The Californian Ideology derives its popularity from the very ambiguity of its precepts. Over the last few decades, the pioneering work of the community media activists has been largely recuperated by the hi-tech and media industries. Although companies in these sectors can mechanise and sub-contract much of their labour needs, they remain dependent on key people who can research and create original products, from software programs and computer chips to books and tv programmes. Along with some hi-tech entrepreneurs, these skilled workers form the so-called ‘virtual class’: ‘…the techno-intelligentsia of cognitive scientists, engineers, computer scientists, video-game developers, and all the other communications specialists…’ Unable to subject them to the discipline of the assembly-line or replace them by machines, managers have organised such intellectual workers through fixed-term contracts. Like the ‘labour aristocracy’ of the last century, core personnel in the media, computing and telecoms industries experience the rewards and insecurities of the marketplace. On the one hand, these hi-tech artisans not only tend to be well-paid, but also have considerable autonomy over their pace of work and place of employment. As a result, the cultural divide between the hippie and the organisation man has now become rather fuzzy. Yet, on the other hand, these workers are tied by the terms of their contracts and have no guarantee of continued employment. Lacking the free time of the hippies, work itself has become the main route to self-fulfillment for much of the ‘virtual class’.

The Californian Ideology offers a way of understanding the lived reality of these hi-tech artisans. On the one hand, these core workers are a privileged part of the labour force. On the other hand, they are the heirs of the radical ideas of the community media activists. The Californian Ideology, therefore, simultaneously reflects the disciplines of market economics and the freedoms of hippie artisanship. This bizarre hybrid is only made possible through a nearly universal belief in technological determinism. Ever since the ’60s, liberals - in the social sense of the word - have hoped that the new information technologies would realise their ideals. Responding to the challenge of the New Left, the New Right has resurrected an older form of liberalism: economic liberalism. In place of the collective freedom sought by the hippie radicals, they have championed the liberty of individuals within the marketplace. Yet even these conservatives couldn’t resist the romance of the new information technologies. Back in the ’60s, McLuhan’s predictions were reinterpreted as an advertisement for new forms of media, computers and telecommunications being developed by the private sector. From the ’70s onwards, Toffler, de Sola Pool and other gurus attempted to prove that the advent of hypermedia would paradoxically involve a return to the economic liberalism of the past. This retro-utopia echoed the predictions of Asimov, Heinlein and other macho sci-fi novelists whose future worlds were always filled with space traders, superslick salesmen, genius scientists, pirate captains and other rugged individualists. The path of technological progress didn’t always lead to ‘ecotopia’ - it could instead lead back to the America of the Founding Fathers.

Freedom is Slavery

If its holy precepts are refuted by profane history, why have the myths of the ‘free market’ so influenced the proponents of the Californian Ideology? Living within a contract culture, the hi-tech artisans lead a schizophrenic existence. On the one hand, they cannot challenge the primacy of the marketplace over their lives. On the other hand, they resent attempts by those in authority to encroach on their individual autonomy. By mixing New Left and New Right, the Californian Ideology provides a mystical resolution of the contradictory attitudes held by members of the ‘virtual class’. Crucially, anti-statism provides the means to reconcile radical and reactionary ideas about technological progress. While the New Left dislikes the government for funding the military-industrial complex, the New Right attacks the state for interfering with the spontaneous dissemination of new technologies by market competition. Despite the central role played by public intervention in developing hypermedia, the Californian ideologues preach an anti-statist gospel of hi-tech libertarianism: a bizarre mish-mash of hippie anarchism and economic liberalism beefed up with lots of technological determinism. Rather than comprehend really existing capitalism, gurus from both New Left and New Right much prefer to advocate rival versions of a digital ‘Jeffersonian democracy’. For instance, Howard Rheingold on the New Left believes that the electronic agora will allow individuals to exercise the sort of media freedom advocated by the Founding Fathers. Similarly, the New Right claim that the removal of all regulatory curbs on the private enterprise will create media freedom worthy of a ‘Jefferson democracy’. [28]

[...]

