[Upd-discuss] Article: A cyberspace Lenin: why not? By Slavoj Zizek

[Zapopan Martin Muela-Meza]

Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
Socialism Journal. 95.
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm

Issue 95 of INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM JOURNAL Published Summer 2002
Copyright © International Socialism
A cyberspace Lenin: why not?
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm

Excerpts:

...
However, does capitalism really provide the 'natural' frame of the
relations of production for the digital universe? Is there not also an
explosive potential for capitalism itself in the world wide web? Is not
the lesson of the Microsoft monopoly precisely the Leninist one: instead
of fighting its monopoly through the state apparatus (recall the
court-ordered split of the Microsoft corporation), would it not be more
'logical' just to socialise it, rendering it freely accessible? Today one
is thus tempted to paraphrase Lenin's well-known motto, 'Socialism =
electrification + the power of the soviets': 'Socialism = free access to
internet + the power of the soviets.'

...
The key antagonism of the so called new (digital) industries is thus: how
to maintain the form of (private) property, within which only the logic of
profit can be maintained (see also the Napster problem, the free
circulation of music)? And do the legal complications in biogenetics not
point in the same direction? The key element of the new international
trade agreements is the 'protection of intellectual property'--whenever,
in a merger, a big Western company takes over a Third World company, the
first thing they do is close down the research department. Phenomena
emerge here which involve the notion of property in extraordinary
dialectical paradoxes: in India, local communities suddenly discover that
medical practices and materials they have been using for centuries are now
owned by American companies, so they should be bought from them; with the
biogenetic companies patenting genes, we are all discovering that parts of
ourselves, our genetic components, are already copyrighted, owned by
others.

Full text:
Zizek, Slavoj (2002). "A cyberspace Lenin: why not?" International
Socialism Journal. 95.
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/zizek.htm

Vorwärts



--------------------------- * ---------------------------
"Any man who reads a lot and uses a little his own brain
falls into lazy mental habits.” 
--------------------------- * --------------------------- 
"Cualquier hombre que lea demasiado y utilice poco 
su propio cerebro cae en hábitos mentales perezosos.” 
-- Albert Einstein (Thorpe, S. (2001). Como pensar como 
Einstein : How to Think like Einstein. Bogota: Norma, p. 214)


		
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