tripleC 10(2): 203-213, 2012 ISSN 1726-670X http://www.triple-c.at “Means of Communication as Means of Production” Revis- ited William Henning James Hebblewhite Philosophy Department, Latrobe University, Melbourne, Australia, [email protected] Abstract: This paper seeks to examine the claim made by Raymond Williams that the means of communication are a means of production. While agreeing with the central claim by Williams, the paper argues that the model which Williams’ represents this claim with is insufficiently realized. By looking at the work of Marx and Althusser in relation to this claim, we suggest a new conceptual tool to actualize Williams’ claims. Keywords: Raymond Williams, Means of Communication, Internet, Means of Production, Marx, Althusser Acknowledgement: The author would like to acknowledge the help of Lachlan Doughney who inspired the idea for this article and to Aaron Harrison and Brook Novak who were not only supportive while researching and completing drafts of this paper, but offered excellent feedback throughout its process. 1. Introduction In this essay I wish to explore Raymond Williams’ assertion that the means of communication can be identified as a means of production. I seek to do this in the context of a critical enquiry of Wil- liams’ paper Means of Communication as a Means of Production (2005[1978]). It will be my thesis that Williams work opens up new possibilities in new communications theory. However I contend that despite opening up these possibilities, Williams’ own theory is unable to develop these possi- bilities to their ultimate conclusion and we must turn towards Althusser’s structural Marxism to as- sist in such development. The essay itself will be structured in three main sections. In the first sec- tion I’ll outline Marx’s definition of the means of production and how he viewed the means of com- munication as a form of the relations of production. I will also discuss Marx’s base-superstructure and what defining the means of communication as the relations of production does for this under- standing of society. In the second section I’ll outline Raymond Williams’ argument for identifying the means of communication as a means of production, drawing on the vast literature provided by Wil- liams over his career, I’ll argue that while Williams offers an interesting proposition, his argument is based on a definition of terms like ‘production’, which reduce their capability to express what the explicit means of production are. I’ll argue that while Williams’ wants to insist that production is beyond that of just ‘commodity production’, the use of communications now is one in which the information provided by the means of communication is treated like a commodity. In the last sec- tion, I want to examine how elements of Althusser’s philosophy can produce the theoretical inter- vention necessary to examine the the internet as a means of communication identified as ‘means of production’ which produces ‘information as a commodity’. The aim of this paper is twofold. To develop a foundation for the continued analysis of the means of communication such as the Inter- net, in the vein of Marxist theory and, to attempt to overcome the criticisms of structuralism that are contained in Raymond Williams’ work. 2. Karl Marx and the Means of Production In 1857, Marx wrote one of his more enduring pieces of work. The Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Marx 1859/1994) is for many within Marxist theory the Rosetta stone, by which all work by Marx and Engels produced after this time are understood. However it is one significant passage within this document, which has received substantial exegetical focus. Marx writes that “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a give stage in the CC: Creative Commons License, 2012. 204 William Henning James Hebblewhite development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of produc- tion constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and in- tellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their so- cial existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of produc- tion or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revo- lution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, reli- gious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of produc- tion. No social formation is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is suf- ficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since close examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation” (Marx 1994, 211). The passage itself is rich with information that can help guide our understanding of the means of production. From the idea that “the totality of relations of production constitute the economic struc- ture of society…on which arises a legal and political superstructure” (Marx 1990, 211), which briefly outlines the base-superstructure edifice which has become a central component, and heavily de- bated aspect of the Marxian tradition, to the idea that “at a certain stage of development; the mate- rial productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production” (ibid.), we can begin to formulate how Marx constructed the means of production. Necessarily it is these two important segments from the passage of the preface that concern us in this paper. If Raymond Williams’ proposal that the means of communication are a means of production then this would necessitate a rethinking of society’s structure, or would it? In order to understand the problem, we need to first be able to understand the elements that are used in constructing the problem. The main elements, as we see in the title of Williams essay, are: 1.) The means of communication and 2.) the means of production. We may argue that the title of the essay Means of Communication as a Means of Production identifies the means of production as a larger category than the means of communication, that the means of communication become just a subcategory of the means of pro- duction. Seem in this way it is then necessary, that if we are to identify the means of communica- tion as a means of production, to come to an understanding of what the means of production are. In Marx, the means of production refers to two elements of production that when entered into a labour process becomes a unified productive force. We can understand then, according to the ac- count of historical materialism that is outlined in the passage above that these elements, the in- struments of labour and the raw materials are then an aspect, in their development, of the conflict that arises between the productive forces and the relative production. As such they play a role in defining the social structure. It is then required that we explore these categories further. For Marx “an instrument of labour, is a thing, or a complex of things, which the worker interposes between himself and the object of his labour and which serves as a conductor, directing his activity onto that object” (Marx 1990, 285). While there is debate surrounding the actual means of production and what can and cannot be understood by them, G.A. Cohen (2000) argues that such things as strength, skills, knowledge, and intelligence are not an aspect of either raw materials or instruments of labour but that they are in effect a means of the labour process. The ambiguity of terms such as means of production and instruments of labour allow for discrepancies in how one describes such elements of the productive process. It seems then that what an instrument of labour is, according to CC: Creative Commons License, 2012. tripleC 10(2): 203-213, 2012 205 such a definition, is an instrument such as a hammer, or even a factory, anything which focuses activity on an object of labour. Despite the broadness of such a concept, it become even broader when we take into account Marx’s assertion that “we may include among the instruments of la- bour...all the objective conditions necessary for carrying on the labour process” (Marx 1990, 286).