Articles by Rob Lucas
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The Free Machine
in NLR 100, July-August 2016, pp. 130-143
Subjects: Economic Theory, Technology
Rob Lucas on Paul Mason, Postcapitalism. The present crisis interpreted as the stalled transition to a new mode of production, augured by info-tech’s ascent.
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Socialism as a Regulative Idea?
in NLR 94, July-August 2015, pp. 105-126
Subjects: Philosophy, Political Theory and Strategy
In The Structure of World History, Kōjin Karatani attempts a radical reconstruction of historical materialism, from early nomadism to post-capitalist society. Mauss, Hobbes and Marx mobilized as companion thinkers of exchange; Kant as ethico-political prophet. Rob Lucas queries the speculative history of one of Japan’s leading public intellectuals.
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Also available in Spanish, -
Xanadu as Phalanstery
in NLR 86, March-April 2014, pp. 142-150
Subjects: Social Theory,
Rob Lucas on Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future?. A utopian capitalist proposal to rewire the web and save the middle class.
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Also available in Spanish, -
The Critical Net Critic
in NLR 77, September-October 2012, pp. 45-69
Subjects: Science, Social Theory
Advances in information technology have generated both delirious boosterism and gloomy prognoses of computer-assisted decline. Rob Lucas engages with the sceptical current exemplified by Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, tracing its conceptual underpinnings and identifying its lacunae—political, economic, historical.
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Also available in Spanish, -
Dreaming in Code
in NLR 62, March-April 2010, pp. 125-132
Subjects: Work under Modern Capitalism,
The working life of a web developer, between the contending pressures of capital’s needs and the programmer’s craft ethic. What forms of solidarity are available within the horizons of ‘immaterial labour’?
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Also available in Spanish and Polish