Richard Barbrook has an interesting-sounding new book, The Class of the New, about “Netizens, elancers, cognitarians, swarm-capitalists, hackers, produsumers, knowledge workers, pro-ams.” In other words, “the new social class emerging from the networked workplace.”
The book offers Barbrook’s introduction to the idea, followed by a multitude of views of the phenomenon from a great collection of philosophers. A large section is given over to quotes from the usual suspects and then some. The full list:
Adam Smith, Henri Saint-Simon, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Samuel Smiles, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Morris, V.I. Lenin, Max Weber, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Mario Piazzesi, Thorstein Veblen, Henry Ford, H.G. Wells, Antonio Gramsci, James Burnham, Joseph Schumpeter, George Orwell, C. Wright Mills, William Whyte, Milovan Djilas, Ralf Dahrendorf, Cornelius Castoriadis, Serge Mallet, Peter Drucker, J.K. Galbraith, Alain Touraine, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, Décio Piganatari, Ernest Mandel, Daniel Bell, Harry Braverman, Nicos Poulantzas, Jean-François Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Alvin & Heidi Toffler, André Gorz, George Gilder, John Naisbitt, Steven Levy, Donna Haraway, Robert Reich, Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein, Michael & Ronda Hauben, Maurizio Lazzarato, Richard Barbrook and Pit Schultz, Jon Katz, Kevin Kelly, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Ian Angell, David Brooks, Franco Bifo Berardi, Daniel Pink, Ursula Huws, Richard Florida, Charlie Leadbeater and Paul Miller.
The book release party in London tomorrow night sounds like it’s the place to be, even featuring free cuba libres from open-source, wild-crafted Cube-Cola.
A pdf version of The Class of the New is available at the above link for all us freeloader/downloaders, as well as a print edition for a very reasonable $7.50.