Across the world, the Californian Ideology has been embraced as an optimistic and emancipatory form of technological determinism. Yet, this utopian fantasy of the West Coast depends upon its blindness towards - and dependence on - the social and racial polarisation of the society from which it was born. Despite its radical rhetoric, the Californian Ideology is ultimately pessimistic about real social change. Unlike the hippies, its advocates are not struggling to build ‘ecotopia’ or even to help revive the New Deal. Instead, the social liberalism of New Left and the economic liberalism of New Right have converged into an ambiguous dream of a hi-tech ‘Jeffersonian democracy’. Interpreted generously, this retro-futurism could be a vision of a cybernetic frontier where hi-tech artisans discover their individual self-fulfillment in either the electronic agora or the electronic marketplace. However, as the zeitgeist of the ‘virtual class’, the Californian Ideology is at the same time an exclusive faith. If only some people have access to the new information technologies, ‘Jeffersonian democracy’ can become a hi-tech version of the plantation economy of the Old South. Reflecting its deep ambiguity, the Californian Ideology’s technological determinism is not simply optimistic and emancipatory. It is simultaneously a deeply pessimistic and repressive vision of the future.

From the response by Louis Rossetto, Editor & Publisher, Wired Magazine:

A descent into the kind of completely stupid comments on race in America that only smug Europeans can even attempt. (Any country which prohibits its own passport holders from residing within its borders, or any people who are currently allowing genocidal war to be waged in their own backyard after the stupefying genocide of WWII, shouldn't be lecturing Americans about anything having to do with race, much less events which occurred 200 years ago.) The charge of technological apartheid is just plain stupid: "Already 'red-lined' by profit-hungry telcos [isn't every company, by definition, "profit hungry?", although that description in this context is also stupid since telcos are regulated monopolies with government enforced rates of return], the inhabitants of poor inner city areas are prevented from accessing the new on-line services through lack of money." Oh really? Redlined? Universal telephone access is mandated in the US. And anyone with a telephone has access to online service. Lack of money? On-line is cheaper than cable television, and you can get a new computer for less than $1000, a used one less than $500.

The utterly laughable Marxist/Fabian kneejerk that there is such a thing as the info-haves and have-nots - this is equivalent to a 1948 Mute whining that there were TV-haves and have-nots because television penetration had yet to become universal, the logical conclusion being that, of course, the state had to step in and create television entitlements. This whole line of thinking displays a profound ignorance of how technology actually diffuses through society. Namely, there has to be a leading edge, people who take a risk on new, unproven products - usually upper tenish types, who pay through the nose for the privilege of being beta testers, getting inferior technology at inflated prices with the very real possibility that they have invested in technological dead ends like eight track or betamax or Atari. Yet they are the ones who pay back development costs and pave the way for the mass market, which, let me assure you, is every technology company's wet dream (the biggest market today for the fastest personal computers is not business, but the home). Not haves and have-nots - have-laters.

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From the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum:

OPERATION HIGH HOPES
Explanation and Instruction Sheet

PURPOSE
TO RAISE DOLLARS ($1s) for KENNEDY

MATERIALS
RECORDS of the Official Campaign Song HIGH HOPES and ALL THE WAY (sample enclosed)

PT BOAT PINS - the Campaign Emblem in 3 different styles

Lapel Pins for Men   )
Tie Clasps for Men   )    Samples enclosed
Pins for Ladies         )

HOW OPERATION HIGH HOPES WORKS

In return for giving $1 to the Kennedy Campaign Fund, a supporter is to receive, as a token of appreciation, EITHER a RECORD containing HIGH HOPES and ALL THE WAY OR a PT PIN in the style of his choice.

In return for giving $2 to the Kennedy Campaign Fund, a supporter is to receive BOTH a RECORD and a PT PIN.

WHAT CLUBS SHOULD DO

1. Appoint a Chairman for RECORDS and PT PINS.

2. Decide on the number of RECORDS and PT PINS (minimum order of 25 of each) you think club members can distribute.

3. Return enclosed ORDER BLANK to National Headquarters. Do not collect money until you receive RECORDS and PINS from this office.

