) the metastable shifting of capitalism (2) the rise and stabilization of cognitive capitalism (3) new media as the enablers of, and now contributors to, (1) and (2) (4) The personal and collective effects of (1) - (3) 息 David Walczyk