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Big Tech has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions that labour under often appalling conditions to make AI possible. Feeding the Machine presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network of organisations that maintain this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of AI.
Based on hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of fieldwork over more than a decade, this book shows us the lives of the workers often deliberately concealed from view and the systems of power that determine their future. It shows how AI is an extraction machine that churns through ever-larger datasets and feeds off humanity's labour and collective intelligence to power its algorithms.
Feeding the Machine is a call to arms against this exploitative system and details what we need to do, individually and collectively, to fight for a more just digital future.
This book contributes to the increasing interest in John Adams and
his political and legal thought by examining his work on the
medieval British Empire. For Adams, the conflict with England was
constitutional because there was no British Empire, only numerous
territories including the American colonies not consolidated into a
constitutional structure. Each had a unique relationship to the
English. In two series of essays he rejected the Parliament's claim
to legislate for the internal governance of the American colonies.
His Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765) identified
these claims with the Yoke, Norman tyranny over the defeated Saxons
after 1066. Parliament was seeking to treat the colonists in
similar fashion. The Novanglus essays (1774-75), traced the origin
of the colonies, demonstrating that Parliament played no role in
their establishment and so had no role in their internal governance
without the colonists' subsequent consent.
Empire is an evocative, yet little examined, word. It can mean the
domination of vast territories, a Christian world order, a corrupt
form of government, or a humanitarian endeavour. Historians
relegate the concept of empire to the pre-modern world, identifying
the state as the characteristic political form of the modern world.
This book examines the range of meanings attributed to the concept
of empire in the medieval and early modern world, demonstrating how
the concepts of empire and state developed in parallel, not
sequentially.
'Ground-breaking and ambitious' - Nick Srnicek, author of Platform
Capitalism Whoever controls the platforms, controls the future.
Platform Socialism sets out an alternative vision and concrete
proposals for a digital economy that expands our freedom. Powerful
tech companies now own the digital infrastructure of twenty-first
century social life. Masquerading as global community builders,
these companies have developed sophisticated new techniques for
extracting wealth from their users. James Muldoon shows how
grassroots communities and transnational social movements can take
back control from Big Tech. He reframes the technology debate and
proposes a host of new ideas, from the local to the international,
for how we can reclaim the emancipatory possibilities of digital
platforms. Drawing on sources from forgotten histories to
contemporary prototypes, he proposes an alternative system and
charts a roadmap for how we can get there.
The return to public assemblies and direct democratic methods in
the wave of the global "squares movements" since 2011 has
rejuvenated interest in forms of council organisation and action.
The European council movements, which developed in the immediate
post-First World War era, were the most impressive of a number of
attempts to develop workers' councils throughout the twentieth
century. However, in spite of the recent challenges to liberal
democracy, the question of council democracy has so far been
neglected within democratic theory. This book seeks to interrogate
contemporary democratic institutions from the perspective of the
resources that can be drawn from a revival and re-evaluation of the
forgotten ideal of council democracy. This collection brings
together democratic theorists, socialists and labour historians on
the question of the relevance of council democracy for contemporary
democratic practices. Historical reflection on the councils opens
our political imagination to an expanded scope of the possibilities
for political transformation by drawing from debates and events at
an important historical juncture before the dominance of current
forms of liberal democracy. It offers a critical perspective on the
limits of current democratic regimes for enabling widespread
political participation and holding elites accountable. This timely
read provides students and scholars with innovative analyses of the
councils on the 100th anniversary of their development. It offers
new analytic frameworks for conceptualising the relationship
between politics and the economy and contributes to emerging
debates within political theory on workplace, economic and council
democracy.
'Ground-breaking and ambitious' - Nick Srnicek, author of Platform
Capitalism Whoever controls the platforms, controls the future.
Platform Socialism sets out an alternative vision and concrete
proposals for a digital economy that expands our freedom. Powerful
tech companies now own the digital infrastructure of twenty-first
century social life. Masquerading as global community builders,
these companies have developed sophisticated new techniques for
extracting wealth from their users. James Muldoon shows how
grassroots communities and transnational social movements can take
back control from Big Tech. He reframes the technology debate and
proposes a host of new ideas, from the local to the international,
for how we can reclaim the emancipatory possibilities of digital
platforms. Drawing on sources from forgotten histories to
contemporary prototypes, he proposes an alternative system and
charts a roadmap for how we can get there.
