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| Alexander Bard about the banks of the future..
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Banks will no longer be the power centres that they are today.
They will become everyday service providers without any say in social
developments.
The machinery of the industrial revolution increased the muscle power of
mankind to an incredible degree. Similarly, the digital revolution greatly
multiplies the brainpower of mankind by integrating the collective
consciousness of the world in a dense weave of electronic networks.
This suggestive image is painted by the public debater, author, lecturer
and artist Alexander Bard, a jack-of-all-trades, to illustrate his theory
regarding what the technological process of transformation the world is
currently experiencing actually entails. He has recently published a book
on the information society of the future, written together with Jan Soderqvist,
a writer on cultural matters and the former editor of the publication Dolly.
Titled "Natokraterna" (The Netocrats) and subtitled "A book about the
electronic class society", it attempts to visualise the future sociological
structure of the information community. The word netocrat refers to the
ruling class of the fully developed it society, i.e. the equivalent of the
industrial society's capitalists. Bard calls the lower classes "consutarians",
combining the words consumer and proletarian.
The main task of the industrial society's lower classes was to uphold production, whereas in the future, it will be to consume. While money in the capitalist society is restricted and control over funds comprises an important power base, money will flow readily in the future. As a consequence, the capitalists will lose their power in the same way that the land-owning feudal aristocracy once lost their power to the capitalists when money, instead of ownership of land, become the strategic resource.
The main resource of power in the future will be information, or, to be more exact, the ability to process the vast amounts of information flooding the Internet into knowledge. With money and information in abundance, it will only be possible to purchase important knowledge with other essential data. The upper crust will comprise those who control knowledge, i.e. the members of the leading networks #150; the netocrats.
This is the future as Alexander Bard and Jan Soderqvist see it in their book, and with the change in society, banks will have to adjust: "At first, as a result of the digitalisation, banks will cash in on profits since they can render their operations more efficient. But the greater number of banks that manage to improve their efficiency, the more competition will toughen, thus pressing the margins," says Alexander Bard. In the long run, he predicts a new, less assuming role for the banks. "Capitalism allowed the banks to grow strong and become power centres. They built bank palaces along the lines of royal palaces. Their power will cease in the future and they will become normal service providers without any say in social developments."
In terms of the Internet, Alexander Bard is what market sociologists label an "early adapter". He accessed the Internet as early as eleven years ago, long before most people had even heard of it.
"I've always been curious about new technologies and thought the Internet was fantastic. I don't like books, so the Internet has become a great way of accessing information, keeping in touch with friends and forging new contacts." Arguing against Karl Marx, who believed that the economy is the driving force of social developments, Alexander Bard believes that communication-technological innovations bring about social change and major paradigm shifts. And the first great communication-technological invention was the spoken word, followed by writing and, around 500 years ago, by printing. This gave rise to mass communication. Mass communication is characterised by monologues, but with it this form of communication will disappear. Internet allows for and requires mass communication in the form of dialogues. One-way communication will be replaced by interactive language, and this will result in major social change. In the same way that the possibility of multiplying written messages spelt the end of the feudal era, capitalism is on its last legs due to digitalisation and the Internet. A new society is emerging #150; the information society.
Alexander Bard isn't the only person to predict changes that will arise due to digitalisation and it adjustments, but he is irritated by the fact that a lot of the prophecies are characterised by technical optimism. "Some problems are never addressed," he says. "This is what the new book looks at." The blurb on the back cover provides a suggestive summary of his the ories: "The nation-state will collapse. The cities will break off all ties with the rural parts of the country. Status and power will be distributed according to new principles and a new elite will be formed. The new lower classes will be kept outside the protective shields of firewalls. A new class society will follow on capitalism, a society that in many ways will be more brutal than the old one."
Discussions about equal opportunities of the type that are held today will be rendered obsolete. Neither family background, sex, race, wealth or education will be of consequence in the information society. Status and power, i.e. access to the virtual networks, will be down to social intelligence and the ability to obtain and process information.
This means that the liberal ideal of equality,
that is the individual's opportunity of realising life projects, will actually
come about in practice. But Alexander Bard acknowledges that this will lead to
large differences in class between talented people who take initiatives and
gain easy access to the networks, and those that are born with less
possibilities of managing this. The community will be ruthlessly meritocratic,
preventing the lower classes from being represented by people who are able
to articulate their needs since talented people by definition do not belong to the lower classes. Political decision-making will also undergo major changes. Parliamentary democracy is a product of the capitalistic society, so this will disappear together with capitalism in the same way that the power of the monarchy ceased together with the feudal society. Important decisions will be taken within the network instead of in the present forums of parliaments, boardrooms and bank palaces. Power will be more difficult to define, less simple to analyse. At the same time, individual power over one's own life will increase, and Alexander Bard predicts that the criminals of the future will be punished in the form of computer embargoes.After all, what could be worse than being shut out from the virtual world in which everything of importance takes place?
TEXT Axel Odelberg
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| Do you know that... |
You can buy the autographs of Jean-Pierre Barda and La Camilla at www.recordpalace.com.
Just click the search and find the names.
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