The Telekommunist Manifesto
*- A
- manifesto
- Found at
- http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-manifesto/
The Manifesto covers the political economy of network topologies and cultural production respectively.
Based on an exploration of class conflict in the age of international telecommunications, global migration, and the emergence of the information economy.
As a collective of intellectual workers, the work of Telekommunisten is very much rooted in the free software and Free culture communities.
This text is particularly addressed to politically motivated artists, hackers and activists
Publishers, film producers and the telecommunication industry conspire with lawmakers to bottle up and sabotage free networks, to forbid information from circulating outside of their control.
- Telecommunism
- Venture communism
- What is possible in the information age is in direct conflict with what is permissible
However, a central premise of this Manifesto is that engaging in software development and the production of immaterial cultural works is not enough. The communization of immaterial property alone cannot change the distribution of material productive assets, and therefore cannot eliminate exploitation; only the self-organization of production by workers can.
The challenge of extending the achievements of free software into free culture is addressed by connecting it to the traditional program of the socialist left, resulting in copyfarleft and offering the Peer Production License as a model.
The internet started as a network that embodied the relations of peer-to-peer communism; however, it has been re-shaped by capitalist finance into an inefficient and un-free client-server topology.