Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

NETWORK SOCIETY
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most of the planet’ (Castells, 1996, p. 137). Combined, these forces are extraordinary,
challenging sexual norms that have continued for centuries and thereby
‘undermining . . . the heterosexual norm’ in intimate as well as in public domains.
Castells refers to ‘practical feminists’ (p. 200) around the world who are acting
to change their lives, and in the struggles developing new identities as they bring
about the ‘degendering [of] the institutions of society’ (p. 202).
New forms of stratification
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Castells suggests that the network society overturns previous forms of stratification,
bringing in its wake radically new types of inequality. I have already
observed his arguments about the development of the horizontal corporation that
may be bad news for the bureaucrat, but which empowers those left behind, and
his argument that, on a global scale, the information age brings capitalism that
is systemic yet lacking a guiding capitalist class. It is worth saying more about
stratification under informational capitalism, so profound are its expressions and
its consequences. With the coming of these new forms of stratification come
changes in power relations, the allocation of resources and prospects for the
future. Above all, the axis of division between labour and capital, the division that
underpinned political allegiances (and much else) until the closing years of the
twentieth century, has apparently been destroyed.
In place of capitalism directed by a ruling class we now have capitalism
without a capitalist class. Network-orientated and adept ‘informational labour’ is
responsible for running capitalism nowadays. This group has become the key
force in society, responsible for just about everything from designing technology
to managing corporate change and agitating for legislative reform. In turn,
manual workers (termed ‘generic labour’ by Castells) are increasingly redundant
and ill at ease in informational capitalism. They are constantly threatened by their
own rigidity, which leaves them unable to cope with change, as well as by informational
labour which, as the innovative and wealth-producing force, frequently
finds itself imposing change on them. This generic labour, typically male, represents
what sociologists (and others) used to refer to as the ‘working class’ whose
days, accordingly, are numbered. Further, a crucial social cleavage concerns
those pushed to the margins of informational capitalism – the unskilled and
educationally ill-prepared. At best, they find low-level and insecure employment,
and at worst they occupy the fringes of organised crime.
As these new divisions develop, established forms of mobilisation are undermined.
With the old class system transformed, class politics becomes outdated
and is superseded by social movements that are better able to engage with the
changed circumstances of a network society and the lifestyle and identity politics
that characterise the present era. Leaders of these new movements also possess
the media and organisational skills necessary for effective mobilisation in the
information age.
Though Manuel Castells is reluctant to present his analysis directly in relation
to other contemporary social thinking (the likes of Anthony Giddens, Alain
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