what a hacker thinks what a hacker wants

The first two questions I had when first encountering McKenzie Wark’s Hacker Manifesto were: “what the hell is a hacker?” and “is he poking fun at revolutionary speak, the importance of his cause?” Wark places himself (whether ironically or not) in the midst of the Marxist/Anarchist tradition where he appropriates the language, style, and tone of the Communist Manifesto (there are sections titled, property, class, production, abstraction, etc) in order to explain and define a new societal class; the hacker. This hacker class is above, beyond, and outside “constructed” society which means they are not really even a part of it in the traditional sense—they operate outside its boundaries and laws in order to de stabilize and create new societal dynamics within the old system. Wark spends most of the manifesto attempting to detail the “new conditions of oppression, struggle” which for him are primarily information based. Therefore the work brings up questions of expression—how does/should a marginalized group express itself? Part of what this manifesto serves is giving a voice to this “class,” but it’s also about the recognition of power and the declaration of power and ultimately, legitimization and acceptance of its existence.


Because it is a manifesto and appropriating this grand revolutionary language, the piece is highly abstract and difficult to literally interpret or reduce. To return to my first question: “what is a hacker?” It’s not totally clear by the end of the manifesto what this is, but because I assume Wark is part of this class I’ve been able to come away with these bullet points:

Hackers operate outside of what we traditionally call society
Hackers live in the virtual (computers?)
Hacker identity is fluid
There are “ever-new” versions of reality, or as Wark says “the actual”
Hackers produce these new versions
Hackers will change the concept of property, ownership
Hackers believe in the unconditional free flow of information and the knowledge to use it
Hackers promote an alternative practice to everyday life

What I think is particularly interesting is his assertion that information has been has been turned into a kind of physical property and sold as commodity through (but not limited to) institutions of education and higher-learning. He asks, “whose property is knowledge?” This is what I find truly revolutionary about the piece and what makes me think he’s putting this out there with some sincerity; this seems like an actual problem/dynamic that many people would agree exists and should be solved or changed. That seems like a problem the internet has created by simply existing.


I’m not sure what 1989 revolts Wark is speaking of although I might guess it could be Tiananmen Square or Tibet/China unrest—maybe even the Florida race riots. Most likely he’s talking about some unseen hacker revolt that was squashed by the government—but by leaving out that specificity there’s no limit to how large the “1989 revolts” can be. I’m interested in 1989 as a turning point or springboard that would allow this manifesto to be written