Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rics20

Download by: [Istanbul Bilgi Universitesi] Date: 13 October 2015, At: 08:19

Information, Communication & Society

ISSN: 1369-118X (Print) 1468-4462 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rics20

The iron cage of the information society

Frank Webster & Kevin Robins

To cite this article: Frank Webster & Kevin Robins (1998) The iron cage of the informationsociety, Information, Communication & Society, 1:1, 23-45, DOI: 10.1080/13691189809358952

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691189809358952

Published online: 25 Feb 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 339

View related articles

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

THE IRON CAGE OF THEINFORMATION SOCIETY

Frank WebsterOxford Brookes University, UK

Kevin RobinsUniversity of Newcastle, UK

AbstractThis paper offers an analysis and critique of recent thought about the 'informa-tion society'. It identifies two phases of futurism, the first a technologicalenthusiasm that characterised the early 1980s, the second, in the 1990s, whichemphasises the transformative capacity of information itself.

The second phase is examined at some length, focusing on the concepts of'symbolic analysts' and 'informational labour' in the writing especially ofRobert Reich and Manuel Castells. In current theory, information has been pro-moted to centre stage of economic affairs. A new intellectual agenda has beencreated, centring on features such as globalisation, the spread of networks, flex-ibility, and the crucial role of educated labour. Three key aspects are identified:the death of communism and the triumph of capitalism, the re-emergence ofmeritocratic ideas, and the depiction of new class structures based on informa-tion. These are queried by empirical analysis of stratification trends and evi-dence from social history. Finally, it is argued that informational developmentsperpetuate processes of rationalisation and control, extending them in wayswhich might be seen in terms of 'New Enclosures'.

Keywords

information, Castells, symbolic analysts, informational labour,

rationalisation

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Does something exist, not in outer space but in the world and affairs of men on earth,

which has not even a name?

Hannah Arendt (1961)

It has become commonplace to observe that we are going through a period of

rapid and intensive change. It is frequently argued that this last quarter of the

twentieth century is without precedent in the scale and scope of historical

transformation. The only certainty for the future, we are told, is that it will be

very different from today. Over the past two decades, a recurrent emphasis has

Information, Communication ^Society 1:1 /Spring 1998 23^4-5 1369-118X © Routledge 1998

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

been placed on information and communications technologies as the chief

motor of change. Everyone is making ready for the 'second industrial revolu-

tion' that is being brought about by computerisation, and which, we are told,

will turn the world upside-down. We are encouraged to have faith in what must

be a progressive development. We are told to adapt to the new circumstances,

and to look to the future with renewed expectations. Who would want to stand

in the way of a new technological order and all that it makes possible?

In fact, it is possible to identify two phases of technological futurism. The

first, which came to prominence in the early 1980s, extolled the virtues of

the 'mighty micro', which had emerged from 'Silicon Valley', and foretold

the bountiful consequences of the 'information technology revolution'. For

a while the bookshops were awash with titles such as The Information

Technology Revolution, The Microelectronics Revolution, and The Coming of the

Chip. There was a sense of cataclysmic upheaval associated with the idea of not

just technological but also social revolution. In one respect, this manifested

itself in scenarios of social catastrophe, with the belief that millions of jobs

would me wiped out by the 'mighty micro'. In another, there was the sense

of possibilities, even of Utopian possibilities, with talk of how the new tech-

nologies could bring a leisure society into existence. In both cases, however,

it was a case of governments having to adapt their policies retrospectively, to

deal with the unanticipated and unruly consequences of technological

upheaval.

The second phase of technological futurism took shape during the 1990s, when

initiates began to talk of the Internet, cyberspace and virtual reality.This decade's

popular titles advertised the themes: Being Digital, The Road Ahead, and The

Communications Miracle were characteristic. Now it was argued that the real revo-

lution came from the convergence of computers with new telecommunications

networks.The emphasis also began to shift from a preoccupation with technology

to a concern with information and communication. Commentators increasingly

began to talk of the 'information society' or 'informational capitalism', where

information takes precedence over mere technology. At the same time, govern-

ments began to take a more worldly and proactive stance, recognising the

centrality of information activities and products to the wealth of nations. They

accommodated themselves, that is to say, to the new realities of global capitalism.

And with the recognition of how the new information technologies were permit-

ting the creation of new transnational, and even world, markets, the so-called

information revolution came to be associated with the burgeoning corporate

ideology of globalisation. As one enthusiast has put it, 'the convergence of com-

puters and telecommunications has made us into a global community, ready or

24

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

not' (Wriston 1997: 175). The road ahead was to be along the information

superhighway that would provide the central 'infostructure' (Connors 1993) of

the new capitalist order, and the idealised future was now a function of success

in the global economy.

The emphasis has shifted, the confidence has risen, but the faith in technol-

ogy has remained constant. Do you believe it? Can the meaning of the infor-

mation society be as simple and hopeful as this scenario makes out? We think

not. What we want to argue in the following discussion is that there is another

way of thinking about the contemporary significance of information. This

approach does not look for what is new in the imagined information revolution

(though, of course, it must recognise that there are some very significant inno-

vations), but considers the information society in terms of a historical continu-

ity. To believe that this promised future is really new you would have to disavow

your knowledge of the history of capitalist enterprise. And you would have to

blind yourself to the economic and social order in which you are now living. But

if you can look clearly and lucidly, then surely you will be struck by how much

of the supposedly new is perpetuating the past. There is already a long history

of the mobilisation of information and communications resources for commer-

cial and political objectives (Webster and Robins 1989).

Thus, while new developments in software engineering, remote sensing

or biotechnology may excite many commentators today, there are obvious

examples of equally important knowledge businesses developing early in this

century. Anthony Giddens (1985: 237) observes that it was during the First

World War that we began to see 'the integration of large-scale science and

technology as the principal medium of industrial advancement'.

Petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and electrical engineering are all

industries with roots in the early decades (and previous) of this century.

Knowledge-based developments such as solid state physics, nuclear energy,

radar, the jet engine, plastics, and television have been important industrial-

ly, and, indeed, in everyday life, from at least the inter-war period. Or, to take

another example, the great emphasis now being put on the novelty of new

communications technologies, and particularly the Internet, also seems mis-

placed. David Edgerton (1997: 15) makes a good point when, commenting

on the hype surrounding the so-called communications revolution, he remarks

that 'the idea that the world was shrinking in time and space was not even

original when applied to aviation before the great war'. The currently new

technologies are only continuing what was inherent in early twentieth-century

communications technologies.

