Hilary Wainwright examines how new technology and new forms of organization are coming together to transform the left and labor movements, political representation and democracy.
Among those taking part in the resistance to the G8 in Rostok actions there were a group of around thirty activist intellectuals from Europe, Latin America and North America who met in the fourth seminar of the ‘Networked Politics’ series, an international inquiry into 'rethinking political organisation in an era of movements and networks'.
In some ways these developments deepen the pre-Web ways in which many of them were both rethinking political organization (inspired by the non-hierarchical, networked practices of the women’s movement) and reformulating common ownership (inspired by the creative trade unionism of groups like the shop stewards at Lucas Aerospace with their 'alternative plan for socially useful production'). At the same time, the impact of information technology is stimulating entirely new trains of thought.
The discussions in Berlin included an exploration of the implications of internet technology for the three major issues of our inquiry: the commons and the public; labor and social movements; political representation and democracy.
Source: Europe Solidaire sans Frontières
_ http://www.europe-solidaire.org
