Digital Commons Network^™

Speed: Through, Across, And In — The Landscapes Of Capital, Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Noah Kersey

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

About The Authors, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

C. Wright Mills: A New Left For A New Day, Charles Lemert

Fast Capitalism

Thomas Paine, during a crucial moment in the American war against its colonizers, said famously: “These are times that try men’s souls.” Many think, I among them, that these too are times that try men’s souls. At such a time, one must look back for clues as to what to think and do. One from not that long ago who lends us wisdom of a sort is C. Wright Mills, who in the 1950s, tried to make sense of America’s changing culture. However, a bad heart killed him in 1962, just after he wrote of the possibility of a New …

The Right-Wing’S Dirty War Against History And Education: Beyond The Politics Of Disappearance, Henry A. Giroux

Fast Capitalism

The past haunts the present moment because it increasingly offers terrifying narratives and images of what Walter Benjamin once called “a catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin.”1 The catastrophe to which Benjamin refers is the ghost of fascism and its irrepressible ability to reappear in different forms at certain moments in history. At the present time, memory and catastrophe have merged as past images that flash before us, signaling danger and suggesting that the current era is a “state of emergency” that is no longer “the exception but the rule.”2

Beyond Verticality And Horizontality: Arcological Thinking And The Neoliberal Subject, François Debrix

Fast Capitalism

Over the past two decades, several critiques of neoliberalism have relied on a binary understanding of space to depict neoliberalism’s operations and objectives as well as to offer modes of mobilization and contestation against neoliberal politics and economics. For quite a few scholars, the challenge of neoliberal capitalism and the need to resist it can be summed up as an opposition between verticality and horizontality. In particular, this challenge, we are told, is what the contemporary subject of neoliberal politics (or what commonly has been referred to as the “neoliberal subject”) is faced with. While neoliberalism’s vertical structures, institutions, aspirations, …

Cyberculture’S Abstract Utopia: Silicon Valley And Cleaner, Greener, Leaner Rules For A “New Economy”*, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

This preliminary analysis connects the dilemmas of eco-pessimism and eco-optimism and links them to a number of core and peripheral thinkers in the US during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who have sought an escape, or “an out,” from the deepening deterioration of both Nature and Society making many feel pessimistic about the environment. As New York City choked through eerie days cloaked by nearly impenetrable clouds of wood smoke in June 2023, the sky turned a Martian orange in the sunlight from dawn to dusk. At the same time, coastal homeowners along Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific beaches received notices …

Tiktok Containment Meets "The Threat Of A Good Example": Inversion Gets More Than 15 Seconds Of Fame, Marcus Breen

Fast Capitalism

When President Donald Trump proposed to ban the Chinese social media platform TikTok on national security grounds on August 6, 2020, it marked a pivotal moment in the interaction between many contending layers of political life. Cojoined in a register of nationalist rhetoric, US national policies cross-referenced geopolitics, and the history of international competition and cooperation in global trade flows with and against China. As such, the proposed ban gave credit to the ancient popular Chinese saying: “Things that oppose each other also complement each other” (Ban Gu nd: 84). More precisely, when seen through the lens of digital networking, …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Fighting For Justice In The Neoliberal University: The Promise Of Reflexive And Flexible Solidarity, Timothy Gibson, Bethany Letiecq

Fast Capitalism

In the neoliberal university, faculty are encouraged to build strong connections in virtually every way except one: as workers. In this paper, we will discuss our experiences as leaders of the XXX chapter of the American Association of University Professors, with a focus on our campaign to build across-campus labor coalition connecting faculty, students, staff, and contract workers in the struggle for economic and social justice. We will begin by examining the constellation of structural forces and professional hierarchies that amplify labor exploitation on campus, subvert shared governance and academic freedom, and cultivate a campus culture of disconnection, competition, and …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

“Rise Of The Resistance” And The Demise Of Social Being: The Autolysis Of Subjectivity In The Twenty-First Century, Reha Kadakal

Fast Capitalism

Structural transformations in the 21st century necessitate radical rethinking of the category of subject that underlie the notions of autonomy, agency and individuality. This paper depicts an onto-genetic transformation of the subject— its autolysis—in the historical present by building on representations and the mediation of categories of social life. The paper first delineates the notion of representation as a central element of critical ontology as a form of social theory by building on Hegel and Durkheim. It then draws on a recent product from the culture industry, namely The Disneyland theme-park ride called “Rise of the Resistance,” which involves a …

Blood In Their Mouths: Lies, Violence, And Fascist Politics, Henry Giroux

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Deniers Versus Climate Change Decriers: The Pragmatics Of Climate Defense In The Age Of Disinformation, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

Thirty-five years ago, Bill McKibben published his best-selling popular depiction of climate change, The End of Nature. Nearly a decade ago, Naomi Klein's global best-seller This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate presented her detailed brief: “thought leaders” must resist and reverse the degradation of Earth's climate in the face of denials that this policy change was impossible. As popular activists, McKibben and Klein both believe “more information leads to good and great change.” This gambit presumes when presented disturbing facts on how and why rising fossil fuel use is degrading the climate, like-minded readers will wisely rise, readily organize …

Shut Your Cake Hole, You Over-Educated Whore: The Misogynistic Weaponization Of The Phd, Tara Brabazon

Fast Capitalism

The (higher) education of women is a pinball in the arcade game of contemporary masculinity. Andrew Tate, while often proclaiming the irrelevance of university degrees, has deployed their nomenclature through his Facebook page, titled the Tate University. One of his ‘courses’ was described as a PhD (Pimpin’ Hoes Degree). Why is the education of women discredited, yet the language of education summoned and activated to build the ‘alpha male’? This article does not (only) investigate Andrew Tate, alpha culture or the black pill ideology. It explores why the higher education of women – and university-educated women – is a focus …

Downloading Is Killing Music: Napster And The Recording Industry’S Piracy Panic Narrative, David M. Arditi

Fast Capitalism

Beginning in the late 1990s and the arrival of the file-sharing program Napster, the recording industry used a “piracy panic narrative” in an attempt not only to prevent file-sharing, but also, to change the basic parameters of copyright law. In this piracy panic narrative, major record labels and their representative trade associations made the argument that file-sharing is piracy, piracy is stealing, and this stealing hurts recording artists. In this paper, I argue that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) used this narrative in the United States to change public opinion on file-sharing with the ultimate goal of changing …

Metallica, Napster And The Transformation Of Subcultural Capital, Justin Patch

Fast Capitalism

On June 1, 1999, Napster went live, ushering in profound changes in the music industry and consumer behavior. The new software popularized peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing, which enabled those running the software to search and download files from the hard drives of other PCs on the system. Within months, there were millions of songs available for download from computers around the world. In April, on the heels of a law suit by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Metallica became the first artist to sue Napster for copyright infringement, a lawsuit that, combined with the RIAA suit and another …

Independent Music After Metallica V. Napster, Inc.: Seeking Liberation In The Music Streaming Simulacrum, Lukas Szrot

Fast Capitalism

In this brief paper, I note the ways in which being a musician has changed in the aftermath of the digital downloading and file-sharing developed by Napster pioneer Shawn Fanning, through the lens of the music streaming simulacrum—my term for what has unfolded since. I contrast the present environment with the potential that emerged with this technology. I theorize the music streaming simulacrum as opaque, flat, and hegemonic—a parody of both industry and culture that incomprehensible by a single human being, militates against deeper connectivity between artist and listener, and exerts outsized power over human behavior and decision-making in a …

Convenience Begets Capitalism, Jörgen Behrendtz

Fast Capitalism

This is a short polemical piece, and does not have an abstract as such.