In 2016, the striking electoral success of the UK Vote Leave
campaign and Donald Trump's presidential bid defied conventional
expectations and transformed the political landscape. Considered
together, these two largely unpredicted events constitute a
defining moment in the process of the incorporation of far-right
populist discourse in mainstream politics. This timely book argues
that there has been a change in the fundamental dynamic of the
mainstreaming of far-right populist discourse. In recent elections,
anti-establishment actors have rewritten the playbook, defeated the
establishment and redefined political norms. They have effectively
outplayed, overtaken and trumped mainstream parties and policies.
As fringe discourse becomes mainstream, how we conceive of the
political landscape and indeed the very distinction between a
political centre and periphery has been challenged. This book
provides new theoretical tools and empirical analyses to understand
the ongoing mainstreaming of far-right populism. Offering case
studies and comparative research, it analyses recent political
events in the US, UK, France and Belgium. This book is essential
reading for scholars and students of populism and far-right
politics who seek to make sense of recent world-altering events.
This book is the first collection within political theory to
examine the ideas and debates of the German Revolution of 1918/19.
It discusses the political theorists and actors of the revolution
and uncovers an incredibly fertile body of political thought.
Revolutionary events led to the proliferation of new political
strategies, theoretical insights and institutional proposals. Key
questions included the debate between a national assembly and a
council system, the socialisation of the economy, the development
of new forms of political representation and the proper role of
parliaments, political parties and trade unions. This book offers
novel perspectives on the history of the revolution, a thorough
engagement with its main thinkers and an analysis of its relevance
for contemporary political thought.
The debate about when the middle ages ended and the modern era
began, has long been a staple of the historical literature. In
order to further this debate, and illuminate the implications of a
longue duree approach to the history of the Reformation, this
collection offers a selection of essays that address the
medieval-modern divide. Covering a broad range of topics -
encompassing legal, social, cultural, theological and political
history - the volume asks fundamental questions about how we regard
history, and what historians can learn from colleagues working in
other fields that may not at first glance appear to offer any
obvious links. By focussing on the concept of the medieval-modern
divide - in particular the relation between the Middle Ages and the
Reformation - each essay examines how a medievalist deals with a
specific topic or issue that is also attracting the attention of
Reformation scholars. In so doing it underlines the fact that both
medievalists and modernists are often involved in bridging the
medieval-modern divide, but are inclined to construct parallel
bridges that end between the two starting points but do not
necessarily meet. As a result, the volume challenges assumptions
about the strict periodization of history, and suggest that a more
flexible approach will yield interesting historical insights.
Discussion of medieval European expansion tends to focus on
expansion eastward and the crusades. The selection of studies
reprinted here, however, focuses on the other end of Eurasia, where
dwelled the warlike Celts, and beyond whom lay the north seas and
the awesome Atlantic Ocean, formidable obstacles to expansion
westward. This volume looks first at the legacy of the Viking
expansion which had briefly created a network stretching across the
sea from Britain and Ireland to North America, and had demonstrated
that the Atlantic could be crossed and land reached. The next
sections deal with the English expansion in the western and
northern British Isles. In the 12th century the Normans began the
process of subjugating the Celts, thus inaugurating for the English
an experience which was to prove crucial when colonizing the
Americas in the 17th century. Medieval Ireland in particular served
as a laboratory for the development of imperial institutions,
attitudes, and ideologies that shaped the creation of the British
Empire and served as a staging area for further expansion westward.
The return to public assemblies and direct democratic methods in
the wave of the global "squares movements" since 2011 has
rejuvenated interest in forms of council organisation and action.
The European council movements, which developed in the immediate
post-First World War era, were the most impressive of a number of
attempts to develop workers' councils throughout the twentieth
century. However, in spite of the recent challenges to liberal
democracy, the question of council democracy has so far been
neglected within democratic theory. This book seeks to interrogate
contemporary democratic institutions from the perspective of the
resources that can be drawn from a revival and re-evaluation of the
forgotten ideal of council democracy. This collection brings
together democratic theorists, socialists and labour historians on
the question of the relevance of council democracy for contemporary
democratic practices. Historical reflection on the councils opens
our political imagination to an expanded scope of the possibilities
for political transformation by drawing from debates and events at
an important historical juncture before the dominance of current
forms of liberal democracy. It offers a critical perspective on the
limits of current democratic regimes for enabling widespread
political participation and holding elites accountable. This timely
read provides students and scholars with innovative analyses of the
councils on the 100th anniversary of their development. It offers
new analytic frameworks for conceptualising the relationship
between politics and the economy and contributes to emerging
debates within political theory on workplace, economic and council
democracy.
