MECM90041 Chap.8 Globalisation and the Computer Revolution

Globalisation and the Computer Revolution

Computing is placed inside longer histories of empire, trade, forced labour and industrial organisation. Four industrial phases are a periodising schema, not total replacement.

The Chilean cybernetic project shows computing serving socialist planning before political rupture.

The Soviet collapse, liberal-order thesis and rival multipolar, imperial and decolonial frames make globalisation a contested institutional order.

Chapter guide expansion.

· C8 · EMPIRE / TRADE CHAPTER 8 · PAGE 1 WEEK 5 · LONG HISTORY The computer revolution sits inside a longer world history Empire, trade and coercion precede digital circulation The week-five lecture places computing beneath a long history of empire, trade and forced movement. This prevents “globalisation” from appearing as a new frictionless condition created by networks.

Long-distance circulation has always depended on political authority, violence, labour, transport and legal classification. Digital infrastructures accelerate and reorganise those relations; they do not begin global connection from zero. Historical layers Layer Political-economic question Continuity to test Empire Who authorises extraction and territorial reach?

Unequal jurisdiction and resource control Trade Which goods, routes and intermediaries matter? Concentration around logistical nodes Forced labour Whose mobility and work are coerced? Costs hidden behind circulation Digital network Which data, standards and infrastructure coordinate? Old centres may gain new technical forms A map is an artefact Maps select centres, routes and categories.

Read who made the map and which movement it renders important. Acceleration is not dematerialisation Faster information still depends on cables, chips, energy, land, maintenance and labour. Global connection changes form; it does not lose geography, coercion or material support. HISTORICAL CONTROL C8.1 LONG-HISTORY CHECK AskSia practice Prompt. Repair: “The internet created globalisation.” Worked answer.

Identify older imperial and trade infrastructures, then show how networked coordination changes speed, scale and control. ! Do not quote the OCR-garbled map The lecture’s 1942 map is useful as a planning artefact, but its extracted wording is corrupt. Describe its function; do not reproduce its broken text.

· · C8 · INDUSTRIAL PHASES CHAPTER 8 · PAGE 2 FOUR PHASES Industrial revolutions are a periodising schema Steam, electricity, computing and cyber-physical systems steam electricity computing cyber-physical periodisation is an argument about change Figure 8.1. A rebuilt staircase: each phase combines energy, organisation and control rather than replacing the previous world completely.

The deck presents four industrial revolutions: mechanisation with steam, mass production with electricity, computing with automation, and cyber-physical systems. The schema highlights changes in productive capacity, but its boundaries are arguments rather than natural divisions.

Steam and electricity persist inside digital production; automation depends on older factories and labour; cyber-physical systems recombine material and informational control. Use periodisation critically Phase Organising capacity Question Mechanisation Machine power reorganises craft and production Which labour and energy relations change?

Mass production Standardised scale and electrified organisation Who controls the line and market? Computing Programmable automation and information processing Which decisions become formal operations? Cyber-physical Sensing, networks and automated response Where do model, machine and institution meet? A new phase layers on old systems Mining, shipping and manual assembly remain necessary to digital production.

Do not erase them with a numeral. Influence can be underestimated Computing changes administration and coordination beyond factories, but the claim needs a specified institution and mechanism. PERIODISATION TEST PERIOD = dominant organising change NOT TOTAL REPLACEMENT C8.2 PHASE REPAIR AskSia practice Prompt. Is a connected factory purely fourth-phase? Worked answer.

Analyse the cyber-physical controls while retaining electricity, standardisation, manual work and global material supply.

· · C8 · CYBERNETIC CHILE CHAPTER 8 · PAGE 3 CYBERNETIC PLANNING Cybernetic planning makes information a governing resource The Chilean project connected production data to socialist coordination The lecture treats the Chilean cybernetic project as a centralised information system for managing production under a socialist government, terminated by the coup that installed a neoliberal order.

The case breaks the assumption that computing naturally belongs to market coordination. Similar technical capacities can be organised toward different political projects, though implementation, participation and power still require analysis. Four layers of the planning case Layer Question Evidence Production Which enterprises and flows were represented?

Operational records and categories Communication How did information move and at what speed? Network and reporting design Decision Who interpreted signals and acted? Governance and participation Political order Which social project defined the goal? Institutional history

What this chapter covers

• 01

  Empire and trade

• 02

  Four industrial phases

• 03

  Cybernetic planning

• 04

  1989 theses

• 05

  Globalisation-now frames

Cybernetic planning

Key terms

Periodisation

An argument dividing history by organising changes.

Multipolarity

World order with several power centres.

Time-space compression

Reorganisation of distance through reduced circulation time.

Globalisation and the Computer Revolution FAQ

Assessment move

Hold one infrastructure stable and compare liberal, multipolar, imperial and decolonial explanations against evidence.

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