UN MANIFESTE HACKER: "A Hacker Manifesto" francophone dans un design de Gallien Guibert

by McKenzie Wark

"A Hacker Manifesto defines the fraught territory between the ever more strident demands by drug and media companies for protection of their patents and copyrights and the pervasive popular culture of file sharing and pirating. This vexed ground, the realm of so-called "intellectual property," gives rise to a whole new kind of class conflict, one that pits the creators of information - the hacker class of researchers and authors, artists and biologists, chemists and musicians, philosophers and programmers - against a possessing class who would monopolize what the hacker produces." Drawing in equal measure on Guy Debord and Gilles Deleuze, A Hacker Manifesto offers a systematic restatement of Marxist thought for the age of cyperspace and globalization. In the widespread revolt against commodified information, McKenzie Wark sees a utopian promise, beyond the property form, and a new progressive class, the hacker class, who voice a shared interest in a new information commons.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Technology, Theory, Politics, Economics, Cultural

Paperback

First published October 4, 2004

About the author

McKenzie Wark (she/her) is the author of A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International, and The Beach Beneath the Street, among other books. She teaches at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City.

Reviews

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

read a .pdf of this on an iphone, mostly while on public transit or while waiting for public transit.

[Levi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Needs to rereads this if time permits, but will rate anyway: Hacker Manifesto suggests an update of the Marxist theory of class by adding two classes, the vectoralist class and the hacker class. While Wark displays a deep understanding of the philosophical foundations of Marxist ideas, there are problems with his use of the concepts of Marxist economics. For instance, the act of 'hacking', although one of the most important concepts in the manifesto, was simply defined as “to produce or apply the abstract to information and express the possibility of new worlds.” In fact, majority of the arguments tend towards abstraction, perhaps as a way to put together its theme of the increasing abstraction of history and historical processes. Wark has always made it a point to analogize the struggle between the vectoralist class and the hacker class to the 'çlassic' class contradictions between landlord vs peasant, capitalist vs worker, etc., framed within the abstract realm of information and ‘vectors of information.

My biggest problem with the book perhaps lies uncritical prioritization of the contradiction between the vectoralists and the hackers. Is the struggle for the vectors really the primary contradiction today? Where does the material basis of these vectors lie within this ‘abstract’ framework? How can the hacker possibly transform society through “an explosion of abstract innovations”, which Wark claims, would create “a society finally set free from necessity?” What is the material basis, the precise historical crisis which pits the vectoralists against the hackers? Is it proper to treat both of them as classes, given that the so-called vectoralists are often the multinational corporations and even state agencies who have exploited that potential of information to be commoditized, while the hackers and hacking are just historical implications of the creation of a digital dimensions, by no means independent from actual material property which actualizes it.

I sense in The Hacker Manifesto the same hype in virtuality made by Baudrillard’s work, along with the same theoretical blind spots. Nonetheless, it is necessary to address its significance in formulating the conflict for the autonomy of information from the increasingly tightening constraints of commodifying forces, using information for profit, surveillance, and pacification of any utopian vision of information.

[Allen Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a treatise on the state of the free spirit in our information-driven economy. The production of information - both as an idea and as a thing - is our latest economic innovation. Wark posits that there are two classes that struggle over the production of information: the hacker class and the vectoral class.

Hackers produce information. They also produce new kinds of information and new means of exchanging information (Wark uses the term "vector" to mean any particular means of exchanging information). Hackers also produce things, and allow new things to emerge from the continuum of nature. Hackers want free expression. Wark: "To hack is to differ."

Vectoralists commidify information. They exploit information as a resource for capital. Vectoralists represent the world as an array of quantifiable resources. Vectoralists dominate vectors and turn them into rigid templates for interacting with commidities. Vectoralists impose false forms of scarcity in order to extract capital from information.

This book views itself as a participant in an ongoing conversation about resistance and revolt. It presents the hacker class not as an opposition to the vector, but as a means of production that differs from commidification. Wark is sympathetic to, but critical of direct resistance: "This is politics as the refusal of representation itself, not politics of refusing this or that representation." He argues that operating on your opponent's terms inevitably turns you into your opponent.

Perhaps Wark could have expressed all of this using existing terminology rather than using the metaphors of the hacker and the vector. She probably chose to create her own terminology in order to differentiate the current class conflict from what he views are past forms of class conflict. And that's just fine by me.

