digitalization and slum-living

No time for commentary, off to work (in the wake of international worker's day!) but Zizek has made this point elsewhere, and I think it's fascinating - I hope not in any fetishistic way, but who knows. In a talk that you can download here he sets up the potential for new ways of living at the intersection of digitalization (and Gibson's cyberpunk novels come up here) and poverty/slum-living. I couldn't find a better quote, but he touches on the idea here:

While one should resist the temptation to elevate and idealize the slum dwellers into a new revolutionary class, it is extremely surprising how many of their features fit the old Marxist definition of the proletarian revolutionary class. Even more than the classic proletariat, they are “free” in the double meaning of the word—“freed” from all substantial ties and dwelling in a free space outside state and police regulations. They are large collectives, forcibly thrown into a situation where they must invent some mode of being-together, while simultaneously deprived of any inherited ethnic and religious traditions.
[...]
We should be watching the slum collectives for signs of new forms of social awareness: They will be the seeds of the future.

The article is here, and the mp3 is here (search the 2004 mp3 page for Zizek, he's buried a bit near the bottom of the page).