Digitalism vs. Capitalism
I am
emeritus professor of communication at Istanbul University, now lecturing on
various social science topics at Istanbul Beykent University. Most of my career
has been spent doing research on social psychology, communications, political
history and language, and technology, plus the pedagogy of higher education. Digitalism
vs. Capitalism is my 15th book.
I consider myself a technological determinist Marxist.
These days, my focus has shifted to more foundational questions of what the
future of capitalism would be. Digital technology poses us with a new world.
Nowadays, I am interested in how society works at the digital level, which
leads me to do inquiry in capitalism and politics. My current interests include
fundamental claims in AI, its so-called fearsome applications and complexity,
and ecumenism as a political structure, ornamenting with science fiction
literature. But my new book is a science nonfiction, Digitalism vs. Capitalism,
where I introduce and claim the opposite of the modern vs. postmodern
approaches to capitalism with all the essential elements of critique of the
notion of digital processes bringing about a new and scary phase in capitalism.
The future has always been seen as very terrible before it becomes present and
the past.
When I am doing some research on the pedagogy of
higher education, a very interesting phenomenon currently gained momentum
called my attention.
Do you know why in the last ten years a new field of
knowledge on sustainability and renewable energy/resources led to the formation
of higher education institutes all over the world?
Do you know why at any university or higher education
institute; schools of sustainability or faculties of renewable resources have
the most populated faculty compared with even computer sciences?
My educated guess is that because capitalism is sick
and dying.
There wouldn’t be a Hippocrates or Paracelsus and the
whole field of medicine and pharmacy if there were no diseases, sicknesses, or
illnesses.
Knowing this inevitable consequence, capitalism is
depending on academics who would save it and teach it to young generations and
managers of corporations and states, making the Schools of Sustainability the
most important ones in esteemed universities all over the world. They are seen
as the last saviors...
But, although it is very true that it is sick,
capitalism is dying not because of its sickness but because it is being
killed... Murderer is the technology
that created capitalism 500 years ago. This historically inevitability
needs to be examined.
As I discussed extensively in Digitalism vs. Capitalism, in the last 15 years, Sally
J. Goerner and her friends have worked on a remarkable and
enlightening theory of The New Science of Sustainability (2008). Her
approach is very different from the knowledge areas of Sustainability Faculties
scattered all around the World. I support and enlarged her framework with the
theories of Karl Marx, McLuhan, Herold Innis, Arif Dirlik, Immanuel
Wallerstein, and with many others.
In this book, contrary to the fear from AI, I showed
that the notion of “AI wanting to become human” was the main theme of Stanislaw
Lem’s novel (you might know it as Tarkovsky’s or George Clooney’s
film) Solaris. I showed that Yuval Noah Harari, Mustafa
Suleyman, Daron Acemoğlu, and Yanis Varoufakis are only babbling of
the old stories with gibberish sentences and unrealistic mathematics.
Also, I showed the social and political structure of
the new mode of production is going to be ecumenic structures. It is futile to
analyze the current times we live in in terms of odd-life views, current
statistics, and old paradigms of political science and international relations.
At the present, the Copernicus paradigm
and Axial Age mode of thinking are being swept away by technology. But not in the
way postmodernists’ ornamentations of apparent realities.
As it has always been repeated in human history, “what
goes up must come down.” This is the main dynamic of technology.
Capitalism won't die immediately. At least we won’t
see it. Perhaps we will. Things are hectic nowadays. Marx discovered capitalism
300 years after its inception. It is still alive and will live till its last
breath. Just like feudalism had lived within capitalism, and is still living
with us today piece by piece.
The new mode of production is digitalism. Just like
mechanical technology killed feudalism and gave birth to capitalism, digital
technology is doing the same thing.
Best
wishes and good reads…
M. Veysel Batmaz, SFHEA, is communication professor at Istanbul Beykent
University and emeritus professor of communication at Istanbul University. He
graduated from the Middle East Technical University in 1979. He received his
first MA in Ankara University Faculty of Political Science in 1982 and his
second MA in 1985 in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania—the
Annenberg School for Communications; Ph.D. in 1987 from Ankara University. He
lectured at Bogazici University, Ankara University, Gazi University and Marmara
University. He is one of three founders of Beykent University in 1993, when it
started as Istanbul campus of Liverpool John Moores University. He had worked with George Gerbner when he was
attending the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of
Pennsylvania on media cultivation and television effects. He attended twice
Dubrovnik Inter-University Center Seminars directed by Jürgen Habermas and
Albrecht Wellmer (1982-83). He has then worked as a consultant and campaign
manager on various political communication projects in Turkey with Erhan Göksel
at VERSO-Social Research Center, 1992-2010. He was the Director of Research at
Manajans/J.W. Thompson Advertising Agency between 1986-1989 in Istanbul.
Presently, he is giving pedagogical consultancy in higher education, continuing
political and marketing consultancy work, and doing social research for
multinational companies and political parties. He has widely published on
media, politics, and social psychology.
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