Still, the really illuminating parts are nestled in dense, jargonistic prose. Those parts are so good though that it's worth learning Wark's terminology and patiently picking through this book.

[João Pinho · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Se há, hoje, uma dificuldade inerente à leitura de Um Manifesto Hacker, esta reside na absoluta saturação hermenêutica do termo hacker. Saturação não apenas estética - decorrente da sua imersão no imaginário cibernético e no largo espectro de representações culturais que lhes estão associadas, que vão dos becos escuros do cyberpunk de WIlliam Gibson ou Philip K. Dick aos espaços kitsch-futuristas de Silicon Valley - mas acima de tudo analítica, contribuindo para a perda da vitalidade das suas potencialidades políticas - os terrenos baldios que o hacker parecia ter descoberto nos interstícios da Cidade. Estas últimas foram progressivamente neutralizadas pela organização capitalista de um espaço digital mercantilizado em toda a linha e suavemente integrado na economia global, dando origem à multiplicação de análises, a um verdadeiro mercado de teoria crítica, em torno do cruzamento entre a crescente abstracção e digitalização dos processos produtivos e as novas formas de controlo e organização social que definem a emergência daquilo que ficou conhecido como ideologia californiana» (notas introdutórias)

[Dominic · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is for anyone who is culturally creative, don't get caught up in the word 'hack' before you read it.

[The Thinkery · Rating 1 out of 5]

It baffles me just how uneven this book is. At its best, it is an insightful elucidation of a new type of relationship emerging and thriving within political economy, which is that of the hacker class and vectoralists, and, at its worst, it is an uninspiring rehashing of the philosophies of Marx and Deleuze.

First, the good stuff. The hacker class is never fully demarcated but is cast as a kind of middle-class precariat which works via abstractions. That is, they create new abstractions by writing a piece of code, a poem, or inventing a new concept with which to analyse a current issue. They are not farmers or welders, they deal only circumstantially with tangible objects; instead, they work on the immaterial that at least initially resists easy commodification. Vectoralists, on the other hand, are a new iteration of the bourgeoisie, believes Wark, and they function by capturing vectors and turning them into commodities. They usually do not own the infrastructure giving rise to the vector but they manage to make themselves inevitable due to their ability to highjack its flows. Throughout, this relationship is well-described and nuanced. For example, Wark fleshes out how these two classes are sometimes able to come together and work against similar enemies.

The bad stuff consists mainly of Wark's writing style and the book's insistence on squashing thought into pre-made Marxist and Deleuzian conceptualisations. It is a trick similar to what Wark does in Gamer Theory. Therein, Wark tries to recast the role of the critical theorist through the conceptualisation of video games. It ends up being an example of old wine in a new bottle. Nothing substantial arises from such an act. In this work, however, I believe Wark's argument would have benefitted from not turning the hackers into their own distinctive class of difference, but, rather, to occupy a two-way position of a surplus and a nothing. It might be what Wark is going for but the relationship between the hackers and the vectoralists resembles more closely the one between the Lord and the Bondsman in Hegel's system.

However, I believe this rehashing is deliberate on Wark's part. Oftentimes, Wark will commend the idea of plagiarism, propelled by an underlying idea of the Situationists's "literary communism". The point is to wrest ideas free from becoming private property by avoiding citation. References and citations make out a tax; in order to use a concept, you must first pay the tax of referencing the owner of the concept in your text. Wark's interpretation of literary communism leads her to claim that removing the private property aspect of concepts opens up a space in which ideas may flow freely, in which so-called canonised Master Thinkers have been dethroned, and in which everyone may participate without the presupposition of having read a lot of difficult texts beforehand. The idea is refreshingly egalitarian, and I commend it, but I always wonder what such an influx of new participants might do to the quality standards of the works being created. If we are to avoid gatekeeping editors and publishers, these standards need to embedded within literary communism itself in such a way that people end up recognising the standards as patterns and conforming to them unwittingly.

At the end of the day, Wark's prefigurative literary communism has not worked out yet, I believe. If you want the good parts, just read the following chapters: Abstraction, Hacking, Information, Vector, and World.

[Benjamin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would that Goodreads let me give a text 0-stars.