In seeking to re-describe the developments associated with the information

25

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

society from the perspective of continuity, we shall have to consider them, not

in terms of what the new info-culture is telling us about their future potential

and possibilities, but, rather, in terms of what it represses and disavows about

their historical reality. We must take account of the blindness that seems to be

constitutive of the progressivist vision. We shall be concerned, then, with what

the techno-visionaries cannot, or will not, see.

SYMBOLIC ANALYSTS AND INFORMATIONALLABOUR

Those who are convinced that information is set to transform the world have

put particular emphasis on the rapid expansion of informational labour. The

escalating logic of the information society is, they argue, creating and promot-

ing the significance of this new kind of high-level employee who, as a conse-

quence of new information and communication skills and access, is in the

process of becoming the central wealth-creator in the emerging social order.

We should expect this new informational elite to progressively take over the

reins of established businesses, which they will then radically transform. But,

even more crucially, we should take note of how they are now devoting their

technological and managerial skills and expertise to new ways of creating

wealth in the new information- and knowledge-intensive industries that will

develop in the future as a consequence of the new global information infra-

structure. Across the economy, the growing functions of information process-

ing and management are held up as the new and powerful key to the future

wealth of nations. And what is significant, we suggest, is the overwhelming con-

sensus that there now is on this matter.

Of course, this is not an entirely new agenda. In Britain, the message

regarding the novel contribution of information and knowledge to the

economy was already being articulated by Tom Stonier, who published

The Wealth of Information as early as 1983. Also important amongst the early

tracts propagandising on behalf of the knowledge society were the popular

writings and speeches of Alvin Toffler. Indeed, they remain extremely influen-

tial in both business and political circles. In his most recent futurist tome,

Tower shift (1990), Toffler identifies what he calls the 'highbrow' firm as the

model corporation of the future. It is, he says, one which owes its success to the

'intelligence' it invests in its goods and services, and, moreover, it is one in

which the new knowledge class—what Toffler calls the 'cognitariat'— will become

increasingly dominant, as we shift rapidly towards the coming 'knowledge

society'. Another militant advocate of the knowledge revolution during the

26

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

1980s was the American business consultant and guru, Peter Drucker.

Drucker has consistently put the same emphasis on the strategic importance of

information and knowledge, repeating his essential message once again in his

most recent book, Post-Capitalist Society (1993). Land, labour and capital remain

important, says Drucker, but in contemporary societies it is knowledge that is

increasingly the 'central resource' of the economic system. And it is the knowl-

edge experts, whose trained knowledge is the key to corporate success, who are

becoming the new elite. For Drucker, the rise of the knowledge class is set to

transform society in quite fundamental ways, giving rise to the new social order

he calls 'post-capitalist society'.

Besides these popular and propagandising texts, there were also more sus-

tained attempts to understand what were perceived to be major economic and

social transformations taking place in the 1980s. The terms of the debate at that

time were very much set by Daniel Bell's influential thesis on The Coming of Post-

Industrial Society (Bell 1973). Both Fred Block (1990) and Larry Hirschhorn

(1984), for example, identified developments towards the informatisation of

work, making the case that production systems were increasingly designed to

provide 'cybernetic feedback' to operatives. Workers consequently had to have

the necessary skills to understand complex information systems and to be able

to rectify faults and re-orient production when necessary. Both writers laid

stress — along with the much quoted Soshana Zuboff (1988) — on the upgrading

of employees, who must constantly, and as a matter of routine, develop their

informational skills so as to be able to adapt to a constantly changing situation.

And both saw these developments in terms of a major economic and social

transition. Block wrote of 'post-industrial possibilities', and Hirschhorn

invoked the possibility of'post-industrial technology' leading to an era 'beyond

mechanisation'.

What was apparent in most of the analysis written in the 1980s was this sense

of a major, and potentially cataclysmic, transformation in economic and social

life. There was the belief that a new order was coming into being, founded on the

new microelectronics technologies, and there was a sense of uncertainty and

anticipation about what this coming order would bring. For some it meant

turbulence and turmoil, while for others there were new possibilities for a bet-

ter kind of society, or even a new kind of society. Whilst elements of this post-

industrial futurism have persisted into the 1990s, there has been, during the

course of this decade, a significant shift in the approach to the new technologies.

There is now less emphasis on the technology and its implications for the

future, and a great deal more interest in information and its value as a compet-

itive resource in the present. We may consider this in terms of the emergence

27

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

of a new realism and pragmatism in the information society agenda. The over-

riding concern is now with mobilising information resources for both corpo-

rate success and national advantage. And the concern is increasingly with how

these old and familiar agendas can be sustained in the new competitive envi-

ronment associated with economic globalisation.

A good example of the new business-like orientation is Lester Thurow's

best-selling The Future of Capitalism (1996). HereThurow argues that shifts in

what he refers to as five * economic tectonic plates' are bringing about change

in the economic and competitive environment of advanced societies. One such

tectonic shift involves the spread of'man-made brainpower industries'. These

are enterprises that are successful because they revolve around knowledge,

which, as Thurow predictably argues, 'has become the only source of long-run

sustainable competitive advantage' — he points to biotechnology as an instance

of such a 'brainpower' business. But Thurow's perspective is no longer quite that

of the older generation of post-industrial futurists. He is not invoking a new

social order in the future, but is concerned far more with the conditions of con-

temporary enterprise and competitiveness. And he is at pains to stress that it is

pre-eminently the great shift associated with globalisation (another of his 'tec-

tonic plates') that is massively promoting informational work — since 'those

with the skills to put the necessary World Wide Webs of skill together are apt to

be the highest paid of the knowledge workers — the elite of the elite' (Thurow

1996: 75). The point is that it is the new competitive environment of the glob-

al economy that is now turning information into such a crucial resource, and

even weapon, in the contemporary world.

The clearest and most incisive statement of this information entrepreneurial

vision for the era of globalisation, however, has been made in the influential

writings of the Harvard political economist and former US Secretary of Labor,

Robert Reich (1992). Reich is most explicit in linking the emergence of this

new informational labour market with the new forces of globalisation. He

makes the argument that, as a consequence of the compelling logic of global-

isation, it is no longer feasible to conceive of an independent and distinct

national economic entity; the processes of globalisation have been rapidly

diminishing the economic sovereignty of the nation state, and the days when

national companies produced largely in the national territory with predomi-

nantly national labour are now gone. Thus, says Reich (1992: 8), 'as almost

every factor of production — money, technology, factories, and equipment —

moves effortlessly across borders, the very idea of an American economy is

becoming meaningless, as are the notions of an American corporation,

American capital, American products, and American technology' (cf. Wriston

28

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

1992). Economic activities are now organised at a global scale. What we now

have to recognise, Reich argues, is the global movement of capital and invest-

ment, nowadays crossing the world in massive volume and at a bewildering

pace (in excess of one trillion dollars per day are now traded in foreign cur-

rencies) . Production is now a world-wide activity, with components designed in

one place, manufactured in another (and increasingly it is in many others) and

finally assembled only in a 'country of origin', and then distributed according to

the organisation of global-regional markets.

