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New New Babylon

New New Babylon New New Babylon ALI DUR AND MCKENZIE WARK 1. “A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.” After a spate of suicides, the Foxconn factory in Chengdu, China, now obliges its workers to sign a document in which, among other things, they promise not to kill themselves. In exchange, they can expect to work extremely long hours for a paltry wage, which they can spend on precious little of any interest, and to live in cramped and often intimidating factory-owned quarters. No wonder Foxconn workers stage strikes, which is unprecedented in the export-oriented component of the Chinese economy.1 And what were these workers actually producing at this facility? Among other things, iPads. The smooth perfection of Apple’s products for their consumers requires submission to a ferocious disciplinary regime for their producers. The iPad is nevertheless an object that speaks to a certain anxiety on the part of Apple and the rest of the emergent ruling class. The iPad is insinuated into everyday life with the primary objective of presenting an ever-ready interface to the Apple store, at which Apple intends to extract a rent from every small business that comes to set up shop. The ambivalent gift http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png October MIT Press

New New Babylon

Dur, Ali; Wark, McKenzie
October , Volume Fall 2011 (138) – Oct 1, 2011
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Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2011 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ISSN
0162-2870
eISSN
1536-013X
DOI
10.1162/OCTO_a_00065
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

New New Babylon ALI DUR AND MCKENZIE WARK 1. “A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.” After a spate of suicides, the Foxconn factory in Chengdu, China, now obliges its workers to sign a document in which, among other things, they promise not to kill themselves. In exchange, they can expect to work extremely long hours for a paltry wage, which they can spend on precious little of any interest, and to live in cramped and often intimidating factory-owned quarters. No wonder Foxconn workers stage strikes, which is unprecedented in the export-oriented component of the Chinese economy.1 And what were these workers actually producing at this facility? Among other things, iPads. The smooth perfection of Apple’s products for their consumers requires submission to a ferocious disciplinary regime for their producers. The iPad is nevertheless an object that speaks to a certain anxiety on the part of Apple and the rest of the emergent ruling class. The iPad is insinuated into everyday life with the primary objective of presenting an ever-ready interface to the Apple store, at which Apple intends to extract a rent from every small business that comes to set up shop. The ambivalent gift

Journal

October – MIT Press

Published: Oct 1, 2011

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