A Capitalist Stranglehold On “Artificial Intelligence”: A Gallop Through Piracy, Privacy Invasion, Lock-In And A Fever Dream Of Democratisation, Aidan Cornelius-Bell

Fast Capitalism

In this paper, I discuss the emergence of personal computing, the rise of platform-controlled smartphones and tablets, and the recent surge in artificial intelligence technologies. I explore how these technological advancements have often been shaped by the interests of capital, with recent trends towards increased platform lock-in, control, and exploitation of users (workers). I argue that without a strong push for open-source, democratised AI, these technologies risk being used to further the globalised colonial capitalist project. I highlight the potential for open-source hardware and software to counter the proprietary and un-hackable future of AI, offering a radical alternative that empowers …

The Artificiality Of Digital Scarcity: Contradictions Between Code, Law, Norms, And Value(S), Anthony Jack Knowles

Fast Capitalism

The rise and fall of Napster represented a major turning point in the history of the internet as it simultaneously paved the way for peer-to-peer filesharing as well as ushered in a backlash from incumbent media companies backed by an army of lawyers. This essay grapples with the ramifications of this struggle against filesharing and piracy that forever changed the internet. Much of how and why the internet is structured as it is can be explained through recognizing that this contradictory state of affairs is due to the inherent properties of the internet and digital files when "forced" to fit …

Napster's Mediations, Gavin Mueller

Fast Capitalism

While Napster has often been understood as a force for disintermediation, this essay examines three possible levels that Napster could be theorized as engaged in mediation: the level of protocol, the level of interface, and the level of culture. Each has implications for how we understand the politics of Napster, and peer-to-peer more generally.

Inciting Infringement And Innovation: From Napster To Now - The Dialectic Of Law And Technology, Matthew David

Fast Capitalism

The original Napster had only a short life, but what it set in motion has lasted and been significant. From 1999 to 2001(2) the Napster platform offered the first widely known and widely adopted music file-sharing download service; combining internet distribution and MP3 file-compression with its own central server acting to enable user uploading and downloading of music. Whilst Napster was shut down for ‘contributory infringement’ on the grounds that its central server directly facilitated copyright infringing downloading, its closure on these grounds saw the rise of fully peer-to-peer (P2P) services such as Kazaa. When P2P uploaders were targeted for …

Napster "Freedom" At Northeastern University: A Distanced Ethnography, Marcus Breen

Fast Capitalism

This article offers a critical first hand account, from an academic at Northeastern University after Napster's creator Sean Fanniong left the campus in 1999. Reflecting on the impact of Fanning on the campus, drawing on the history of community computer innovation in Boston as a means of activism, the article identifies through Marx, the way monopoly capitalism destroyed Napster's capacity for free music culture. The impact of Intellectual Property law in shutting down digital innovations such as Napster, is considered for the impact it had on the ideals of the liberal university in the United States.

Introduction: Napster At 25, David M. Arditi

Fast Capitalism

Author Biography

David M. Arditi, University of Texas Arlington

Associate Professor of Sociology

Director - Center for Theory

The Profitability Of Racial Diversity And Gender Balance In Modern Hollywood, M. Garrett Roth, William Mcandrew

The Journal of Economics and Politics

This paper investigates the effects of racial and gender diversity in modern Hollywood. The primary objective is to determine if an objectively measurable increase in diverse casting over the last two decades has had a positive or negative impact on profits, and a secondary objective to measure diversity’s impact on critic scores. The study utilizes data focusing on the fifty most expensive films from 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023. The findings indicate that profit is neither positively nor negatively affected by diversity, whether in ethnicity or gender. However, movie critic ratings are negatively affected by ethnic diversity when using …

Threads Of Empathy: An Integrative Model Of Empathy In The Schools, Arthur J. Clark, Tara M. Simpson

Journal of Human Services Scholarship and Interprofessional Collaboration

Empathy has a distinctive and evolving history in education for cultivating human relationships and engendering mutual understanding. Within a school setting, empathic engagement is essential for the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. From an educational perspective, literature from multiple disciplines and specialties illustrate innovative practices to harness empathy in the classroom and beyond. The representative initiatives hold promise for developing an integrative model of empathy within a school or a school district through a program involving interprofessional collaboration.

Vol. 5 Full Issue

V Music Magazine

No abstract provided.

Dairy And Food Science Student Newsletter, January 13, 2026, Department Of Dairy And Food Science

Dairy and Food Science Student Newsletter

No abstract provided.