Anonymous Comrade writes:
To the Vector the Spoils
McKenzie Wark interviewed by Roy Christopher
from frontwheeldrive.com
http://frontwheeldrive.com/mckenzie_wark.html
Roy Christopher: Let's get our terms aligned first:
How do you define the term 'hacker'? Do you
include artists, software developers and other so-
called 'knowledge workers'?
McKenzie Wark: I think everyone who actually
creates 'intellectual property' could consider
themselves part of the same class -- the hacker class
? and as having convergent interests. So, yes, that
could include programmers, musicians, writers, and
also engineers, chemists -- all sorts of people who
are culturally distinct. What we have in common is
that we have to sell the products of our intellectual
labor to corporations who have a monopoly on
realizing its value. We invent the idea, but they
control the means of production. The laws that
used to protect us ? copyright and patent -- have
been subtly changing over the course of the last
few decades to protect corporate owners of
existing 'intellectual property', not individual
creators of new ideas. And so I wrote 'A Hacker
Manifesto', to dramatize this emergent conflict.