[Air-l] ICE-T anyone

[Christian Fuchs]

ICE-T:

I think joana made a good point arguing that for luhmann exchange, 
markets, money, etc. are forms of communication, money is a general 
medium of communication for luhmann (just like power, etc.).

i think one has to be careful - because exchange in modern society is 
exchange of commodities mediated by money that hence becomes capital 
that is accumulated. this also means that
icE-t is synonymous with ICTs for a capitalist economy. although you 
could argue that one can have a more general notion of exchange (e. as e 
of information), the concept of exchange is so much connected 
linguistically to exchange value, markets, capital, profit, etc.

hence i consider the term ICE-T as uncritical and affirmative, it is 
even imperialistic because it excludes all the forms of the gift economy 
that are mediated by ICTs and focus on use values as gifts and not on 
exchange values. i think a term general enough to encompass both the ICT 
economy based on exchange value (and commodities) and the ICT economy 
based on use value (and gifts) is needed. ICT hence is better than 
ICE-T. i would even argue that there is an antagonism between the 
internet gift economy and the internet commodity economy.

one can argue that gifts are not altruistic and require gifts in return 
so that the gift economy becomes an exchange economy. that can be the 
case, but is not automatically the case as studies of gifts have shown.

best
christian


joana ro schrieb:
> Exchanging goods, buying and selling is viewed as communication by
> Luhmann isn't it?
> Money as media, buying/selling as the act of communicating.
> (Would have to go back to the texts to figure out where he says this though.)
> Just because Luhmann said that, doesn't mean it isn't a real stretch
> of course, just happened to think of him when reading your email.
> Johanna
>
> Johanna Roering
> Sfb War Experience
> University of Tuebingen
> Germany
>
> On 7/5/07, Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>   
>> A group of us have been studying Chapleau, northern Ontario. We have
>> discovered that in addition to the I and the C of ICT, the folks there use
>> the Internet more than urbanites to find out about -- and to order --
>> goods. Sorta like the Sears or the Eatons catalog of old that served rural
>> areas. Some may even sell on eBay, etc -- we'll check on that this fall.
>>
>> Altho you might argue that browsing the net for goods is "Information", it
>> would be a real stretch to say that actually buying and selling goods is
>> info (or comm). Hence, we propose the new acronym, ICE-T, for Information,
>> Communication and Exchange Technologies.*
>>
>> Before I/we go too far with this, what do you think?
>>
>> *Not to be confused with the actor/rapper or the tilting German train,
>> much less that heavily sweetened stuff I get in the US South.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE-T
>>
>> PS: Happy Canada Day to all.
>>
>>  Barry Wellman
>>  _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
>>   Centre for Urban & Community Studies           University of Toronto
>>   455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8     fax:+1-416-978-7162
>>   wellman at chass.utoronto.ca   http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
>>              For fun -- updating songs, movies and history:
>>              http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>>           Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender these days
>>  _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
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