|
Looking
Forward. By Michael
Albert and Robin Hahnel 10. The
Information Society
|
|
|
|
Insofar as
people use computers to better understand their work and use that knowledge to
demand control over their own lives, they are moving in a participatory
direction. When workers want access to accounting records, when homeowners
want access to bank and city council records, and when everyone seeks cheaper
access to greater quantities of knowledge, this propels participatory
developments. As we have
seen, in participatory economies, computers are employed to amplify the
quantity and usefulness of information reaching everyone, thereby
facilitating decentralization of decision making. Computers in participatory
economies can help streamline communications, enrich cultural and political
discourse, and generally democratize society. The computer is a remarkably
malleable tool. Depending on the software used, it can be molded to countless
uses. The process can be democratic and free or programming can become a new
priesthood. If capitalist
relations persist, computer technology will continue to be relatively
inflexible and centrally controlled by a small coterie of experts loyal to
capitalist employers. If the "servants" get out of hand, the
technocratic priesthood can embark on fascist endeavors of their own. If
traditional coordinator systems survive, computer technology will be
developed to further centralize and protect important information, even from
most of the elite who are trained to use it. If more democratic coordinator
relations are introduced, computer technologies may be accessible to 15
percent to 30 percent of society. Even so, the majority would experience
computers primarily as a tool of oppression, even if they were better cared
for by coordinator planners than by their prior capitalist masters. But if
humanist social relations are introduced, computers will become a democratic
tool employed to promote nonhierarchical participatory economic, gender,
community, and political relations. In any
case, in today's societies computer technology is one area of struggle
between social groups seeking different futures. Depending on who defines
their use and development, computers will promote capitalist, coordinator, or
participatory goals. Capitalists and coordinators don't yet have complete
mastery over the newest technological revolution-though they certainly have a
leg up on the rest of us. But if we launch campaigns that touch society's
democratic nerve, computers can become a positive force for the better. |
|
|
