I didn't plan on purchasing McKenzie Wark's "A Hacker Manifesto" ($21.95, Harvard Univ. Press 2004). This may change. Thumbing through my stack of catalogs, I picked up the one from Harvard University Press and found this new release. Harvard's a "glossy". I start with these first.

Smirking at me on the first page is a Bonoesque McKenzie Wark, professor at the State University of New York and from what I've gathered in the last few hours in between peeks of Green Acres, a cyber culture aficionado. I haven't read any of McKenzie's other works though it seems he has written extensively. (BTW, a quick "thanks in advance" to any and all dismissing my ignorance here regarding Mr. Wark's preeminence as a scholar. I've honestly never heard of the guy.)

Marxists tickle me. I really do laugh, particularly when they are trying to sell it. After reading Harvard's three paragraph sales pitch, I'm sure someone's trying to sell it, albeit repackaged for Gen X and Y information producers. This class includes authors, artists, biologists, programmers and assorted other well-paid, white-collared proletarian. If I don't get around to reading this, would someone mind checking to see if Mr. Wark includes the online musings of librarians in need of hobbies in this class? Just leave an email.

Hacker Manifesto deftly defines the fraught territory between the ever more strident demands by drug and media companies for protection of their patents and copyrights and the pervasive popular culture of file sharing and pirating. This vexed ground, the realm of so-called "intellectual property," gives rise to a whole new kind of class conflict, one that pits the creators of information--the hacker class of researchers and authors, artists and biologists, chemists and musicians, philosophers and programmers--against a possessing class who would monopolize what the hacker produces.

Well this is certainly an interesting take. Through the miracle of digitization, one time intellectual underwriters are instantly morphed into money-grubbing bourgeoisie. The review continues:

Drawing in equal measure on Guy Debord and Gilles Deleuze, A Hacker Manifesto offers a systematic restatement of Marxist thought for the age of cyberspace and globalization. In the widespread revolt against commodified information, McKenzie Wark sees a utopian promise, beyond the property form, and a new progressive class, the hacker class, who voice a shared interest in a new information commons.

OK. Enough. It's obvious that by the third, and last, paragraph, Mr.Wark has convinced himself of revolution. A Napster banana republic. So what?

It's the irony. The shamelessness. The intellectual impudence of those like Mr. Wark, and countless other western socialists, that predictably equivocate their personal interests from their scribbled Weltanschauung. The archetypical dad that still enjoys his nicotine, beer and in this case, money.

How can anyone read this book and not question why Mr. Wark declined to contribute his manifesto to those utopian stomping grounds, the information commons? Or better communes. Here was an opportunity to put words into action by way of an FTP client and bit of web space. He declined, ostensibly wishing to keep his own intellectual property “commodified” in an attempt to take $21.95 from my acquisitions budget. The nerve. And therein lies the nasty secret of Marxism; it’s better preached than practiced. At least Abbie Hoffman tried to screw his publisher.

Back to the smirk. Or is it Mr. Wark’s conscience manifested in a sheepish smile? I can’t say for certain, though I wonder if his expression will progress to an all out guffaw when stuffing royalties in the bank? Regardless, I say good for him. As Trotsky once quipped,” The ends justify the means”, or something like that. I suppose profit is as good a mean as any.

I think I’ll buy this book after all.

Say, I wonder if Mr. Haney could have beaten Harvard's price?

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A few more nuggets, if interested, from McKenzie Wark. (Can I assume no problem with copyright here?)

"Information wants to be free, but is everywhere in chains."

"Knowledge too has to be released from scarcity and hierarchy. Forcing people to submit to 20 years of mental enslavement -- all their childhood and young adult life -- just to secure a reasonable standard of living is a status quo that needs to be challenged". (frontwheeldrive.com)