The Ontology and Social Dimension of Knowledge: The Internet Quanta Time

ABSTRACT The increasing saturation of all facets of contemporary capitalism, including human labour, with computer and digital technologies, has given rise to a number of apologetic concepts, variously termed the information society, cognitive capitalism and digital capitalism. These concepts are ideological in nature. They have gained wide acceptance because of the underdevelopment of Marxist epistemology. This article submits a Marxist theory of knowledge accounting for modern developments in the natural sciences from the standpoint of the the materiality of knowledge and of its class content. It deals at length with two important examples: the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics and the internet. It shows that the generation of knowledge on the internet is at the same time, a battle for knowledge. It is part of the wider cognitive class struggle between capital and the rationality of labour in its multifarious and ever-changing forms.