The Californian Ideology

The Californian Ideology is a critique of "dotcom neoliberalism" by English media theorists Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron of the University of Westminster.

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• Implacable in its certainties, the Californian Ideology offers a fatalistic vision of the natural and inevitable triumph of the hi-tech free market - a vision which is blind to racism, poverty and environmental degradation and which has no time to debate alternatives.
  • "The Californian Ideology", Mute, (3), Autumn 1995.

• Yet, in understanding contemporary debates over the future of the Net, it is important to remember the contradictory nature of historical precedents glibly invoked by the Californian Ideology. Back in the early nineteenth century, the spread of the new industrial technologies freed no slaves. On the contrary, the invention of the cotton gin and mechanical spinning machines actually reinforced the archaic and brutal institutions of slavery in the Old South.
  • "Hypermedia Freedom",Ctheory. 19 (1-2). 1996.