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This page was created on Apr 17 2009 and was last updated on June 23, 2013
The new technology operates very significant social, economical, and political transformations. Its most important effects are the empowerment of individuals and the coordination of masses. It naturally offers more potential to the many, the people, to the detriment of the few in power. This will lead to the democratization of means of production, to a broader redistribution of wealth, and to more freedom.
Science and technology are important motors of social change. We are all amazed by the technological advancement in the last 100 years. In some aspects, our society today is unrecognizable, and yet the fundamentals of our social, economical, and political institutions are quite the same as two centuries ago, they are not in tune with the new reality anymore. Tensions have risen between the guardians of leading institutions and the proponents of change. These tensions are real, and they follow a very familiar pattern. Inertia comes from the ruling class, which relies on the current system to maintain its supremacy. On the other side, the impetus for change comes from those who aren't profiting as much from the system, but master the new means to accumulate wealth and to access to power. The proponents of change, the people, have in their possession not only the tools necessary to propel themselves to the governance of their own society, they are at the same time laying down the foundation of a radically new social order. They are shaping existing institutions and proposing new ones, gradually melting away the conditions of existence of classical mechanisms of power. This is what we call the multitude social revolution, a constructive revolution.
Is change on its way?
International popular events show that more and more people are asking for systemic change.
We are losing confidence in our political institutions.
We've lost confidence in our financial institutions.
More and more people now agree that the principles on which our current economy is based aren't sound, that they lead to wars, to an uneven distribution of wealth, to the segregation of society into classes, to systematic unethical decisions, to irreparable environmental damage, to a general reduction of humanity to consumption and production, to monopolies, to tyranny and oppression, etc.
We live in a perpetual economical insecurity...
We live in fear!
We are suffering from the actual financial/economical crisis.
We are realizing that we have solutions to our problems.
We are realizing that we can change the system.
For the first time in modern history, hierarchical institutions, governments and large corporations have lost their monopoly on the means of creation of value. SENSORICA shows how normal individuals deprived of capital, but knowledgeable and motivated, can get together and create very complex and valuable products. The monopoly on information is also dissolving with the advent of the Internet. It is within the reach of any knowledgeable person to create content and to broadcast it using blogs, video sharing sites, etc. By the same token, education is going through a democratization process, blowing away the ability of the ruling elite to form their slaves. On the political arena, the ability to organize critical mass social movements is now also in the hands of the multitude. Powerful communication, collaboration, coordination, and logistical tools are offered by the new technology at marginal costs. The only thing that stands in the way of the multitude revolution is the will of the people. In more than one occasions in the past, the ruling class failed to cede to the pressure created by the introduction of new means that empowered the oppressed. The much feared change still happened, but in a more violent way. Violent revolutions were avoided from time to time, when a more organized and knowledgeable ruling class understood the necessity to change, and managed to maintain some power. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between the pace of scientific and technological change (or the pace at which the ruling class is surpassed in potential by another social class) and the ability of the ruling class to adapt to the new conditions. If institutions are made too rigid and if greed and narrow-mindedness is the norm among those in power, social pressure rises and change can occur suddenly and/or violently. It is crucial to understand this!
Change is already occurring naturally, as the society is readjusting itself to the new spectra of possibilities introduced by the new technology. The multitude is better positioned than the ruling class to take advantage of this change. We don't need bloody revolutions this time. They are destructive and they induce chaos. The multitude revolution will happen gradually, as the individual potential and the level of collaboration and coordination within the masses increase, and new decentralized organizations emerge in the social, cultural, political and economical arenas, outcompeting the classical hierarchical structures through superior creativity, agility, adaptability and better productivity. We need to think constructively, to channel our energy into extracting potential from the new technology and to steer the change towards a better society. In other words, we need to create alternatives based on more humane principles, by exploiting the new potential offered to us. What we are proposing here transcends the socialist/capitalist dichotomy, which, at this moment, can only be used to stir up emotions, but not as a conceptual base on which we can model our future society.
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