Utopia of abstraction
Digital organizations and the promise of sovereignty
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5260980 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tim Corballis (0000-0002-2051-7694, Victoria University of Wellington), Matthew Soar (0000-0001-7509-7861, Victoria University of Wellington) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Big Data & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2053-9517 • E-ISSN: 2053-9517 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20539517221084587 |
| OpenAlex | W4220880134 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 26 |
Digital organizations form part of the new wave of blockchain technologies, following Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. "Utopia of Abstraction" offers an analysis of the utopian promise of digital organizations through a reading of one such project, Colony. We provide a critique of the ideology of Colony's white paper, supplemented by readings of pages from its website, as a member of a genre of texts that promote their products through seemingly neutral, technical descriptions. Colony's texts suggest an abstract, contextless and scaleless organizational solution-powered by smart contracts on a blockchain-that, according to its proponents, might be applied to any social situation, from small firm to state-level governance. For its users, this organization combines a promise of sovereignty removed from that of the state, as well as implied financial returns. Our reading of Colony echoes the critiques of scholars arguing that cyberlibertarianism is a dominant politic of blockchain technologies. Furthermore, drawing on critiques of code as law and the elision of the social in smart contracts, we argue that Colony's vision presents a model of technical organization that substitutes for the state in the context of waning popular sovereignty. We ultimately suggest an understanding of digital organizations reminiscent of the settler colonial situation: the assumption of an empty social space to be filled, and the promise of sovereignty and riches for those occupying it. Analysis of these logics is relevant as hype increases around non-fungible tokens, Web3, and the corporate metaverse as well as data practices more widely
Computer security · Corporate governance · Cryptocurrency · Economics · Ideology · Law and economics · Management · Political science · Politics · Popular sovereignty · Sociology · Sovereignty · Utopia · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance · Law
Blockchain for good, a prospect in action. How technological fields emerge through affordance-driven institutional work
Facing the challenges of metaverse
Materializing corporate futures
Playing, earning, crashing, and grinding
Socio-Digital Challenges for Social Work in the Metaverse
Data, Big Tech, and the New Concept of Sovereignty
Web3 as 'self-infrastructuring
Cybertypes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
A Prehistory of the Cloud
The Cultural Logic of Computation
Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace
The Nature of the Transnational Firm
Settler Colonialism
Book-Smart, Not Street-Smart
Cyberlibertarian myths and the prospects for community
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Technocolonialism
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
The Nature of the Firm
Cyber-Libertarianism 2.0
Brief History of Neoliberalism
Genre as social action
Blockchain imperialism in the Pacific
Self-Sovereignty for Refugees? The Contested Horizons of Digital Identity
Simians, Cyborgs, and Women
Crisis, Crisis, Crisis, or Sovereignty and Networks
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |