The ongoing dialectic between capitalism and socialism, individualism and collectivism, left and right has been joined by a new book. The book is entitled A Hacker Manifesto. 
Author McKenzie Wark updates the Communist ethos and posits the emergence of 2 new social classes:
Hackers. They typically are researchers, authors, artists, biologists, chemists, musicians, philosophers and programmers. Hackers produce new knowledge from raw data. Hackers are exploited by and have their work expropriated by:
Vectoralists. This new classs controls the vectors along which information is reproduced and transmitted.
Wark does not intend for the book’s motto “Information wants to be free, but is everywhere in chains”, to be taken literally. Monies from MP3 downloads, for example, should flow to the Hacker instead of the Vector.
Wark also implies that Hackers should be content with less or perhaps even no money, and should view their works as contributions to culture … “the gift of one generation to the next”. Wark borrows on themes from such works as:
- The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies by Marcel Mauss
- The dotCommunist Manifesto by Eben Moglen
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d never heard the term “vectoralists” before. And I think a lot of people do take “information wants to be free” literally.
It’s interesting that this manifesto presents hackers as the people being exploited, when usually they’re portrayed as the exploiters.
I think someday all information will be free. We’re pretty far down that path already.
It feels like almost all info is free now. It’s rare I want to know something and can’t find it out within a few seconds.