The Utopia of Rules

by David Graeber

something remarkably similar to the turn-of-the-century infatuation with the Postal Service was happening again. Let us summarize the story so far: 1. A new communications technology develops out of the military. 2. It spreads rapidly, radically reshaping everyday life. 3. It develops a reputation for dazzling efficiency. 4. Since it operates on non-market principles, it is quickly seized on by radicals as the first stirrings of a future, non-capitalist economic system already developing within the shell of the old. 5. Despite this, it quickly becomes the medium, too, for government surveillance and the dissemination of endless new forms of advertising and unwanted paperwork. Put it in these terms, it should be obvious enough what I’m referring to. This is pretty much exactly the story of the Internet. What is email, after all, but a giant, globe-spanning, electronic, super-efficient Post Office?