Introduction: Technology Discourse and Capitalist Legitimation

Society in the last four decades has witnessed two extraordinary transformations in advanced capitalism. One is the transformation of capitalism from Fordism to post-Fordism, involving changes not only in the regime of accumulation—that is, in how production is carried out, where, and by whom—but also in the mode of social regulation, entailing a whole set of political arrangements and cultural practices. This has been a deep social transformation: globalization, the “new economy,” Google, outsourcing, “just-in-time” production, the rise of India—these are just few of the new keywords in the lexicon of the new capitalism. The other transformation was the emergence of network technology (or information and communication technology) and its integration into virtually every sphere of life. This has been nothing short of a technological revolution: indeed, many of the keywords in the lexicon of the new technology parallel those of the new capitalism.