KTub8

Digital Solidarity
if the crisis affects the entire system or just certain
segments that might be reorganised through another
mode of production, parallel to, or subsumed under,
the capitalist mode. This is possible because, as David
Graeber has argued, no system, even capitalism, is ever
all encompassing. 13 There are always pockets and layers
of reality that conform to different logics.
So, while the big picture remains murky as
usual, certain things can be stated more clearly.
Transformations of subjectivity and of social structures
are animating contradictory social, cultural, and political
realities. On the one hand, there are new institutional
and cultural forms emerging to support such complex
webs of interaction and production, often based on the
notion of a shared resource, a commons, and focused on
the particular requirements necessary to develop and
protect that one resource. They offer a chance to remake
society in a particular way, through reinventing social
solidarity and democracy, be it in the digital networks
of informational co-operation or in the common
appropriation of physical spaces. On the other hand,
attempts to privatise information and knowledge have
been radicalised to a point where they not only threaten
to undermine their own productive basis (shared
knowledge and culture, access to education, freedom of
research), but are also coming into direct conflict with
the core principles of liberal democracy itself, such as
freedom of speech, transparency of legislation and
due process, presumption of innocence, or protection
of privacy. Thus, it is crucial to distinguish between
structural transformations and the diverse social or
political dynamics shaped by them. Because, the same
structural transformation can lead to entirely different
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