This is the third text by Wark I have encountered. It is the third of her texts that I have found disappointing and a waste of time. I shall not read a fourth.

The notion of the hack is far too overgeneralised. It seems to do an incredible amount of work as it is her fitting inheritor to Marx's proletariat. And yet - who that hacker is, what their activity consists in, is presented not in a formulaic way but instead over 170ish pages of empty platitudes that go nowhere. As a manifesto, this text is a resounding failure of its genre. It encourages no action, no praxis, it delights in obfuscating the world rather than explaining it.

The text is replete with contradictions - but these are never productive contradictions, they seem more like oversights that Wark has failed to properly theorise.

This text makes no contribution. Better to read the original Marx rather than waste your time with this aggravating mistranslation.

Self-indulgent pseudo-mysticism of the highest order. Wark shall not be forgiven for wasting so much time.

Pure wank.

[catherine ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, albeit a bit dense and repetitive sometimes.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I at times felt the density of the theory got in the way of my understanding of how larger concepts could be put into practice :/

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading about Wark's vectoral and hacker classes! The book had me thinking about what ownership can look like in the age of information as capital (short-term versus long-term). Highlights for me were the chapters on property and representation. I'm not sure I was totally convinced of the unity of a hacker class across intersections of other divisions in 'identity'...it sounds nice in theory though.

The footnotes were a highlight and joy to read.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a beautiful book--i mean literally. it just looks gorgeous, that rich red cover and simple black square. nice touch. i actually thought this book was quite fun to read. though i didn't get on board with a lot of his ideas, it was a cool way to frame my reading of digital texts.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self indulgent drivel. If repetition and obfuscation are all it takes to write a book, then maybe I could write a book.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads like expanded C++ template code about business logic.

[Jack Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highlights: Very imaginative and challenging in a culture that doesn’t always reward that. Wark explores the idea that capitalism is dead, and that a new economic system, vectoralism, has emerged, where information is the new commodity and product. The hacker class abstract, or create something new out of existing things, new information, which vectoralists attempt to exploit or own through patents, IP, etc. Vectoralists also own the vectors along which information passes through: social media, amazon, search engines. They use information about you and reduce you to a consumer; by tracking your bank data, shopping habits, etc., vectoralists can create ads or content that is curated to you—trying to exploit you for money. Hackers do not have a class consciousness yet, but if they look to class history (hacking history), they can understand class consciousness and unity is how to challenge the oppressors and force compromise. A good example of hacking or abstracting is remix albums/music. It takes a piece of music, and then reinterprets it into something entirely new (if it is a good remix). For example, Charli XCX’s Brat remix album. Abstractions and hacks can also be a bad thing: Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook through his experiment at Harvard, taking information from his classmates and arranging it in a new way (to rank the attractiveness of girls).

[Luke Scalone · Rating 2 out of 5]

This really didn’t do it for me. It’s easy to get lost here, and there’s a lack of clarity throughout. I added a star, however, because I think Ward’s tripartite division of class relations makes a lot of sense. Moreover, I was pleased to see that she pushed back a bit against Marx’s determinism. Rather than successive stages of history, we get a marble cake with different property relations.

The three relations are (1) the pastoralist/farmer division with land as property, (2) the capitalist/proletariat division with capital as property, and (3) the vectoralist/hacker division with intellectual property as the point contention.

Marxist political economy tends to break when applied to the information/communication sphere, and I see here a way that Marxist political activism could still be upheld (even if I still cannot for the life of me understand what happens to IP when it becomes a commodity—if it can’t be replicated a trillion times, the relative capital invested into it drops to zero.

Still, I get this was kind of a starting point. Or, maybe not. I don’t feel like my understanding advanced enough to have made this (albeit short) text worthwhile.

[Asaad Mahmood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely a promising break from the old and tiresome reproduction of how class works, and how new dimensions within class struggle have emerged.
Same problem as with most Marxist writers, does not consider social mobility, does not consider how power in itself is not only vested within the capitalist or the Vectoral class, especially in the age we live in.

Some sections within the book are also slightly cryptic, while others are disjointed, though perhaps the sections of this book were perhaps not meant to be coherent in the first place, and are meant to be read separately, and individually, rather in a narrative fashion.

The idea of information being monopolised interested, but it seems quite dated, unless there actually is really a controversy that plays out in a way which somehow restricts certain information to be publicised by the masses.

