<nettime> RE: reverse engineered freedom...

[Ryan Griffis <grifray@yahoo.com>]

from B. Holmes: "I'd say that politics is all about
the relation between markets, governments and
voluntary associations (or "civil society" but the
term's gotten too heavily freighted). These three
poles can be found to varying degrees in all modern
social activity..."

i'm just wondering what it means to break politics
down into 3 categories that distinguish between
"markets, governments and voluntary associations," and
saying they are representative of all modern social
activity. for example, how are the politicies of
market entities (WTO, BIO, etc) to be seperated from
the activities of nation-states when, for many, their
policies are caried out and enforces through
state-subsidized means (sanctions, law enforcement,
food aid, etc). i understand the usefulness of
categorization, i'm just not sure about how useful, or
to what ends, thikning about politics in "poles" is.
This seems to follow the system of logic that
currently allows for the myths of the free market,
while also using "voluntary associations" to describe,
what could be argued as hardly merely voluntary, but
rather ideological in a highly ordered sense that
reproduces the state and market. maybe i'm missing
something (very possible), but maybe the argument
shouldn't be whether markets are "self-regulating" or
not (how would we ever know - how do they become
non-social), but what their impact is. i think this is
what we're really talking about (except for
foundationalists) - how we can become more
inclusive/less oppressive. and David's concerns about
the freedoms of mobility (for whom) seem appropriate
here and in the spirit of lovink/schneider's text
which he questions.
i just read an essay from Jackie Stevens from a year
or so ago about the materiality of language (Symbolic
Matter) which for some reason seems relevant here
http://jacquelinestevens.org/articlesessays.htm .
at any rate, i don't mean these comments to be
critical statements, but more invested questions.
best,
ryan

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