As the articles reprinted in this volume demonstrate, medieval men
and women were curious about the world around them. They wanted to
hear about distant lands and the various peoples who inhabited
them. Travellers' tales, factual such as that of Marco Polo, and
fictional, such as Chaucer's famous pilgrimage, entertained
audiences across Europe. Colorful mappaemundi placed in churches
illustrated these other lands and peoples for those who could not
read. Medieval travel literature was not only entertaining,
however, it was also informative, generating proto - ethnological
information about the world beyond Latin Christendom that provided
useful guidance for those such as merchants and missionaries who
intended to travel abroad. Merchants learned about safe travel
routes to foreign lands, about dangers to be avoided on the roads
and at sea, about cultural practices that might interfere with
their attempts at trade, and about products that would be suitable
for foreign markets. Churchmen read the reports of missionaries to
understand the beliefs of Muslims and other non-believers in order
to debate with them and to learn their languages. These articles
illustrate how travellers' reports in turn shaped the European
response to the world beyond Europe, and are set in context in the
editor's introduction.
Discussion of medieval European expansion tends to focus on
expansion eastward and the crusades. The selection of studies
reprinted here, however, focuses on the other end of Eurasia, where
dwelled the warlike Celts, and beyond whom lay the north seas and
the awesome Atlantic Ocean, formidable obstacles to expansion
westward. This volume looks first at the legacy of the Viking
expansion which had briefly created a network stretching across the
sea from Britain and Ireland to North America, and had demonstrated
that the Atlantic could be crossed and land reached. The next
sections deal with the English expansion in the western and
northern British Isles. In the 12th century the Normans began the
process of subjugating the Celts, thus inaugurating for the English
an experience which was to prove crucial when colonizing the
Americas in the 17th century. Medieval Ireland in particular served
as a laboratory for the development of imperial institutions,
attitudes, and ideologies that shaped the creation of the British
Empire and served as a staging area for further expansion westward.
The aim of this first volume in the series "The Expansion of Latin
Europe" is to sketch the outlines of medieval expansion,
illustrating some of the major topics that historians have examined
in the course of demonstrating the links between medieval and
modern experiences. The articles reprinted here show that European
expansion began not in 1492 following Columbus's voyages but
earlier as European Christian society re-arose from the ruins of
the Carolingian Empire. The two phases of expansion were linked but
the second period did not simply replicate the medieval experience.
Medieval expansion occurred as farmers, merchants, and missionaries
reduced forests to farmland and pasture, created new towns, and
converted the peoples encountered along the frontiers to
Christianity. Later colonizers subsequently adapted the medieval
experience to suit their new frontiers in the New World.
Around the year 1000 Rodulfus Glaber described France as being in
the throes of a building boom. He may have been the first writer to
perceive the early medieval period as a Dark Age that was ending to
be replaced by a better world. In the articles gathered here
distinguished medieval historians discuss the ways in which this
transformation took place. European society was becoming more
stable, the climate was improving, and the population increasing so
that it was necessary to increase food production. These
circumstances in turn led to the cutting down of forests, the
draining of wetlands, and the creation of pastures on higher
elevations from which the glaciers had retreated. New towns were
established to serve as economic and administrative centers. These
developments were witness to the processes of internal colonization
that helped create medieval Europe.
The articles in this volume trace the development of the theory
that humanity forms a single world community and that there exists
a body of law governing the relations among the members of that
community. These ideas first appeared in the writings of the
medieval canon lawyers and received their fullest development in
the writings of early modern Spanish intellectuals. Conflict and
contact with 'the infidel' provided a stimulus for the elaboration
of these ideas in the later Middle Ages, but major impetus was
given by the English subjugation of Ireland, and by the discovery
of the Americas. This body of work paved the way for the modern
notions of an international legal order and universal norms of
behavior usually associated with the publication of Hugo Grotius's
work in the seventeenth century.
In 2016, the striking electoral success of the UK Vote Leave
campaign and Donald Trump's presidential bid defied conventional
expectations and transformed the political landscape. Considered
together, these two largely unpredicted events constitute a
defining moment in the process of the incorporation of far-right
populist discourse in mainstream politics. This timely book argues
that there has been a change in the fundamental dynamic of the
mainstreaming of far-right populist discourse. In recent elections,
anti-establishment actors have rewritten the playbook, defeated the
establishment and redefined political norms. They have effectively
outplayed, overtaken and trumped mainstream parties and policies.
As fringe discourse becomes mainstream, how we conceive of the
political landscape and indeed the very distinction between a
political centre and periphery has been challenged. This book
provides new theoretical tools and empirical analyses to understand
the ongoing mainstreaming of far-right populism. Offering case
studies and comparative research, it analyses recent political
events in the US, UK, France and Belgium. This book is essential
reading for scholars and students of populism and far-right
politics who seek to make sense of recent world-altering events.
