When Žižek (2002b) defines his idea of cybercommunism using an adaptation of the Leninist formula ‘Socialism = free access to internet + the power of the soviets’, he omits the crucial part about electricity. The cybercommunist idea that the information society is more ‘spectral’ and ‘malleable’ than were the previous ‘crudely’ economical societies conceals the question of what types of communities it favours. The political economy of cybercommunism also demands an analysis of the material conditions of cyber-freedom that can be conceptualised, for instance, in terms of levels of decreasing alienation.
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