So, according to Reich, economic activity is increasingly pursued irrespec-

tive of national frontiers and attachments. Economic relations are seen as being

held together now by a complex 'global web' of relationships within and across

corporate organisations (owned by myriad and dispersed shareholders). Reich

then goes on to link this transformation in corporate organisation to a signifi-

cant change in employment activity and identity, arguing that economic activi-

ty has been transformed in such a way as to enhance, quite dramatically, the role

of particular types of occupations, which he designates as those of a new class

of'symbolic analysts'. They are highly-educated workers, in command of such

key skills as conceptual abstraction, systems thinking, experimentation, and

collaboration.They are problem-identifiers, problem-solvers, and strategic bro-

kers, and they work in occupations such as banking, law, engineering, comput-

ing, accounting, media and management. They are information and knowledge

specialists who are continuously engaged in 'managing ideas', and who possess

the 'intellectual capital' that will be crucial for success in twenty-first century

capitalism. 'Symbolic analysts', says Reich (1992: 178), 'solve, identify, and bro-

ker problems by manipulating symbols'. The key work now being performed

within the new global corporations is being undertaken by such workers,

organised into self-motivated and non-hierarchical teams, allied around partic-

ular projects and connected through a dense web of networks. The symbolic

analysts, who now constitute some 20 per cent of the global workforce, are

seen as fundamental to the new 'enterprise networks' of the knowledge-based

corporations that are coming to predominate on the world stage.

Reich makes particular note of how 'the new global sources of their

economic well-being have subtly altered how [the symbolic analysts] under-

stand their economic roles and responsibilities in society', and he gives partic-

ular significance to the way in which 'symbolic analysts have been seceding from

the nation' (Reich 1992: 252). The new corporate networks increasingly

disregard national borders, and the new informational culture is being consti-

tuted in terms of an emergent cosmopolitan community and identity. But that does

not mean that the work of nation states is finished. They continue to have

29

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

responsibilities towards their citizens, and must intervene in the global econ-

omy in order to maximise national advantage. Whilst they may be increasingly

global in their orientation, Reich is aware that the symbolic analyst class is dis-

proportionately represented in the metropolitan centres, which, thanks to the

investments made in higher education systems, are producing 'symbolic ana-

lysts' in large numbers. What governments (that is to say, Western govern-

ments) need to do, Reich advises, is to ensure the continuing high-quality out-

put of symbolic analysts from their universities. And then they have to work the

trick of ensuring a commitment from these new mobile workers to the nation

state that has supported their development.

It is not Reich's political wager which most interests us here, but simply the

emphasis he places on the category of symbolic analyst and on the centrality of

information and knowledge workers to contemporary economic activity. Reich

is by no means alone in this line of argument. We should also refer here to the

other major account of global information capitalism. In The Rise of the Network

Society (1996), Manuel Castells proceeds, albeit from a more radical perspec-

tive, along very much the same conceptual route as Reich.Thus he describes the

emergence of the 'horizontal corporation', designed to meet the challenges of

globalisation. Through this term, Castells is seeking to describe the 'transfor-

mation of corporations into networks' (Castells 1996: 115), a process of trans-

formation in which the key players are those who are infused with 'the spirit of

informationalism' (ibid.: 195) and are consequently at ease with the networking

activities that will be fundamental to global economic success.

These new networkers constitute what Castells refers to as 'self-program-

mable labour', making up a new labour force that is highly educated, flexible,

and able to learn and re-learn wherever and whenever necessary. The key thing

is not the possession of a particular set of skills, but rather the capacity to

acquire the appropriate skills when and where they are needed. Castells esti-

mates this category of information occupations — he calls it 'informational

labour' — to be some 30 per cent of the workforce in OECD nations, but the

crucial point is that he too, like Reich, regards these workers as the vital wealth-

creators of 'informational capitalism' (distinguishing them from what he calls

'generic labour' — which is declining, is easily mechanised, static and incapable

of the fast changes a globalised economy demands).

In reaction, no doubt, to earlier accounts that afforded too much emphasis

to the technology, the recent work of both Robert Reich and Manuel Castells

puts primary emphasis on the transformative capacities of information itself. As

Castells (1997a: 15) expresses it, 'the Network Society is not produced by

information technology' (though, at the same time, it should be recognised that

3O

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

Castells' idea of an 'informational mode of development' does also sustain a

strong technological determinism, with its understanding of technology as

socially neutral, while at the same time the major factor causing social change

(see Webster 1997)). What is emphasised is the singular role of'symbolic ana-

lysts' in the era of globalisation and in the circumstances of a 'network society'.

This new and growing breed of highly educated problem-solvers — with their

skills of effective communication, clear analysis, abstract thinking and strategic

planning — is granted tremendous authority in the era of informational capital-

ism. The new age is now recognised through the changed characteristics of its

occupational structure, with a key concern on the capacity of the education sys-

tem to function as the supplier of quality informational labour. It is a far more

worldly and pragmatic agenda than that of the 1980s.

THE NEW AGENDA

Despite important differences of emphasis between the agendas of the 1980s

and the 1990s, there is also a significant continuity. If there is a shift from

privileging the hardware to privileging the software, there is a general agree-

ment on the fundamental idea that information has moved to the centre stage

of economic (and other) affairs today. What also seems remarkable to us is the

high degree of unanimity that has developed in contemporary accounts, which

all seem to follow much the same line of reasoning. Let us now try to briefly

identify what we consider to be the new orthodoxy concerning globalisation

and information. The argument that is generally put forward runs roughly as

follows:

1 The logic of globalisation, which has brought about a decline in the signifi-

cance of the nation state, has led to radical transformation of world markets

and to heightened competition between corporations operating across the

world.

2 As a consequence of these processes of globalisation, corporations are driven

to create new organisational and operational structures, with an emphasis on

'flexibility' and 'connectivity'.The emphasis shifts towards the construction

of networks, both within and between organisations. Thus, Castells (1997a: 8)

refers to the rise of the 'network enterprise', which is constituted from 'the

specific set of linkages between different firms or segments, organised ad hoc

for a specific project, and dissolving/reforming after the task is completed'.

