ConsumTariat
ThoughtStorms Wiki
As under capitalism, under NetoCracy, consumption will be organized increasingly efficiently.
Netocracy assumes a dichotomy between succesful netocrats - who trade in attention, connections and information - and a consumtariat of those who's attention is manipulated by the netocrats, and who consume as led.
Production, Consumption and The Consumtariat
From the book : The fundamental difference between the netocracy and the comsumtariat is thus that the former controls its own production of desire, whereas the latter obeys the orders of the former ... Both capitalists and labourers worked, but it was the capitalists who dictated the terms. Both netocrats and comsumtariat consume, but once again it is the elite that is dictating the terms.
In netocracy, production of goods has, allegedly, ceased to be a problem. So, although this constitutes a genuinely new economic infrastructure, it is not really a mode of production. Netocracy occurs in societies where production has been outsourced to poorer countries ... or eventually where it has been sufficiently automated. Netocrats and consumtariat share a world which is better described as a mode of consumption. What production there is in this world blurs into consumption, and is either stimulating or dull and repetative.
But the netocrats are those who discover a new thing; who's access to information brings it to them first; and who evaluate it. They're the taste makers who declare it to be worth consuming. As such they value novelty, the things which are currently unjudged and unconsumed. These things they then have the choice of keeping to themselves (imploitation) until this value has been sucked out of it; and then throwing to the consumtariat as the "next big thing" to be into.
Contrasts :
- 1) the role of "evolved" users of gizmos over on BlobJects.
- 2) ThePlayEthic
- 3) TheCultOfCelebrity