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The New Control Society
The gatekeepers are dying. Why is everything so mid?
In the 1970s, two trends combined to shape the zeitgeist: sophisticated computer simulations of complex systems and ecological thinking driven by a sense that everything was connected — a realization fueled variously by atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, consciousness-boosting LSD trips, and the first pictures of the whole Earth from outer space. To early Internet thinkers like Kevin Kelly and Manuel Castells, the distinctive political formation the network made possible was the “swarm” or the “crowd.” This kind of decentralized, emergent coordination is characteristic of open systems in which the independent incentives each individual faces can lead to unexpected synchronicities, or focal points toward which everything suddenly rushes in, often overwhelmingly so. Where the small-business bourgeoisie once benefited from artificially lower costs and a large and growing market, they increasingly find themselves squeezed by international competitors on one hand and concentrated monopolies on the other, all while the administrative state continually seeks to roll back the size exemptions in regulations that had once provided a moat against Big Business.
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