This is the new ground of competition.

3 Global competition has led to a shift away from mass- and towards high-value

3 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

goods, and involves such objectives as the creation of specialised markets, the

perpetual design and development of new products, and an increased cultur-

al and aesthetic contribution to augmenting the symbolic value of products.

This stimulation of innovation and differentiation in both commodities and

services in turn puts a premium on the knowledge and information input to

economic activities.

4 In combination, the above factors result in the privileging of certain kinds of

work — those, particularly, which can provide higher added value to products

and services through scientific excellence, creative inputs, financial acumen,

design intensity, communications expertise, cultural manipulation, packag-

ing, etc.

5 What all these jobs have in common is their high information and knowledge

base. They constitute the occupational categories of the new class of symbol-

ic analysts. They all involve the possession of high-level competences and

transferable skills, affording the capacity to be flexible and adaptive in the

face of ever changing circumstances. Symbolic analysts tend not to occupy

permanent positions in a solid corporate bureaucracy, but are capable of

moving around from project to project, drawing on their extensive networks

and knowledge bases to ensure adaptability (being a symbolic analyst

involves constructing a 'portfolio' career, one that is self-designed, rather

than simply fitting into the bureaucratised position provided by the old-style

corporation).

6 The skills of the symbolic analyst class depend on qualification through high-

level educational attainment. For this reason education, and particularly

higher education, becomes increasingly integral and functional to the global

economy (Brown and Scase 1994, 1997). Note, for example, Reich's (1992:

238—9) observation that a 'world-class university and an international airport

combine the basic rudiments of global symbolic analysis — brains, and quick

access to the rest of the world'. The needs of the global information econo-

my are thus forcing the development of the 'post-modern' university, where

established knowledge is overturned and new disciplines and sub-areas are

being developed at breakneck speed, and where the stress is increasingly on

'performativity' rather than on such antique values as 'culture' or 'truth'

(Scott 1995). The emphasis within universities in the advanced economies

shifts, accordingly, away from specific abilities, towards 'transferable skills' —

those generic capacities of abstraction and analysis, team-playing and self-

starting, adaptability and entrepreneurialism, and so on, that are regarded as

crucial to the elite labour power of the new global economy.

This, we argue, now constitutes the broad consensus concerning the condition

32

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

and direction of contemporary societies, defining the context for future eco-

nomic and political strategies. Of course, we still frequently hear the enthusi-

astic discourse of technological and post-industrial revolution — for this contin-

ues to have a strong rhetorical appeal, with its promise of a new social order

(the uninterrupted success of AlvinToffler bears witness to this appeal). But the

new agenda — which is also the new orthodoxy — is for the most part a more

realistic and pragmatic accommodation. There is an acceptance of the funda-

mental logic that has shaped the modern era. Commentators such asThurow,

Reich, and Castells, from their rather different perspectives, all make it very

clear that it is the dynamic of capitalism that is shaping the contemporary agen-

da, acknowledging that it is more vigorous and virulent than ever in its new

global form.Thurow and Reich signal the importance of competitive and entre-

preneurial values and objectives in the titles of their recent books — The Future

of Capitalism and The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves Jor 21st Century

Capitalism. Castells, from his more critical perspective, makes clear that 'in its

current manifestation [the network society] is a capitalist society', acknowl-

edges that, as such, it 'opens up an extraordinary potential for solving our prob-

lems', but then recognises the need for 'social controls [to] check the forces of

unfettered market logic' (Castells 1997a: 15, 7).

So, no brave new world. No social revolution through technological revolu-

tion. No future leisure Utopia. What the new realism wants us to recognise is

that it is very much business as usual — all we should expect are some material

benefits, if we work hard and compete keenly, from the new global capitalist

order. And what it wants to emphasise is the growing centrality of information

to that endless task of working and competing — information is valuable pri-

marily as a global competitive resource.

What does the new agenda amount to, then? First, there is now the simple

acknowledgement that capitalism has won the long battle with communism,

and with it the recognition that there is no longer any credible alternative to the

market economy. Today, proclaims Thurow (1996: 5), '"Survival of the fittest"

capitalism stands alone. There is no alternative'. Castells (1997b) accepts that

'for the first time in history, the whole planet is organised around a largely com-

mon set of economic rules', pointing out that this new global manifestation rep-

resents a 'hardened form of capitalism in its goals, but . . . is incomparably

more flexible than any of its predecessors in its means'. The future, then, can

only be about which variant of global and informational enterprise — east Asian,

European or American — will operate most effectively and aggressively in the

new conditions of accumulation.

Second, there is a recognition — it is an accepting, and often idealising,

33

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

recognition — that the changing occupational structures of informational capital-

ism, which are now pushing symbolic analysts to the fore, are at the same time

putting into place the basis of a new meritocracy. The future, it is said, lies with

those who are able, through the combination of ability and effort, to acquire the

key informational skills and competences. Position, power and reward will, and

should, come by virtue of possession of the new intellectual capital. And this

intangible capital is not just a matter of labour skills in the old sense: now it has a

far more capacious range, encompassing social skills too. Thus, in his praise of the

information specialists who now occupy the key roles in today's 'flat' organisa-

tions, Francis Fukuyama (1997) observes that they must also possess 'social cap-

ital' , by which he means the 'trust' relations which are crucial to getting things

done most effectively in an economic environment characterised by flexible pro-

jects and alliances. In Fukuyama's view, this social capital — involving strong pro-

fessional commitments and high ethical standards — is absolutely crucial to the

functioning of global organisational networks. This new elite is supposedly inau-

gurating a new ethos within entrepreneurial culture.

The identification of this new elite has significant political implications.

There is a growing belief that, with this transformation in occupational struc-

ture, the stratification system of capitalism is at the same time being funda-

mentally changed. Once again (as in the 1970s), it is argued that the old

division between capital and labour, which formed the basis of the antagonistic

class structure and constituted the basis for competing political ideologies, is

now being undermined. Thus, in what is surely the most comprehensive exam-

ination of the 'Information Age', Manuel Castells argues that, while entrepre-

neurs are indeed in evidence today, a distinctive capitalist class, in the sense of

an identifiable group of powerful property owners, is not — even though

capitalism continues to exist in the form of what he calls a 'faceless, collective

capitalist' system (most evident in the case of global financial markets). There is

the gathering sense, then, that the new class of symbolic analysts has taken over

the reins of corporate (and other) endeavour (it is, indeed, reminiscent of the

old idea — developed by the post-industrial theories of Touraine and Bell — of a

'new class' that allegedly owes its position to education, expertise and the cen-

trality of knowledge). And, concomitantly, there is the expectation that the old

capitalist class must wither away, to be replaced by those who run corporations

by virtue of their knowledge — for what would be the function of such an

anachronistic class in the new era? Castells also goes on to argue that the old

working-class organisations are being displaced, top, in favour of new social

movements, such as feminist and environmental groups — which, he argues, are

more in tune with the new network culture. To function at all in the global

34

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

information economy it seems that it is necessary to adapt to the logic of the

'network enterprise' and the 'network society'.

