Postmodern Theory and Internet George Ritzer

As Toffler theorized, the prosumer’s prospective freedom is the freedom of 

the individual—the individual as both producer and consumer exercising his 

capacities in terms of what C.B. Macpherson called ‘proprietary individualism’ 

(Macpherson, 1962: 3).

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 In his high-tech Third Wave, these property owners 

produce their own goods and services, exchanging them for money and other 

commodities. It is in this sense that, for Toffler, prosumers will come to consider 

one another to be equally free as the creators or co-creators of exchangeable 

things. Clearly, this understanding of prosumption does not transcend 

capitalism. Instead, it might well be the market system’s apogee.

Marx also idealized individual freedom but in a much different way. Rather 

than being alienated from her essence as a result of her relation to capital,  

in a communist (post-capitalist) society ‘the material process of production is 

stripped of its miserable and antagonistic form’ (Marx, 1857-58: 705-706). 

As exchange values are supplanted by use values, a ‘free development of 

individualities’ for the first time becomes possible (ibid.: 706). This is not  

to say that individuals realize their full potentials because they live in an  

un-structured political economy. Instead, the social form of individualism itself 

is not pre-structured; people are free to structure their society as they please, 

not as it has been cast by capital and its exchange value priorities.

With Marx’s view of freedom in mind, I conclude that the prosumer’s ascent 

serves mostly status quo interests. Of course a small number of economically 

privileged and reflexive individuals potentially will engage in thoughtful, 

creative forms of prosumption—forms mostly taking place outside the direct 

parameters of the production process. In this respect, aspects of prosumption 

are potentially subversive, enabling a minority to relate not primarily as 

commodities/things but, instead, as creative contributors. Surely, however, 

barring more general revolutionary developments, digital prosumption is 

destined to remain part and parcel of capital’s production and reproduction 

priorities with alienated prosumers labouring to satisfy their own possessive 

individualist needs. To repeat, this dominant form of prosumption is 

contradictory, particularly when a core motivation for taking part is the quest  

to redress one’s own alienation.

Marx recognized that variously located individuals have a degree of autonomy 

vis-à-vis the general conditions shaping their alienation, although predominant 

relations, if not overthrown, render alienation’s eradication impossible 

(Archibald, 2009). That being said, to repeat, a small number, no doubt, will  

be in the privileged position to apply prosumption to autonomously create. 

Many more, I anticipate, will be used through prosumption as mere tools 

Digital prosumption and alienation ………………………………………………………… Edward Comor

http://openfile.org.uk/archive/gil-leung-things-are-circulating/

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of capital. Most, however, are likely to occupy a third and fundamentally 

contradictory position: prosumption will enable them to act as capital’s creative 

tools.

1   ‘Co-creation’ appears to have been developed by business interests as a means of framing prosumption 

as a consumer-corporate ‘partnership’ while, for academics, the term likely reflects the tendency of some 

postmodernists to celebrate creativity and choice through consumption (Zwick et al., 2009).

2  Toffler, thirty years earlier, made the same argument (Toffler, 1980: 11). Beyond this coming together 

of politically disparate interests, we also should recognize that both mainstream and progressive theorists 

have arrived at similar conclusions regarding the primary agent of this new order: the prosumer or  

co-creator herself. For mainstream observers, the perfect market system—one that produces what people 

want, when and where they want it—is idealized hand-in-hand with the ‘sovereign’ consumer (Gates, 

2006; Tapscott and Williams, 2006). For progressives, prosumption’s/co-creation’s assumed pluralization 

of power and creativity enables the ‘autonomous’ worker to openly commune and realize Marx’s 

conceptualization of a ‘general intellect.’ As with Web 2.0 developments involving prosumption/co-

creation, a growing global workforce is said to be involved in labor that develops, refines and intensifies 

both know-how and cooperation. For a critical analysis addressing these and related developments using 

concepts from both Foucault and Autonomist Marxists, see Coté and Pybus (2008). See also Lazzarato 

(2004). To avoid the awkwardness of gender-neutral prose, from this point onward I will use he/she,  

him/her, men/women interchangeably.

3  Readers familiar with G.A. Cohen’s critique of Marx concerning alienation will find much in this 

overview that reflects his analysis. See esp. Cohen ‘Bourgeois and Proletarians’ (1968). See also  

Cohen (2000).

4  Elements of this paper draw on the contents of Comor (2011).

5  The concept of alienation precedes Marx. In the Old Testament alienation is equated with idolatry. 

For the prophets, man is criticized for spending his energy and creativity on idols; idols that man 

himself has built but now worships as if they are independent of his own creation. Indeed, the very 

monotheistic religion that the prophets promoted has itself become a form of idolatry in that human 

beings now project their power to love and create unto God who they, in turn, have come to depend 

upon for their source of love and creativity (Fromm, 1955: 113).

6  Of course this is not to say that human beings can divorce themselves from their dependency on 

the earth or the limitations of their biological circumstances. From an evolutionary perspective, the 

early humanoids that survived successfully engaged in socially productive activities—activities that 

were pre-conditions of humanity’s survival given the physical deficiencies of the species in relation  

to other species and ecological conditions.

7  It is important to note that some capitalists do, of course, ‘produce’—especially those who are 

directly involved in the initial, often creative stages of their enterprise’s development. Innumerable 

examples of the creative-productive owner can be found in the early years of commerce involving 

digital technologies.

8  Söderberg adds that ‘Initially, ideological confusion is caused by capital’s experimentations to 

exploit the labour power and idealism of collectives…, which makes the demarcation line between 

friend and foe harder to draw. But for every successful ‘management’ of social cooperation to boost 

profits, other parts of the community will be radicalised and pitched into the conflict. Inevitably, 

communities will turn into hotbeds of counter-hegemonic resistance’ (Söderberg, 2002).

9  Of course the general decline of unions and the diminishing power of organized labour have 

facilitated these more tenuous and stressful conditions.

Digital prosumption and alienation ………………………………………………………… Edward Comor

http://openfile.org.uk/archive/gil-leung-things-are-circulating/

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