4. You will receive CONTRIBUTION ORDER PADS (samples enclosed) with your order. When a person gives $1 the appropirate slip is to be filled out in duplicate. One copy is to go to the contributor; other is to be sent here.

5. At the end of ever two week period, slips must be sent back to OEPRATON HIGH HOPES, National Headquarters, 261 Constitution Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C.

6. Slips must be accompanied with a check or money order (no cash) covering correct amount (50 slips and $50). Checks should be made out to Washington D. C. KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT COMMITTEE.

7. If a supporter wants to give more than $1 or $2 have him make out a check to Washington D. C. KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT COMMITTEE, and send it to this address.

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For the Progressives, many of whom had roots in Republican reformism, charity was an ineffective and insufficient system for promoting the general welfare and for ameliorating perceived economic and social injustice. At the heart of the Progressive diagnosis of the problem was a view of charity as an unsystematic, temporary, and superficial ointment that failed to address the root causes of problems. Many commentators thought that charity might improve conditions for the individual but left undisturbed the diseased social order that contributed to poverty. Some commentators went further in their critique, arguing that charity not only failed to assist even its recipients but left them increasingly in a state of pauperization, dependent on the handouts of others. For other reformers, the voluntary decentralized nature of charity administration led to needless duplication and waste.

[...]

Contributing to the diagnosis and prescription for charity reformation were several currents that further eroded more traditional views that rooted charity in the soil of religious obligations and the practices of mutual aid and charity. The emerging Social Gospel movement merged secular and religious concerns into what was perceived as a “higher” form of Christianity and demanded more wholesale remediation of social ills. The moral fulcrum of aid was no longer to be the personal discretion of givers about the moral fitness of a recipient but was to be anchored in a postmillennial pietism that sought to build the kingdom of God on earth.

Defining pauperism and justice in broadly social terms required looking for environmental and structural, as opposed to moral, causes of pauperism. The pursuit of structural problems and solutions eliminated the need for distinctions between the deserving and undeserving poor that had not only guided Victorian philanthropists but had also been a useful tool for mutual aid and other cooperative societies that depended on expectations of reciprocity among deserving, if occasionally unfortunate, peers.

The movement from the moral world of charity to the moral world of social activism displaced the virtue of liberality expressed in gift-giving and traditional forms of mutual aid and voluntary association. By elevating the state as the central agent for the distribution of welfare goods, the Progressives paved the way for the displacement of dispersed, conscientious, personal judgment of citizens by the centralized, rationalized, professional administration of civil servants.

[...]

III. Social Science and Modern Philanthropy
The Progressive-era confidence in social scientific technique as a means of social control informed the changing view of the role of philanthropy in society. The quest for a more “scientific philanthropy” shared the Progressive desire to diagnose and treat through orderly systematic means the “root causes” of poverty. Government was seen by many as a benign and appropriate partner in this pursuit.

As early as 1899 it was common to define as philanthropists not merely those among the wealthy who endowed foundations but “all persons who have devoted themselves in any systematic way to charitable or educational work.” Joseph Lee argued that philanthropists had “a duty to perform in the systematic study and promotion of progressive social legislation.” For Lee, this “promotion” could include calling in experts to advise on the implementation of beneficial legislation and to develop rational programs and measures for the “cure of all social ills.”

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 1900, Charles Richmond Henderson suggested that the application of science in philanthropy required greater “practical coordination of the special knowledge of economists, lawyers, physicians, [and] educators.” This coordination would be best realized by centralizing supervisory power over charitable institutions in state level boards and by promoting the principles of civil service reform in charitable and correctional institutions to ensure that they were in the hands of trained administrators.

Edward Devine surveyed the field of “voluntary philanthropy” in 1913 and identified three principal strands worth considering: “those programs which have to do with making governmental action more effective, or extending its sphere,” “foundations for the study of and improvement of social conditions,” and “these philanthropic agencies which our generation has inherited, such as hospitals, relief societies, orphan asylums, and the like.”