But, of course, what also has to be taken into account is the reality that many

— a great many — cannot and will not succeed in plugging themselves into the net-

work society. The dilemma is that those who were once regarded as the sources

of wealth in the capitalist system are now regarded as marginal to requirements

(incompetent as workers and irrelevant as consumers). Both Reich and Castells

acknowledge the problem of the leftovers — the routine producers (Reich) or

generic labour (Castells) — in the new order, those who are threatened by the

demands of the new flexible capitalism. This issue is projected as the problem of

the information underclass. How will their disaffection be managed? How can

they be rendered docile? How might they be included in the 'information soci-

ety' ?Thurow (1996: 29—30) is worried about what will happen as a consequence

of the creation of a new lumpenproletariat. Castells is concerned about the impli-

cations of social polarisation and exclusion from the global capitalist economy.

'The Information Age does not have to be the age of stepped-up inequality,

polarisation and social exclusion', he states. 'But for the moment it is' (Castells

1997a: 10). (But how to engineer informational equality when the capacities of

national political actors — the only effective actors we have — are constantly

undermined?) For the more practical Reich, the point is to be aware the possi-

bilities for the new disenfranchised to get along by providing casual personal

services to the busy and affluent class of symbolic analysts (Reich 1992: ch. 14).

So this is what the information society has turned out to be. And this is all

that it turns out to be. The 1990s pragmatism reveals what is at the heart of the

information society agenda (what was concealed behind the more futuristic and

Utopian rhetoric of the 1980s). Of course, in so far as the new agenda is being

developed to further the cause of business and commercial interests, we should

not really be surprised. But there is good reason to be depressed when it starts

to become the cause of politicians — as it increasingly is. Thus, in Britain, a

recent Demos pamphlet urges that the country should emulate California in

targeting the 'knowledge-based' industries — such as computers, biotechnology

and media — that are dominated by highly-paid and highly-skilled symbolic ana-

lysts (Leadbeater 1997). The need to prioritise information and knowledge has

been a prominent theme of'New Labour'. 'The knowledge race has begun',

declared Tony Blair at the 1995 Labour Party conference, 'Knowledge is power.

Information is opportunity. And technology can make it happen'. The aim is to

make Britain the 'knowledge capital of Europe'. To this end — and echoing

Robert Reich — Blair puts at the centre of his policy 'education, education, edu-

cation' :

35

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

We have just one asset. Our people. Their intelligence. Their potential. Develop it — we suc-

ceed. Neglect it — we fail. It is as simple as that . . . this is hard economics. The more you

learn the more you earn. That is your way to do well out of life. Jobs. Growth. This combi-

nation of technology and know-how will transform the lives of all of us.

(Labour Party Conference 1995)

The point, it seems is to make young people (like older people) work harder.

'New Labour, old work ethic?' suggests one commentator (White 1997),

dismayed by the new government's utilitarian approach to education ('Why',

he rightly asks, 'should a good life be built mainly around work?'). Where's the

progress in this? Shouldn't we be expecting a good deal more?

THE FUTURE THAT PERPETUATESTHE PAST

The information society seems to be about the future. What is it if it is not what

lies at the end of the road ahead? In the 1980s, it was a more distant future;

while, in the 1990s, the promised future has seemed within our grasp. The self-

proclaiming futurologists and visionaries seek to distract us with this techno-

future of theirs, continually predicting a new era of freedom, empowerment

and wealth. 'Being digital is different', says Nicholas Negroponte (1995: 231,

230), 'in the digital world, previously impossible solutions become viable'. But

we should be highly sceptical about this rhetoric of new times. The information

visionaries want us, as David Edgerton (1997: 15) very rightly observes, 'to

give way to the new people who have "the future in their bones," those who

pride themselves on "having seen the future." It is an old trick, but we still fall

for it'. What they want is to ensure our compliance in their schemes. And, to

this end, as Edgerton notes, 'they want to render our knowledge of the present

and past null and void'. And they want to do so because this knowledge would

surely make clear that there is nothing that is significantly new or innovative in

their compulsive scheming. There will be no change. The ideology of informa-

tionalisation and globalisation just perpetuates the old mythology of progress.

And progress is still about no more than the expansion of rational mastery over

the world (Webster and Robins 1986: chs. 10, 11).

We want to substantiate this point with particular respect to informational

labour, which has been the primary focus throughout this discussion. So, let us now

turn our attention to the perceived emergence of the new class of symbolic ana-

lysts in the labour force. We have to consider just how novel and extensive this

development really is, if we want to understand its contemporary significance. In

this context, we might first consider the evidence produced by John Scott — in

36

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

an authoritative body of work undertaken over many years now (1982, 1986,

1991, 1996, 1997) — which suggests that the principal stakeholders in the econ-

omy are still those who enjoy concentrated ownership of corporate stock (thus

challenging some of the central claims of commentators such as Reich and

Castells). Scott demonstrates, for instance, that an important change in capital-

ism has been the shift from personal to impersonal forms of control (outright

individual ownership of firms has declined, that is to say, and has been replaced

more commonly by dispersed share ownership). Thus, nowadays, typical cor-

porations are owned by a variety of institutions, such as banks and insurance

companies, with individual shareholders usually only accounting for small per-

centages of total shares. However, this has not meant a loss of control by the

capitalist classes, since networks of relationships, based on intertwined share-

holdings, link them together and ensure their position is maintained through a

'constellation of interests' (Scott 1997: 73). Scott's evidence suggests, then,

that there is still a vibrant capitalist class at the helm of the capitalist system, and

that it is a class that is a good deal less anonymous than Castells maintains.

