Networks as the Techno-Political Culture of Post-Fordism

Abstract

In one of the definitive works on the network society, Manuel Castells evokes Max Weber’s essay on the spirit of capitalism to suggest that the “spirit of informationalism” is the cultural bedrock against which the network enterprise and informational capitalism operate (Castells 1996, 195–200). The tremendous economic and social transformations entailed by the rise of the network society, Castells suggests, are perhaps the result of material factors—namely, the restructuring of capitalism since the 1970s and the concurrent development and deployment of information and communication technology—but they must be accompanied by the rise of a new ethos, a new discourse to provide a general, cognitive map to interpret social life. Castells raises the question as to what the nature of this spirit might be but falls short of providing a systematic answer. This book provides a preliminary answer by analyzing contemporary digital discourse and uncovering the spirit of contemporary capitalism.