Devine identified the latter class of organizations as those that would preserve “the ideal of an independent citizen of an industrial democracy, earning his own living, providing for his own emergencies, and relying for support even in old age on the accumulated savings of his productive period.” By contrast, the bureaus of research and various reform agencies falling into the first class of organizations were those that sought to improve conditions not primarily for individuals but for society as a whole. Participants in these organizations “looked toward better government as a prime means of securing social welfare reform.” This did not imply paternalism but reflected “the deliberate intention to use the governmental machinery for the doing of those things for which experience shows it to be more efficient and more economical than any other means yet devised.”

Interestingly, Devine was agnostic about the future of the emerging foundations and believed that for the most part they were conservative institutions that were more comfortably aligned with traditional charity organizations than with emerging reform agencies. Devine suggested that the foundations for the most part represented the vested interests of old wealth more than the well-being of future generations and claimed that “their natural attitude toward state action for the social welfare is one of distrust, or at least of hesitation about greatly enlarging its functions.” Nevertheless, Devine acknowledged the strong influence of their founders on the foundations’ approaches to solving social problems, and believed that future foundations would have to stake their ground either with “the Bureau of Municipal Research type of philanthropy” or with “the type of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.”

Devine’s characterization of Carnegie as ultimately more sympathetic with the ends of charity organization than more bureaucratic social reform seems apt. While Carnegie shared the “scientific” desire to address root causes of social problems and saw traditional charity through alms as injurious to individuals, examination of his giving practices reveals a comparatively traditional focus with the emphasis on administration of gifts at the local community level rather than through national bureaus.

What was unique and unfamiliar about the newly endowed foundations was the potential magnitude of their philanthropy and the fear that the application of such great wealth would allow for personal influence and control “beyond the legitimate boundaries implied in their benefactions.” Devine, for example, was critical of Carnegie’s pension fund for teachers for trying “to eradicate sectarian control of colleges.”

Another challenge faced by foundation philanthropists was how to effectively manage the disbursement of large amounts of money. Undoubtedly the industrialists who founded the endowments hoped to enjoy some form of psychic satisfaction from their beneficence, whether by realizing a desire for fame, fulfilling a sense of indebtedness to the public, or perhaps implementing a hopeful program of social reform. Nevertheless, the administration of grant making on this scale entailed special challenges. George Iles commented on the problems of “large giving” in The Century in 1897: “It is hard for rich and forceful men to learn that they must rein their instinct for command when they enter an unfamiliar field. The tactful adjustment of relations between men who have and do not know, and men who know and do not have, is familiar enough in the sphere of business. The same adjustment arrives, sometimes after sharp conflicts, in the administration of large gifts.”

Clearly, the stage was set in the Progressive era for “men who know” to exert their influence not only in the field of civil service but in the administration of philanthropic and charitable institutions as well. The professionalism and presumption of technical expertise of the emerging administrative class, however, could often exist in tension with the express intent of donors, the insights of grassroots, local knowledge, and the common sense of American cultural and legal traditions.

[...]

VI. The Progressive Legacy in Philanthropy
In the end we are left with the challenge of evaluating the Progressive legacy for modern philanthropy. Progressive-era foundations emerged from the confluence of several streams. Industrial organization enabled the creation and accumulation of vast wealth by entrepreneurial individuals. Industrial urbanization and immigration generated widespread social dislocation and the transformation of labor. Legal developments in corporate organization made possible the creation of endowed foundations with corporate status, despite a continuing ambivalence toward the role of endowments in a free society. The rise of formal social science disciplines fostered a new ethic of public service and a newly placed hope in the social scientists as pilots of the national course.

Many ideas and attitudes from the era seem to persist in the self-understanding of foundation philanthropy today. Here we simply highlight some of these:

• Public-private partnerships are not a bad idea
• Hope and idealism — progress is possible
• Faith in the power of organization
• Foundation focus on institutional change
• An almost unmitigated faith in the power of reason and an equally strong faith in “science” and technical expertise, with the result that today’s philanthropy is often seen as a matter of expertise, organization, and effectiveness rather than of a richer, deeper social conversation
• A distinctive interpretation of American history, a la Croly, embracing Jeffersonian democracy and Hamiltonian centralization. A suspicion of “interests.”
• Belief that a middle way could be found between state socialism and a laissez faire republic
• An absence of constructive humility
• A European perspective on America marked by the importation of the European “social problem” and the pursuit of European, especially Prussian, solutions
• Pragmatism unrestrained by healthy skepticism
• Weak attention to the unintended consequences of institutional change
• A belief that centralized, large scale solutions were feasible and necessary and the attack of problems (such as the conquest of communicable diseases) that lent themselves to this model
• A largely instrumental approach to local, grassroots organizations leading to the pursuit of economies of scale often without attention to the key elements of real success

[...]

