The Internet: A Society against the State?

Network computing has often been presented as an instrument promoting self-organization within civil society, through alternative modes of power distribution and coordination of activities. The history of the Internet, considered from the perspective of the history of ideas, shows that these properties have led to the formation of a genuine political philosophy that we have called informational liberalism. This article presents its overall movement and internal divisions, understood as alternative models of political economy. Finally, three main forms of governmentality stemming from this framework are identified, which pave the way for a critique of political economy in a digital regime : capturing, dissemination and self-institution.