The Exploit: A Theory of Networks - asounder

Prolegomenon
“We’re Tired of Trees”
In a recent e - mail exchange with the Dutch author and activist Geert
Lovink, a person whose work we admire greatly, he made an interesting
claim about the locus of contemporary organization and control.
“Internet protocols are not ruling the world,” Lovink pointed out,
challenging our assumptions about the forces of organization and control
immanent to a wide variety of networks, from biological networks
to computer networks. Who is really running the world? “In
the end, G. W. Bush is. Not Jon Postel,” said Lovink, contrasting the
American president with the longtime editor of the Internet network
protocols. 1
Lovink’s claim that Internet protocols are not ruling the world
strikes us as a very interesting thing to assert—and possibly quite accurate
in many respects. The claim establishes one of the central debates
of our time: the power relationship between sovereignty and networks.
We interpret Lovink’s claim like this: informatic networks are indeed
important, but at the end of the day, sovereign powers matter more.
The continual state of emergency today in the West, in the Middle
East, in Africa, and in many other parts of the world is a testament
to how much the various actions (and inactions) of sovereign powers
1