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“To understand your country, you must love it. To love it, you must, in a sense, accept it. To accept it as how it is, however is to betray it. To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that in it which shows what it might become. America---this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of the no into the yes---needs citizens who love it enough to reimagine and remake it."

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Sec. 8079. In addition to the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available elsewhere in this Act, $65,200,000 is hereby appropriated to the Department of Defense: Provided, That upon the determination of the Secretary of Defense that it shall serve the national interest, he shall make grants in the amounts specified as follows: $20,000,000 to the United Service Organizations; $24,000,000 to the Red Cross; $1,200,000 to the Special Olympics; and $20,000,000 to the Youth Mentoring Grants Program: Provided further, That funds available in this section for the Youth Mentoring Grants Program may be available for transfer to the Department of Justice Youth Mentoring Grants Program.

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It would seem progressive media has missed a tremendous opportunity by taking up the adversarial format. Even though individual programs have enjoyed great success and have succeeded to a large extent in countering much of the vitriol and misinformation coming from corporate-funded conservative talk radio, they have not improved the media landscape. If anything, the [adversarial] “progressive format” has overshadowed those few outlets that dig for unreported stories, while presenting itself as one of those very outlets. It has, to a large extent, replaced advocacy with sensationalism and front page hysteria. It has made progressive media bigger and shinier — but not better.

I would like to think we will see the advent of yet another format geared to the progressive community, one that emphasizes advocacy. The advantage to this format is that it is not angry and it doesn’t need to blame, meaning that it can attract NPR audiences that avoid adversarial formats. It focuses on issues and how to solve problems. It can keep an audience energized by bringing to light situations that may be ignored by the mainstream media. And it can give audiences a sense of purpose. There is certainly room for anger when it comes to our social ills, but our reaction should not stop there. Progressive media was headed in that direction before it was co-opted by a few big guns that used conservative media as their blue print [e.g. Air America Radio, the Huffington Post] . Progressives are about progress, making changes, getting things done. The conservative format is not optimal for that kind of engagement.

The best journalistic infrastructure is still found at the larger news agencies, like the Times and the Post. If a key story is going to be broken, it will likely be broken at one of the big shops. And it will be highlighted or buried there. Progressive news aggregators serve an essential purpose in making sure we know the non-corporate storyline. I’d like to see progressive media even stronger in that role, combined with a broadcast format that keeps people involved as well as informed. That will require a shift in framework and media style. I hope someone, somewhere, is working on this approach.

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What, then, is the so-called religious issue in American politics today? It is not, it seems to me, my actual religious convictions - but a misunderstanding of what those convictions actually are. It is not the actual existence of religious voting blocs - but a suspicion that such voting blocs may exist. And when we deal with such public fears and suspicions, the American press has a very grave responsibility.

I know the press did not create this religious issue. My religious affiliation is a fact - religious intolerance is a fact. And the proper role of the press is to report all facts that are a matter of public interest.

But the press has a responsibility, I think you will agree, which goes far beyond a reporting of the facts. It goes beyond lofty editorials deploring intolerance. For my religion is hardly, in this critical year of 1960, the dominant issue of our time. It is hardly the most important criterion - or even a relevant criterion - on which the American people should make their choice for Chief Executive. And the press, while not creating the issue, will largely determine whether or not it does become dominant - whether it is kept in perspective - whether it is considered objectively - whether needless fears and suspicions are stilled instead of aroused.

The members of the press should report the facts as they find them. They should describe the issues as they see them. But they should beware, it seems to me, of either magnifying this issue or oversimplifying it. They should beware of ignoring the vital issues of this campaign, while filling their pages with analyses that cannot be proven, with statements that cannot be documented and with emphasis which cannot be justified.

