Post-Democracy vs the Commons
Discussion
Excerpted from presentation notes from Felix Stalder:
"Strategy 1: "decoupling"
– everybody can debate/participate but few can make decisions – example: privacy in social mass media / Facebook developers decide about the structure of social norms incorporated in their service/platform with no direct possibility for its users to participate in that – structural decoupling of social layers of decision making based on the fact that the necessary data is secret and/or proprietary
These systems are…
– post-democratic – post-hegemonial – post-cultural: no interest in meaning making – these processes not limited to the "Internet"
– this decoupling, which has its most obvious realization in social networks can also be seen in other social processes/political negotiations
Strategy 2: "absorption" / "commoning"
– borders are not fixed producer/consument / economy/society – encompassing/comprehensive institutions, focussed on consensus and complex "calculus" – "commons"
– common/collective-democratic – "hegemonial" – comprehensive-cultural