[Xe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable book and enjoyable footnotes. Detournment, re-imagining, reorienting of Marx, the situationist international and deleuze for the 21st Century. A punk manifesto asking us to rethink identity, production and technology. A little dated but how can something be anything but of its time.

The Hacker is one who cuts and creates new fabrics for reality, neither inherently good nor bad, the hacker is the artist that creates the world everyday while the industrialist, land owner and the vectoralist all continue to profit off of it, sometimes siding with each other sometimes siding against each other.

Would recommend to those who are wanting to read marx and political economy but prefer a fun, comedic and cool writing style from this century.

[esme · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

not rly a topic i am extremely interested but overall enjoyed. never thought the hacker manifesto would reference the communist manifesto but I enjoyed the overall doctorine

anyways id like to give a big shout out to these quick required readings for school getting me though my 2023 reading challenge

[Mally · Rating 5 out of 5]

More striking for the flowery way it weaves together abstract ideas than the core ideas themselves necessarily. But to have explored the logical details of vectors and abstraction and class would diminish the poetry it's so easy to get lost in here.

An all-timer for me and, impressively for a topic like this, a thorough joy to sit down with.

[Diego Noriega · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brillante hasta cierto punto que me resultó repetitivo, no sé si sea porque he deteriorado mi capacidad de atención pero sí me perdí en algunos capítulos. Igual creo que era lo que necesitaba leer, conceptos refrescantes que se adaptan a mi forma de vida.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cons:
1. The 5,000+ times you'll have to cringe at the author's use of the pattern "A is the B of C, and also the C of B."

Pros:
1. Everything else.

[Wendy Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very repetitive but there are some great bits. Wish I had read this when I was younger

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A tantrum because the world is not how Wark wants it.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a fascinating read, and one that I think most people should read even if they have no interest in the hacking class.

[Claudia]

a.k.a. the Wired

[Ava5000 · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

[さやか むらさと · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think McKenzie nailed it. The ghastly redundancy akin to the manifesto genre makes it a hard read, but hey, I could find no flaw in the cold logic.

[Filipe Siqueira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Talvez numa próxima leitura pegue toda a força e as ideias desse

[Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dire che attualizza la teoria della lotta di classe è riduttivo. L'interpretazione di McKenzie è originale, pur essendo intrisa di marxismo. E' un libro da leggere necessariamente per integrare la propria percezione della realtà sociale in cui viviamo, dell'epoca tardo-capitalista e della produzione di informazione nell'Information Society.
Un libro militante ma non propagandistico, scritto con un linguaggio che ricorda i migliori trattati teorico-politici dei tempi andati (Marx, Bakunin...) nei contenuti, ma che possiede una forma (la divisione dei contenuti in capitoli e paragrafi) tipica dello scrivere per internet.

A prescindere dalla condivisibilità della prospettiva, è un capolavoro d'intelletto come non se ne vede da ere, a seguito della pretesa di "scientificizzare" ogni pensiero, pretesa che ci ha privati del piacere di trattati teorico-filosofici anche militanti, ma che siano espressione di un pensiero che rifiuta di incarnarsi in una "forma scientifica" per acquisire autorevolezza. Qualità ed autorevolezza di questo testo non dipendono da dati e citazioni, ma dalla qualità del pensiero.
Chiudo citando l'ultimo paragrafo:

"In questi tempi faticosi, quando anche l'aria svanisce nelle onde elettromagnetiche, dove tutto ciò che è profano viene impacchettato come se fosse profondo, emerge ancora la possibilità di hackerare le pure apparenze e di fuggire con loro. Ci sono altri mondi e sono questo qui".

[Ansh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wark's writing is even more verbose than his later works, but this is a fantastic post-Marxist reading that like all good manifestos is even more relevant today than it was when it was written. Its theory of the vector (and vectorialist) is prescient today in age of TTIP and commodified desire.

If you can tolerate some jargon-heavy writing, there are ideas that illuminate and inspire.

[Sumanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent writing that follows the same style as Foucault or Marx in bringing poetic aesthetics to political and critical theory. Despite its dense language and effective word reversals, the level of detail achieved in describing various planes of class activity and forces in an age of telethesia makes it tempting to look at A Hacker Manifesto first as a prophecy and then as a manifesto.