While Scott accepts that there has been a partial dissociation of mechanisms

of capitalist reproduction and mechanisms of class reproduction — thus, capitalists

still pass on their property to their heirs, but they can no longer guarantee to

directly transmit top management positions — he suggests that this dissociation

has not really extended very far. New strategies have been evolved to protect

vested interests. What is now the case, he maintains, is that the propertied class

'forms a pool from which the top corporate managers are recruited' (ibid.:

20). Moreover, this propertied class remains especially advantaged in the educa-

tional system, so much so that its members predominate amongst those emerg-

ing with the essential high-level symbolic analytical skills. A significant and elite

part of the symbolic analyst class is where it is, then, by virtue of both its privi-

leged origins (the still inestimable advantage of inherited wealth) and its privi-

leged education. As Scott points out, the propertied capitalist class 'is able to

ensure its continuity over time through its monopolisation of the educational sys-

tem as well as its monopolisation of wealth. It stands at the top of the stratifica-

tion system, enjoying superior life chances to those in the subordinate service

class that fill the rungs of the corporate hierarchies' (ibid.). Far from anything

that would really merit the label of social revolution, what Scott's evidence

points to is a real continuity in class and occupational hierarchies as we suppos-

edly enter the Information Age, with propertied groups still manifesting dispro-

portionate influence and demonstrating remarkable capacities of self-protection

and self-reproduction (cf., Useem 1984; Useem and Karabel 1986; Bourdieu

1996; Wright 1997).

37

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

Next, we might ask whether the functions of the symbolic analysts are really

as novel as we are being told. In this context, the historical research of Harold

Perkin, particularly in The Rise of Professional Society (1989), is instructive. Here

he maps in detail the rise to prominence of professional occupations, not in the

last twenty years — as the visionaries of the 'information society' would have us

believe — but, in fact, over the last century or more. Perkin argues that one way

of understanding the development of English society, since at least 1880, is in

terms of the growth of what he calls 'professional society' — a society which

claims to be rationally and efficiently modern on the basis of a new kind of

'human capital created by education'. It was at that time that information and

knowledge began to be systematically organised and exploited. And it seems

clear to us that today's so-called symbolic analysts are no more than the descen-

dants of this kind of human capital. Our basic point is that there has been a con-

tinuous growth of informational labour throughout the century. We recognise

that the management and co-ordination of global enterprises has now put an

increased premium on informational labour. And we would accept that there

has also been an expansion in informational work as knowledge, service and

cultural industries have grown in economic significance. But we believe there

are no compelling reasons to highlight the proliferation of symbolic analysts in

recent years as indicative of a change profound enough to justify the idea of a

late twentieth-century 'information revolution'.

Now, of course, this does not mean that we should not consider what is hap-

pening to informational labour at the end of the twentieth century. Naturally it

is the case that professional identities are being transformed in all sorts of ways.

And new divisions and hierarchies are inevitably being created within the grow-

ing ranks of informational labour. We must be attentive to what is happening

now. In some cases — the minority of privileged cases — we are seeing the emer-

gence of a new global elite of what Ian Angell (1995: 11) calls 'economic mer-

cenaries', intent on joining, and perhaps even rivalling, the established proper-

tied class (see below). Then we have what Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron

(1996) call the 'virtual class', driven by their distinctive 'Californian ideology',

which is 'a bizarre mishmash of hippie anarchism and economic liberalism

beefed up with lots of technological determinism' (1996: 56). These informa-

tion workers aspire to become high-tech, libertarian entrepreneurs, presenting

themselves as 'visionary engineers [who] are inventing the tools needed to

create a "free market" within cyberspace' (ibid.: 53). What this seemingly new

ideology sustains and disguises, however, is simply the old and familiar work

ethic — 'work itself has become the main route to self-fulfilment for much of

the "virtual class"' (ibid.: 49-50).

38

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

However, these developments should not lead us to believe that it is informa-

tion and knowledge functions as such that are assuming a newly influential and

transformative role in the development of contemporary societies. As we have

already suggested, other factors may weigh far more heavily. Nor does it follow

that symbolic analysts as a whole can achieve a new standing and authority as

a consequence of their knowledge credentials. What, of course, remains crucial

as far as influence is concerned is what has always been crucial — the ability of

a particular group to gain leverage in the marketplace. And if we look sociologi-

cally, rather than ideologically, at the situation of most groups of'symbolic ana-

lysts' now, it is apparent that they have little leverage and are at a far remove from

the ideal that is being projected by the ideologues of the Information Age. Over

the last twenty years, we have seen a sustained assault on the privileged posi-

tion of most professional groups, usually towards the objective of rendering

them ever more rational and efficient (and, at the same time, we have also

been witnessing a manifest decline in the returns on higher educational certifi-

cation). For most informational workers, there has, in fact, been increased sub-

ordination, combined with an escalating loss of prestige. And what this testifies

to is, not the power of symbolic analysts, but that of the market system. Bluntly,

the supposed rise of symbolic analysts has done little, if anything, to limit the

determining power of capitalist imperatives in the realm of work — or anywhere

else for that matter.

What we are seeing is a situation in which a small informational elite is mak-

ing its presence felt within the global business class, whilst the majority of the

informational labour force is exploited more intensively, and the rest are

regarded as surplus to requirements. It constitutes an escalating logic of divi-

sion and polarisation. The possibilities are starkly demonstrated in the recent

article by Ian Angell (1995) to which we referred above (and with none of the

moderating sentiments that most other prophets of the Information Age feel

compelled to express). Angell emphasises the absolute centrality of the elite,

'the real generators of wealth', making it clear that 'the protection of the inter-

ests and independence of the knowledge workers is going to be big business in

the Information Age' (Angell 1995: 11). Educational provision will become

increasingly functional and instrumental, regarded 'not as the right of every cit-

izen, distributed arbitrarily, but as an investment on which [the state] must

expect a return' (ibid.: 12). It seems as if this ever more calculating capitalism

may create a cultural apartheid between the mobile elite and the immobile

residue of the 'unproductive masses' .The political consequences would seem to

be disastrous:

39

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

As far as global enterprises are concerned liberal democracy is an artifact of the Machine

Age, an ideology from a time when the masses were needed — but it will soon mutate into

an irrelevancy. It will soon be merely the means of governing the immobile and dependent

service workers . . . . Global companies have no interest in populism, unless it adversely

affects their business, when they will simply leave: in the Information Age 'democracy is bad

for business'.

(ibid.: 12)

Information Age? Or turbo-capitalism? Barbrook and Cameron (1996: 60—1)

suggest that the latter may well be what contemporary developments are all

about when they say that 'even the construction of cyberspace has become an

integral part of the fragmentation of American society into antagonistic, radi-

cally-determined classes'. In the late-twentieth century, they maintain, 'tech-

nology is once again being used to reinforce the difference between the masters

and the slaves' (the 'cyborg masters' and the 'robot slaves'). What if this is the

future (or non-future) that we should expect?

In the above discussion we have considered polarisation only with respect to

developed — that is, for the most part, Western — economies and societies. Our

perspective has been partial in so far as we have limited ourselves to the agen-

da set out by the proponents of the information society. But it is clear that the

implications of informationalisation and globalisation are of concern not only to

the global regions that will be the primary beneficiaries. The future of the other

— that is to say the excluded — parts of the world is also at stake. The informa-

tion society agenda has frequently shown itself to be blind to the wider global

consequences of the new order that it is seeking to inaugurate. It has massively

disavowed the reality that, in addition to the large numbers of people who are

marginalised in the metropolitan societies, whole populations may well be

excluded from the new order in other parts of the world (see Castells 1997b).

We have to consider the information revolution that is promised to the devel-

oped world alongside what globalisation promises for the unprivileged world.

We might consider it in the light of what William Robinson (1996: 14)

describes as 'a war of the global rich and powerful minority against the global

poor, dispossessed and outcast minority', inaugurating, he maintains, 'a period

that could rival the colonial depredations of past centuries'. This, too, is an

aspect of the world order that is being euphemistically referred to as the infor-

mation society. And we ought to recognise that this logic of depredation is root-

ed in a long history. For what we are seeing, in the contemporary mobilisation

and mobility of labour, represents the continuation of the Enclosures movement

that was initiated at the beginning of the capitalist era. The dynamic of globali-

sation is that of the New Enclosures (Midnight Notes Collective 1990).4O

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

ENCLOSING THE FUTURE

We may usefully think of the transformations that we have been considering in

this article in terms of the new information enclosures (see Brook and Boal

1995). What these express is the drive to subjugate more and more elements of

social life to a logic of rationality and control. What they sustain is the project,

first articulated by early nineteenth-century visionaries such as John Herschel

and Charles Babbage, to mobilise intellectual resources towards achieving eco-

nomic and social efficiency. As William Ashworth (1996: 635—6) puts it, 'effi-

cient and correct mental operations, in the view of the reformers, depended

completely on the organisation of the mind. Indeed, according to Herschel and

Babbage, the mind should ideally function with the reliability and productivity

of a well-ordered factory'. This is where the praise of the functions of symbol-

ic analysis originates. The factory mind was seen as the basis of a new, ratio-

nalised social order. Contemporary developments are about making this order

ever more intensive (subordinating the lifeworld as a whole) and extensive

(enclosing the entire globe), and creating what Stephen Gill (1995) calls the

'global panopticon'. In Cornelius Castoriadis' terms, the new global informa-

tion order expresses, and perhaps fulfils, one of the two main significations of

modern society, that which corresponds to its capitalist dimension (we shall

come to the other signification in a moment). Within this imaginary institution

Everything is called before the tribunal of (productive) Reason and must prove its right to

exist on the basis of the criterion of the unlimited expansion of'rational mastery'. Capitalism

thus becomes a perpetual movement of supposedly rational, but essentially blind, self-rein-

stitution of society, through the unrestricted use of (pseudo-)rational means in view of a single

(pseudo-) rational end.

(Castoriadis 1990: 18)

This logic of order has now developed far beyond the aspirations of the early

nineteenth-century analyticals, in both its scope and its endeavour. It has made

the world a more closed and diminished space, a space of constraint and even

incarceration.

If the world's space has been colonised by this logic of order and rationalis-

tion, then so too has its time. Here a major achievement of the capitalist imag-

inary has been the colonisation of the future. The technologies of the new world

information economy have sought to overcome what are perceived to be the

barriers of time, putting in place what has been called the real-time economy,

and creating what Castells describes as the 'timeless time' of the network soci-o

ety. What this means is that global society has been subordinated to a rational

and standardised temporality. Paul Virilio (1996: 79) sees it in terms of the

4 1

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

FRANK WEBSTER & KEVIN ROBINS

institution of 'a single global time which is liquidating the multiplicity of local

times'. It is the time of an eternal present — Virilio refers to it in terms of'an

amputation of the volume of time' (ibid.) — void of potential for change or

development. The information society is obsessed with the future, but the

future of its obsession is merely the endless continuation of the present. Ashis

Nandy (1988: 12) suggests that this erasing of the future may reflect a funda-

mental fear of the future among the Western elites. The preoccupation with

futurology is, he maintains, about the desire to control and secure the future. It

is precisely about trying to make the future as much like the present as possi-

ble, for the fear is really 'the fear of a future unrestrained by or disjunctive with

the present'. Whatever the futuristic rhetoric, the global information society in

fact works to foreclose the possibilities inherent in the future. What has finally

been achieved in this respect is no less than the enclosure of the future.

The fundamental question concerns whether it is still possible to escape

from the iron cage of the information society — which is to ask whether we

actually want to escape from it. Clearly it is too big a question to take on at

the end of this discussion. We certainly don't think this can be a matter of

ameliorative or redistributive policies, intended to attenuate the worst conse-

quences of the escalating capitalist dynamic. For us, what is at issue is, first,

the very logic that is at the heart of the project, and then, relatedly, the suc-

cess this logic has had in eclipsing the other main signification of the modern

period. This latter is what Castoriadis (1997: 89—90) refers to as 'the signifi-

cation of individual autonomy, of freedom, of the search for forms of collec-

tive freedom, which corresponds to the democratic, emancipatory, revolu-

tionary project'; it is the signification to which corresponds 'the critical,

reflective, democratic individual'. We would agree with Castoriadis that this

latter aspiration is presently stalled, thrown into crisis by the very potency of

the project of mastery:

The project of autonomy is certainly not finished. But its trajectory during the last two cen-

turies has proved the radical inadequacy, to say the least, of the programmes where it had

been embodied . . . . For the resurgence of the project of autonomy, new political objectives

and new human attitudes are required, of which, for the time being, there are but few signs.

Meanwhile, it would be absurd to try to decide if we are living through a long parenthesis,

or if we witness the beginning of the end of western.history essentially linked with the pro-

ject of autonomy and co-determined by it.