The German council movements arose through mass strikes and soldier
mutinies towards the end of the First World War. They brought down
the German monarchy, founded several short-lived council republics,
and dramatically transformed European politics. Building Power to
Change the World reconstructs how participants in the German
council movements struggled for a democratic socialist society. It
examines their attempts to democratize politics, the economy, and
society through building powerful worker-led organisations and
cultivating workers' political agency. Drawing from the practices
of the council movements and the writings of theorists such as Rosa
Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek and Karl Kautsky, Building Power to
Change the World returns to their radical vision of a
self-determining society and their political program of
democratization and socialization. It presents a powerful argument
for renewed attention to the political theories of this historical
period and for their ongoing relevance for democratic politics
today.
Juan de Solorzano Pereira (1575-1654) was a lawyer who spent
eighteen years as a judge in Peru before returning to Spain to
serve on the Councils of Castile and of the Indies. Considered one
of the finest lawyers in Spain, his work, De Indiarum Jure, was the
most sophisticated defense of the Spanish conquest of the Americas
ever written, and he was widely cited in Europe and the Americas
until the early nineteenth century. His work, and that of the
Spanish School of international law theorists generally, is often
seen as leading to Hugo Grotius and modern international law.
However, as James Muldoon shows, the De Indiarum Jure represents
the fullest development of a medieval Catholic theory of
international order that provided an alternative to the Grotian
theory.
Uniquely multi-perspective, the anthology juxtaposes the recorded
experiences and views of participants on the opposing sides in the
Crusades. Each chapter focuses on an event, such as the Crusader
massacre of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in 1099 and the Siege of
Damascus in 1148, and is supported by commentary. Including some
sources never before translated into English, the collection
applies new perspectives to a popular and much-studied topic. In
tone and range, the anthology occupies the middle ground between
flimsy popular works lacking source analysis and heavy-duty
scholarly works too narrow in scope to appeal to anyone but the
specialist. It is perfect for college undergraduates, high school
students and readers with a general interest in medieval history.
The carefully-chosen contrasting contemporary views of key events,
including eyewitness accounts, memoirs and elite views, are laid
out in a clear and easy-to-follow format with introductory texts
and contextual notes. Together, they provide a unique introduction
to the most controversial events of the crusades, allowing readers
to formulate their own opinions of them.
Criticism of the way in which Europeans have treated the
inhabitants of the non-European world in the course of European
expansion has a long history, Three centuries before Christopher
Columbus encountered the American Indians, European intellectuals
and clergymen had criticized the treatment of the peoples whom the
crusaders and other Europeans met as they moved outward from the
heartland of European civilization. The connection between the
sixteenth-century Spanish writers who criticized the Spanish
conquest of the Americas and medieval writers who criticized the
behavior of Europeans toward the non-Europeans they encountered on
their borders, is more familiar. Yet, their criticism referred back
to medieval legal traditions and arguments about the rights of
infidels in the face of European expansion. However, it is the
increased recognition of the importance of this connection that has
inspired much new research in the field of medieval canon law. The
most important theorist of what we now call "race relations", in
the Middle Ages, was Sinibaldo Fieschi, a distinguished
canon-lawyer, who became Pope Innocent IV (1243-54), whose
pontificate is the starting point of this study. As a working
canon-lawyer and pope, Innocent's work provides an unusual insight
into the whole development of Christian-infidel relations, for his
work covers those who lived within Christian Europe, those who were
recent converts to Christianity, and those who lived beyond the
bounds of Christendom. As pope he initiated the Mongol mission, the
first attempt to deal with the Mongol threat to Eastern Europe on a
diplomatic level, and to convert the Mongols to Christianity. As a
lawyer he was also the author of a commentary on the nature of a
just war that became the basis for all future discussion of the
rights of infidels who lived in the path of European expansion. A
wide knowledge of both legal theory and papal practice blended in a
single career and it was this union of these two traditions that
formed the intellectual background of Vitoria and Las Casas, and
the eminent critics who followed them. This is the first complete
study of this subject, based upon a careful analysis of papal and
legal sources. Papal sources included letters found in papal
registers, including the unpublished Vatican Register 62 which
contains only letters dealing with the problems raised by infidel
societies. The legal sources include commentaries on the basic
texts of canon law that bear on the status of infidels, as well as
legal opinions written to deal with specific problems involving
Christian-infidel relations. Although directed to specialists and
students of this period, this work, original in concept and
exceptionally well-written, is sure to find a far wider audience.
The whole subject is important, and topical too, in view of the
current interest in racism and race relations, itself the subject
of the author's Appendix.
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain
imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed
pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger
Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and
hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain
imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed
pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger
Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and
hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!
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