Товарищ Х on "Why here? Why now? Who profits?"

The ability of each person to access and process large amounts of data is increasing, right now, worldwide. The cost of this access, so we are told by those who control it, is about to decrease. A proximate cause may be found in some technical phenomenon (newly laid sub marine cable in this story), but there is a conflict masked by that agency. The Banksters and their partners in crime, the Lords of Low Wage Capitalism, are on one side and workers and the pauperized oppressed are on the other. These data pipes are not being opened for the poor and pauperised masses out of benign concern that we may be disadvantaged by the digital divide. Wider distribution of digital fire hoses where before there were digital garden hoses or complete aridity lays the foundation for low wage exploitation of new populations, or for the exploitation of existing populations of workers at new and increased intensity.

Marxists should be all over each of these projects asking questions and distributing the answers among workers and the oppressed. Why here? Why now? Who profits? What does this change in the geography of data access also change in the geography of Low Wage Capitalism? ....

As with industrialization, these sea changes in production relations bring with them changes in working class solidarity. We must expect, and prepare for, struggle over the right to organize on this global, digital shop floor.

allAfrica.com: East Africa: Cost of Telecoms, Internet to Go Down
http://allafrica.com/stories/201003190408.html

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