Opt Out of the Market, Become a Cyborg

Erik Ulberg
Sep 9, 2018 · 3 min read

We can attempt to solve problems by changing who is in charge, but history has demonstrated that regardless of who ends up as master, it “mean[s] that someone else has to be a slave.” (Berlatsky 2015) In A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway calls for the overthrow of the entire dualistic master/slave paradigm through making ourselves cyborgs, “a hybrid of machine and organism.” (Haraway 1991, 149) She sees an opportunity to build a new world where there are no slaves, or masters. As cyborgs, we can undermine the concentrated power of the system by “seizing the tools.” (Haraway 1991, 175) Instead of technology being centralized in high tech factories and server farms, it will exist as part of our bodies. By fusing technology with our body, we can produce all the goods we need on our own and opt out of both contemporary and future power structures.

The current system of capitalism is built upon the limits of our organic nature. As humans, we are reliant on the market economy to provide us with what we cannot make for ourselves. No one can maintain a comfortable lifestyle without the division of labor, and thus they must participate in the system. This forces many to accept exploitation. Nakamura describes the poor conditions in electronics manufacturing on the Navajo Reservation and says that “digital labor is usually hidden from users“ (Nakamura 2014, 938) Whether or not we have to do jobs we hate ourselves, we cause others to have to do them. The current system’s complexity makes it impossible for us to control the impact of our consumption. It needs to be broken into smaller pieces to allow us to make moral choices. Humans naturally care about others, but as long as the world is larger than humans can comprehend, they cannot apply that compassion.

Haraway frames cyborgs as a means for “both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories.” (Haraway 1991, 181) We should embrace them as a form of resistance to structures that divide power unequally. Baudrillard encourages us to “imagine another political economic” and to “find a realm beyond economic value.” (Nakamura 2014, 938) As cyborgs, we can be free from jobs we hate and blind participation. A decentralized system of cyborgs operating at a human scale is an alternative to capitalism. Opt out of the market economy, become a cyborg!

Sources

Berlatsky, Noah. 2015. “The Robots of Orphan Black.” The Atlantic, April 17, 2015.

Haraway, Donna Jeanne. Simians, cyborgs, and women : the reinvention of nature New York: Routledge, 1991.

Nakamura, Lisa. “Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture.” American Quarterly 66, no. 4 (2014): 919–941. https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v06

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