Re: why a global matrix exists now

[Doyle Saylor <djsaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings Economists,
Chris Burford writes,
I am still suggesting that there is a matrix (small M) of human
communication,
which is getting stronger with globalisation and with advances in
finance capitalism. Iironically the efforts of Empire to impose its
well on 6 billion people stir it up all the more (see the Wolfowitz
nomination)

Perhaps it is just another way of saying that that there is such a
thing as civil society. Although often very problematical, it is an
arena for struggle.

Doyle,
I tend to focus on how capitalism tries to build a communications matrix.
One can call it many things, grid computing, telecommunications, database
matrixes, etc.

In my view a key area for a matrix to have an impact is face to face
communications developments.  Distributed work on a single document by
several people puts collaboration demands upon the work that we don't expect
of ordinary text in books, newspapers etc.  Primarily because the work is
mostly done on phone lines.

So we are asking of people over a great distance to understand each other so
they can collaborate on a document as if they were in the same room talking
to each other.  That means we have to plumb how people feel (affect or
emotion information) as they work because a value judgment often goes with
making a document work well.

That's a work process in the Marxist sense.  Business is actively developing
an interface (web based collaborative conferencing tools) that carries that
sort of face to face work.  For example IBM develops dictation tools that
allow different language speakers to see simultaneous translations of what
they are saying.  The accuracy of the translation leaves something to be
desired but the ambition clarifies how this matrix interface unites people
across language barriers.

Further, we (people influenced by dictionary language cross reference) think
of language knowledge as word equivalencies, one to one translations, but
the building of a matrix that communicates requires that we also meet the
demands of moving back and forth across cultural groups.

Chris refers to this as civil society.  I see that word, civil, to mean
national law regulating society, and in either a UN sense, international
treaty sense, or EU sense, cross national boundary law regulating peoples
communications.  For example, international standards bodies might dictate
how communications is made accessible to disabled people.  So a bank is
available to people not only who don't speak a particular language, but to
blind people as well.

In any case, historically, face to face communications meant being close
enough to someone to hear them talk.  Whereas a global system requires that
if one is not nearby a framework exists that binds all people together.
That is clearly a drive in big business.  In that sense capitalism to have a
universal market has to solve certain sorts of problems even though it's
anarchy of different companies competing makes this problematic.
thanks,
Doyle