I spoke in Wisconsin, for example, on farm legislation, foreign policy, defense, civil rights and several dozen other issues. The people of Wisconsin seemed genuinely interested in these addresses. But I rarely found them reported in the press - except when they were occasionally sandwiched in between descriptions of my hand-shaking, my theme-song, family haircut, and inevitably, my religion.

At almost every stop in Wisconsin I invited questions - and the questions came - on price supports, labor unions, disengagement, taxes and inflation. But there sessions were rarely reported in the press except when one topic was discussed: religion. One article, for example, supposedly summing the primary up in advance, mentioned the word Catholic 20 times in 15 paragraphs - not mentioning even once dairy farms, disarmament, labor legislation or any other issue. And on the Sunday before the Primary, the Milwaukee Journal featured a map of the state, listing county by county the relative strength of three types of voters - Democrats, Republicans and Catholics.

In West Virginia, it is the same story. As reported in yesterday's Washington Post, the great bulk of West Virginians paid very little attention to my religion - until they read repeatedly in the nation's press that this was the decisive issue in West Virginia. There are many serious problems in that state - problems big enough to dominate any campaign - but religion is not one of them.

I do not think that religion is the decisive issue in any state. I do not think it should be. I do not think it should be made to be. And recognizing my own responsibilities in that regard, I am hopeful that you will recognize yours also.

Sounds so timely---especially if you substitute religion for whatever (e.g. race). And considering these remarks were made 50 years ago, does that mean we can't blame bad journalism for the downfall of news?

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Mount Vernon Statement:

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.

Sharon Statement:

THAT the genius of the Constitution — the division of powers — is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

And of course we need to compare that to the liberal Port Huron Statement (named for the SDS conference where it was written):

How shall the “public sector” be made public, and not the arena of a ruling bureaucracy of “public servants”? By steadfast opposition to bureaucratic coagulation, and to definitions of human needs according to problems easiest for computers to solve. Second, the bureaucratic pileups must be at least minimized by local, regional, and national economic planning — responding to the interconnection of public problems by comprehensive programs of solution. Third, and most important, by experiments in decentralization, based on the vision of man as master of his machines and his society.

In both style and content, the Mount Vernon Statement is much closer to the lefty Port Huron Statement than the Sharon Statement. Today’s conservatives are about “recommitment” and “natural fusion”; they ask rhetorical questions (“Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?”); and feel the need to buttress arguments by appealing to the authority of our founders: “The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist.”

Those kids in the 60s were a kick-to-the-face. Today, not so much.

…Ok, one more:

Mount Vernon Statement:

A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda. … It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.

Sharon Statement:

THAT the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

In comparison, a verb like “encourages” sounds pretty weak.

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Instead of fighting corporations with corporations of our own [like nonprofits–Ben], or working through corporations to reduce their negative impact on society, we’re better off reinventing ourselves as humans. We live on a terrain and in a dimension they can pollute but to which they will never belong. By working on this human-scaled landscape instead, we can create changes in our own lives and communities that stand a chance, in aggregate, of trickling up and changing how the big world operates as well.

We can’t look for those kinds of changes overnight. The grand expectations we have for ourselves and our achievements are really just the false promises of consumerism, brand culture and the politics of revolutionary change. This is the ideological heritage of the Renaissance, and what brought us into the cycle of utopian hopes and alienated cynicism we’re churning through today.

We’d each like to launch a national movement, create the website that teaches the world how to build community from the bottom up, develop the curriculum that saves public schools, or devise the clever anti-marketing media campaign that breaks the spell of advertising once and for all. But these ego trips are the artifacts of the strident individualism we were taught to embrace. The temptation to save the whole world—and get the credit—comes at the expense of steps we might better take to make our immediate world a more fruitful, engaging, sustainable, and satisfying place. A successful movement depends on getting attention from media and institutions that are dead set against recognizing our ability to create value ourselves, and for its own sake. The minute they find out what we’re up to, it’s their job to dash our hopes and return our attention to the false idols they’re selling us.

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