Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project and Humphrey Jennings’ Pandaemonium, The Class of the New uses quotations from a long line of thinkers selected because of their common identification of a emerging, innovative, class within their respective societies, Barbrook’s “class of the new.” As Barbrook writes in Chapter 3 of this text, “The Makers of the Future”,

This book itself is an example of how the academic gift economy advances understanding. Constructing a montage of quotations is a potent technique for telling the history of the theorists of the new class. Selecting particular passages – and leaving out others – imposes a specific theoretical interpretation on this collection of definitions. When included in this book, a thinker’s analysis could be serving a very different purpose from that which was intended. Within the academic gift economy, knowledge must be shared not only among close colleagues, but also with bitter rivals. Under the rubric of ‘fair use’, the readers of this book are also encouraged to appropriate this text for their own ends. This section can be cited and criticised. The quotations can be quoted. A different interpretation can be drawn from the same material. When downloaded in its digital form from the OpenMute website, this book can be easily sampled, reassembled and combined with other texts. In the information age, every reader can be an author.

Of course, this depends upon one’s definition of “author”; i.e., whether or not one’s definition requires the writer to contribute any original thought. Some might argue that the act of selection and arrangement of quotes is an authorial act in itself. Others require more explanation, context, analysis, or even argument. It depends on whether one is modern, or postmodern (although my professors in Rice University’s “postmodern” Cultural Anthropology Department barely accepted a paper I did in the same style some years ago!).

Fortunately, I would say in this case, Barbrook does provide us with an excellent, much-appreciated introduction and contextualization in Chapter 3 (mentioned above). Without this, I would argue that even his cherry-picked quotes would be open to a wide range of diverse interpretations. We all know quite well by now the hermeneutical truism that interpretation depends very much on the particular reader of the text, and what they bring to the act of reading and interpreting the author’s words.

Whether one agrees wholly with the premise of this book or not, most of us information gluttons will nonetheless enjoy it as a provocative, well-researched annotated bibliography of sorts. Personally, it took me ages to read this short book as I returned to peruse some of my favorite authors I had not looked at for some time, as well as looking into some new to me, not to mention getting up to speed on the latest jargon for folks like many of us: the Multipreneurs, the New Independents, the Elancers, the Free Agents and the Pro-Ams; the Prosumers, the Hackers, the Symbolic Analysts, the Virtual Class, the Digital Citizen and the Creative Class; the Cyborgs, the Netizens, the Immaterial Labourers, the Digital Artisans, the Multitude, the Cognitariat, the Cybertariat and the Precariat.

In the spirit of P2P and this forum, we are very much on the same page as Mr. Barbrook when he writes that, “The knowledge economy isn’t just a new phase of capitalism, but also an evolutionary stage beyond capitalism. Alongside orders and commodities, gifts are now one of the principle methods of organising collective labour. […] When everyone can participate within the General Intellect, creativity will no longer be a privilege. The class of the new will then be superseded by the civilisation of humanity.” (Emph. mine.)

A selection of Richard’s writings, including this work, is available on: www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk; www.imaginaryfutures.net; and www.theclassofthenew.net. Book review by Jeff Petry for the P2P Foundation. Â

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