Jaron Lanier’s message in Who Owns the Future is that the digital revolution has propelled us to the start of an advanced information-based economy, ripe for exploitation by new digital elites before we’ve even started thinking about its fundamental impacts on the general population.
Lanier himself is a computer scientist, not an economist nor a politician. This gives him a fresh perspective for political economy devotees, because he bases it on his observations about other behaviour of information systems, although this does not mean that he doesn’t sometimes tend towards the cryptic (‘Money is simply another information system. The essential questions about money, therefore, are are what they always have been with information systems. What is remembered? What is forgotten?’).
Lanier argues that we are only part of the way on the journey to a predominantly software-mediated world. But what we have seen so far should be of concern: the digital revolution threatens to become a one-way street of information asymmetry where citizens regularly trade their information online in return for seemingly ‘free’ services – such as entertainment and social media. As any economist will know, information asymmetry in transactions will create undesirable outcomes such as adverse selection, moral hazard, and information monopoly.
Elite computer networks (Lanier’s Homeric ‘Siren servers’) run by search engines and social media giants sing to us, gathering our volunteered or ‘spied’ information, analysing it in secret and then monetising it and pressing advantage through its exclusive use. He reminds us: ‘digital information is really just people in disguise’ – and, simply put, the masters of this collected wisdom will have power over people.
We’ve seen only the start of this with the disruption of the music industry and the entertainment sector. While there used to be a multi-billion dollar industry based on mechanical processes and an established sales and marketing base – the employer of many – today this is on the decline. Free music is now given away by network servers, in exchange for data – data which has increasing value as markets are more clearly defined and segmented. What happens when the network revolutions disrupting these industries are extended further afield should be of real concern. If not modified by a more ‘humanistic’ approach to the digital economy, ordinary people will be left behind and digital elites prosper.
Technological change, Lanier warns, ultimately poses questions of economic dignity. While digital technology enables a cohort of mobile ‘free workers’ and freelancers, agile enough to move from project to project, this will not be open to all – to older workers, to parents, to those who require greater security. The greater likelihood is that as software advances and industries become more data-driven, unemployment and alienation will increase: ‘the Internet has destroyed more jobs than it has created.’
There is much in this book to unpack: but it is an attempt at a digital political economy discourse – albeit with Lanier’s view that government will of course play a decreasing role to the power of servers. The strength of this book is in its critique of the optimistic techno-utopianism which surrounds tech pages and start-up capitalism. Lanier does provide futuristic solutions: a micro-transactional royalty system could recompense individuals for the value of their online information – a precursor to a new social contract for the internet based on a ‘humanistic information economy.’
Given that the advent of digital technology poses real questions about how power is distributed, whether via politics or the economy, it is perhaps surprising that the Labour party does not have more of a mainstream debate about the impact of digital change. Too often discussions about ‘digital’ in our circles relate to the latest State-side campaigning techniques rather than any deeper reflection on technological disruption or the changing nature of power.
Meanwhile, with the Conservative party’s embrace of new technologies – whether through the promotion of Tech City, copyright reform, open data in the public sector, tech entrepreneurialism and online advocacy – has developed a distinctive political angle, focused around the small state and a perspective of digital change as a proxy for deregulation and the free market.
Are we being left behind? These issues are important to the Labour movement, because it isn’t just austerity which is happening to our economy, workforce and society over the next decade and beyond.
Perhaps, taking books like Lanier’s as a start, it is time to to articulate a more Labour view of digital change: a ‘One Nation’ approach which recognises that digital change requires a more active policy approach in our thinking than it has to date.
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Theo Blackwell is cabinet member for finance at Camden council and a founder of the Labour Digital Group. He works for the video games industry
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Who Owns The Future?
Jaron Lanier
Allen Lane | 384pp | £20
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