(Castoriadis 1990: 23-4)

We suppose that this is a matter of whether the loss of any meaningfully pro-

gressive dimension in the rationalisation of knowledge will provoke disaffec-

tion. Or whether the encounters associated with the processes of globalisation

42

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

will produce interesting, which is to say provocative, cultural and political

consequences. Perhaps these encounters might compel us to become more sen-

sitive to different kinds of knowledge? Perhaps we shall come to recognise the

productivity of interactions with different cultures of knowledge? David Slater

points to the importance of theoretical and other knowledges that have been

produced in the non-Western parts of the world, and suggests the possibilities

that might arise through 'the exposure of western knowledge to other counter-

posed voices from peripheral sites' (1995: 384—5). Daryush Shayegan invokes

the possibilities inherent in other sensibilities, other rhythms of existence, and

other perceptions of time and space. And he points to the value and importance

of 'multiple registers of knowledge' ('the keys of knowledge don't all open

the same doors: the key that opens the language of myth isn't the one that ini-

tiates us into the qualitative leaps in Hegel's dialectic' (1996: 49)). Can we re-

construct the question of knowledge so as to escape the triumphalism of the

information society, and so that we might inaugurate (or re-inaugurate?) a more

complex, and thereby more challenging, social and political agenda? Can we

introduce, into the arid and rationalistic wastelands of information culture, the

passion that is fundamental to democratic life?

Frank Webster, Professor of SociologySchool of Social Sciences and Law

Oxford Brookes UniversityHeadington, Oxford OX3 OBP, UK

f.webster@brookes.ac.uk

Kevin Robins, Professor of Cultural GeographyCURDS, University of Newcastle

Newcastle NE1 7RU, UKkevin.robins@ncl.ac.uk

REFERENCES

Angell, I. (1995) 'Winners and Losers in the Information Age', LSE Magazine,

7, 1: 10-12.Arendt, H. (1961) Between Past and Future, London: Faber and Faber.Ashworth, W.J. (1996) 'Memory, Efficiency and Symbolic Analysis: Charles

Babbage, John Herschel, and the Industrial Mind', Isis, 87, 4: 629-53.Barbrook, R. and Cameron, A. (1996) 'The Californian Ideology', Science as

Culture, 26: 44-72.Bell, D. (1973) The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting,

New York: Basic Books.Block, F. (1990) Post-Industrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse,

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Bourdieu, P. (1996) The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power,

Cambridge: Polity.

43

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

F R A N K W E B S T E R & KEVIN R O B I N S

Brook, J. and Boal, I.A. (eds) (1995) Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture andPolitics of Information, San Francisco: City Lights.

Brown, P. and Scase, R. (1994) Higher Education and Corporate Realities: Class,Culture and the Decline of Graduate Careers, London: UCL Press.

(1997) 'Universities and Employers: Rhetoric and Reality', in A. Smithand F. Webster (eds) The Post-Modern University? Contested Visions of HigherEducation, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, ch. 8.

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford: Blackwell.(1997a) 'An Introduction to the Information Society', City, 7: 6-16.(1997b) End of Millennium, Oxford: Blackwell.

Castoriadis, C. (1990) Le Monde Morcelé, Paris: Seuil.(1997) 'The Crisis of the Identification Process', Thesis Eleven, 49:

85-98.Connors, M. (1993) The Race to the Intelligent State, Oxford: Blackwell.Drucker, P. (1993) Post-Capitalist Society, New York: HarperCollins.Edgerton, D. (1997) 'Ever Accelerating Hype', Prospect, April: 14-15.Fukuyama, F. (1997) 'Social Capital in Post-Industrial Societies', Tanner Lecture

on Human Values, Oxford University.Giddens, A. (1985) The Nation State and Violence, Cambridge: Polity.Gill, S. (1995) 'The Global Panopticon? The Neo-Liberal State, Economic Life

and Democratic Surveillance', Alternatives, 20, 1: 1-49.Hirshhorn, L. (1984) Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Post-

Industrial Age, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Leadbeater, C. (1997) Britain: The California of Europe?, London: Demos.Midnight Notes Collective (1990) The New Enclosures, Jamaica Plain, MA:

Midnight Notes.Nandy, A. (1988) 'Introduction: Science as a Reason of State', in A. Nandy (ed.)

Science, Hegemony and Violence: A Requiem for Modernity, Tokyo/Delhi:The United Nations University/Oxford University Press, pp. 1-23.

Negroponte, N. (1995) Being Digital, London: Hodder and Stoughton.Perkin, H. (1989) The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1980, London:

Routledge.Reich, R. (1992) The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century

Capitalism, New York: Vintage.Robinson, W.I. (1996) 'Globalisation: NineTheses on our Epoch', Race and Class ,

38, 2: 13-31.Scott, J. (1982) The Upper Classes, London: Macmillan.

(1986) Capitalist Property and Financial Power, Hassocks: Wheatsheaf.(1991) Who Rules Britain?, Cambridge: Polity.(1996) Stratification and Power: Structures of Class, Status and Command,

Cambridge: Polity.(1997) Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes, Oxford: Oxford University

Press.Scott, P. (1995) The Meanings of Mass Higher Education, Milton Keynes: Open

University Press.

44

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015

THE IRON CAGE OF THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

Shayegan, D. (1996) 'Le choc des civilisations', Esprit, April: 38-53.Slater, D. (1995) 'Challenging Western Visions of the Global: The Geopolitics of

Theory and North—South Relations', European Journal of Development Research,7, 2: 366-88.

Stonier, T. (1983) TheWealth of Information: A Profile of the Post-Industrial Economy,London: Thames Methuen

Thurow, R. (1996) The Future of Capitalism, London: Nicholas Brealey.Toffler, A. (1990) Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st

Century, New York: Bantam Books.Useem, M. (1984) The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business

Political Activity in the US and UK, New York: Oxford University Press.Useem, M. and Karabel, J. (1986) 'Pathways to Top Corporate Management',

American Sociological Review, 51: 184-200.Virilio, P. (1996) Cyhermonde, la politique du pire, Paris: Textuel.Webster, F. (1997) 'Analyst of the Information Age', City, 7: 105-21.Webster, F. and Robins K. (1986) Information Technology: A Luddite Analysis,

Norwood, NJ: Ablex.(1989) 'Plan and Control: Towards a Cultural History of the Information

Society', Theory and Society: 323-51.White, J. (1997) 'Work Ethic Won't Work', Guardian, 10 June.Wright, E.O. (1997) Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wriston, W.B. (1992) The Twilight of Sovereignty: How the Information Revolution is

Transforming Our World, New York: Scribner.(1997) 'Bits, Bytes and Diplomacy', Foreign Affairs, 76, 5: 172-82.

Zuboff, S. (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power,London: Heinemann.

45

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Ista

nbul

Bilg

i Uni

vers

itesi

] at

08:

19 1

3 O

ctob

er 2

015