The term “extractivism” was first coined in South American scholarship to describe the relationship of capitalism to nature. It was originally used to describe the exploitation of natural resources, but it can be extended to other forms of production, including socially produced commodities like information. See Verónica Gago and Sandro Mezzadra, “A Critique of the Extractive Operations of Capital: Toward an Expanded Concept of Extractivism,” Rethinking Marxism 29, no. 4 (2017).
I first encountered the print version of the book in the cleverly designed French edition published in 2005 by Critical Secret. Each thesis was printed on a new page, emphasizing their coherence and density.
The question of whether hackers constitute a class in themselves provoked debate after publication of the book. Wark offers a response to most of these critiques in the introduction to Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? (Verso, 2019).
McKenzie Wark, “Et si ce n’était même plus du capitalisme, mais quelque chose d’encore bien pire?,” Multitudes 1, no. 70 (2018). Unless otherwise specified, all translations are by the author.
Wark, A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard University Press, 2004), thesis 2.
Wark, Hacker Manifesto, thesis 381.
Wark, Hacker Manifesto, thesis 332.
The World Intellectual Property Organization defines intellectual property as “creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.” The common trait is that IP laws creates a temporary—but sometimes infinitely renewable—right of property for productions of the mind.
Wark, Hacker Manifesto, thesis 18, 21, 32, 22 and 66.
Wark, Hacker Manifesto, thesis 131.
Wark, Hacker Manifesto, thesis 309.
Tarleton Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms,’” New Media & Society 12, no. 3 (May 2010).
The reference to Covid-19 here isn’t incongruous or random. As the public more or less complied with lockdown measures, platforms—one of the few windows to the outside world—grew like never before. And like other sites of consumption, they have declined since.
I elaborate on this term in my doctoral dissertation “Cultures en commun: Mutations et réappropriations de la diffusion et de la valorisation des biens symboliques dans l’environnement numérique” (PhD diss., Université Paris 8, 2023).
Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (PublicAffairs, 2019).
Kleiner, The Telekommunist Manifesto (Institute of Network Cultures, 2010).
Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University, 2015); Hess and Ostrom, Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, 1st ed. (MIT Press, 2011).
Wark, A Hacker Manifesto, thesis 76.
See Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet, ed. Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider (OR Books, 2016).
Edella Schlager and Elinor Ostrom, “Property-Rights Regimes and Natural Resources: A Conceptual Analysis,” Land Economics 68, no. 3 (1992).
Wark, A Hacker Manifesto, thesis 14.
Nicolas-Le Strat, Le travail du commun (Editions du commun, 2016), 76; Negt, L’espace public oppositionnel (Payot, 2007).
See →.
See →.
Verso Books, “Capital Is Dead: McKenzie Wark in Conversation with Verso Books,” YouTube video, May 1, 2020 →.
Council of the EU, “Platform Workers: Council Confirms Agreement on New Rules to Improve Their Working Conditions,” press release, March 11, 2024 →.