Published
Edited
Oct 11, 2019
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md`# LibLab Week 3: Histories of Infrastructure
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Chapter 1 of David Harvey's *The New Imperialism* discusses how, following the retreat of the British Empire, the US moved into the Middle East in order to gain influence on resource flow throughout the world by proxy of oil. In doing so, the US welded together state and capital interests. "National security" in both a real sense (imperilialism begets resentment) and in a fictional sense (fearsome stereotypes of the the Middle East became ever more prevalent) was tied to control over this region, but so was control of the internation commodities market.
In many ways, the Internet is a similar phenomenon. Janet Abbate's depiction of the Internet's evolution between 1960 and 2000 presents the Internet as a product of US Governmental security research slowly moving toward the private sector until eventually it has been subsumed into private control. However, the distinction between the private and public sector crumbles in any attempt to describe the Internet process. Developments made by the US Government were constantly put in conversation with private interests. Military contractors headed research, the computer industry gained new niches for product design, business innovations would feed back to the state, who would alter the nature of these innovations to increase ease of use and design. Whenever some aspect of what would become the internet became difficult to commercialize, the government would step in to make it easier (for example, by establishing standards). Whenever the government (or a non-profit) decreased the ability to commodify the internet, profit-seekers would find a way to break these restrictions (such as in the corporate buyout of NSFNET).
If we are, as Donna Haraway says, "living through a movement from an organic, industrial society to a polymorphous, information system," the Internet is — of course — a perfect example of this (<a href="http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/warw/detail.action?docID=4392065">The Cyborg Manifesto<\a>, p. 28). Where the material control of oil realizes organic dominance, the informational control Internet realizes informatic dominance — but the two are not separate. The neoliberal contract between the state and commercial level is present in both modes of control, and the concerns over security, profitability, and market efficiency are central to both.
Here's a table outlining the collaborations between public and private entities (public and private having become non-real categories):
Public | Private
------------ | -------------
Military Technoscience (ARPANET) | Military Contractors
International Standardization | Easier to Design a profitable machine
National Science Foundation Researchers (NSFNET) | Corporate use of NSF Research
| ----Corporate coopting of NSFNET
US Government seeks "Next Generation Internet"| ----Profit Model imposed
-Increased Surveillance Technologies | -> Cheap and quick internet
-PATRIOT Act & PRISM | -> Personalized Advertisements & Data Selling
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