An Empire Without An Emperor

The nation-state has undergone immense change due to scalar sociopolitics. In their millennial philosophies, Hegel, Gierke and Marx argued that the development of the state was intricately tied with the development of corporations. From Communism to Fascism to the New Deal, the 20th Century was a vindication of their beliefs. We have seen the rise of the administrative state, where the central government delegates parts of its almost unlimited authority to various corporate agencies who carry out the core telic imperatives of the state. Corporatism is not, however, exclusive to state-founded agencies, for a fragmented civil society itself “generates institutions that... take on many attributes... associated with public bodies” (Unger, 2000, p. 93). The “co-existence of two circuits” (Offe, 2000, p. 109) where civil society reaches into the state, and the state penetrates civil society, results in an arrangement where “the distinction between the law of the state and the... normative order” is blurred. (Unger, op. cit) Corporatism, as a dual link between civil society and the state is necessary to solve the “problems of governability” over a fragmented civil society (Triado, 2000, p. 103). In the modern corporate state, the “distinction between governmental and non-governmental [is] rather tenuous and artificial — particularly with regard to the management of large-scale economic enterprise” (Nadel, 1975, p. 107). The nation-state itself has been eroded — we no longer think of countries as bodies politic which generate their own normative orders (‘a way of life’) but rather as part of interdependent system of capital accumulation and redistribution. (Miller, 1976).

-- Me! in An Empire Without An Emperor: The Sociopolitics of Scale, the Fragmentation of Civil Society & the Rise (and Rise) of the Business Corporation.

The above is an extract from another article I wrote some time ago (2003) for my Corporate Governance class. Its highly academic - and tries to draw strong parallels between corporate governance and the wider problems of governability. At the time (and probably still), it was a real milestone in the development of my WorldView (yup, one of those). I haven't even cleaned up the typos in this one yet and there's at least one sentence which makes no sense :) e.g.

"To be active in civil society as a national citizen is irrational — as the costs of such participation will not be met by a benefit which will be diluted through a wide and often passive population. "

Should be:

"To be active in civil society as a national citizen is irrational — as the costs of such participation will not be met by a benefit which has been diluted through a wide and often passive population. "


FWIW, my father taught economics for 40 years (he calls himself a professional economist) and even though I never actively took up the subject, I must have some kind of genetic predisposition to being interested in it :) This essay can get pretty hardcore with the corporate governance / finance theory. Whoa.

Dencentralised Warfare

Hmm. I am saying that warefare's [sic] development is no longer in the hands of nation-states or other large organizations. Its development and innovation is in the control of amorphous groups participating in open source warfare. States are holding on for dear life since most of their grand plans for new weapons systems are being made obsolete.

-- John Robb, commenting on his own post on The Dynamic of Open Source Warfare

Open Source Warfare is John's term for the new fourth wave of warfare which is currently emerging. He's not the only one to identify the phenomena but he gives a consistent and focused analysis of current events in both the east and the west (see Open Source Warfare In London).

The above linked primer has a nice little picture which will help make more sense of the whole thing and will help explain why the western superpowers are very very worried.

The take home message is... I don't think there's anyway we can win 'The War on Terror'

[En]Compassing Computer Games: Deus Ex and the Point Shoot Binary

When discussing narrative in Deus Ex, I had to decide whether to refer to the story as happening to the player or Denton. Denton is the Player’s avatar, a virtual puppet capable of interaction in a virtual (game)world. Given the context of grand narrative arcs, I chose to refer to Denton when the plot directly involved him. But it is not a clear distinction. Is Denton anything more than a glorified user interface? In what language can we speak of lead characters, like Denton, in computer games?

-- From [En]Compassing Computer Games: Deus Ex and the Point Shoot Binary



This is an article I wrote over four years ago on Deus Ex which is, imnsho, one of the best computer games ever.

I've now placed it online as a (large) PDF. Except for correcting a few typos, I've left it as it was. It has its flaws, but it has its moments too. Ultimately, I think it succeeds in its mission: "It is a tour, signposting possible departure points for further investigation, both on Deus Ex and computer games per se."

I've been inspired to post this by the discussion at Digital Poetics on The Sweet Sadness of Real Time where computer games where mentioned in passing (they often get mentioned in passing there which, imnsho, is also a great site :))

Feel free to leave comments! Its a big essay, around 7000 words including foot notes. I plan to post a few of my other essays over time and then actually have a 'writing page' just to remind myself that I write more than I do *anything* else.

[P.S. I just discovered that MarsEdit rather awesomely uses the same 'send to weblog' keyboard short cut as Mail.app uses for 'send e-mail'. That's so fucking cool! Go ranchero for having smart-design!]

What's Killing Hollywood? (Hint, its not piracy)

1. Hollywood cannot control its marketing costs or star salaries. The growing importance of DVDs increases the "needle in the haystack" problem for any single film and thus locks studios into more marketing, creating a vicious spiral.
2. TV is now so much better, and offers artists greater creative freedom. Why watch movies?

3. The Internet is outcompeting cinema, whether at the multiplex or on DVD.

4. Big TV screens are keeping people at home, which lowers box office receipts. This also hurts the long-term prospects of many DVDs.

5. The demand for DVDs has fallen because movie lovers have completed their core collections, just as the demands for classical CDs have fallen.

6. The demand for DVDs was due to fall in any case. Forget the collectors, you buy DVDs to have a stock on hand so you don't have to run out to the video store on short notice. Now everyone has a stock. Stocks must be replenished every now and then, but there is no longer a large new cohort simultaneously building up a stock from scratch.

-- at Marginal Revolution, via boing-boing