Academic Libraries in the Age of Vectoralism

Resisting the New Ruling Class

Abstract

Vectoralism is a way of understanding class relationships in the twenty-first century. Moving beyond a Marxist understanding of class relationships, McKenzie Wark provides new language to understand the class of which library workers are a part, the hacker class, and the new ruling class, the vectoralist class, that is dominating the organization and flows of information. Vectoralists are those that own and control the flows of capital, information, products, thoughts, and identities. This article applies Wark’s theory to library specific conversations related to information access, privacy, and data. In so doing, it seeks to answer the questions: What is vectoralism? How does vectoralism apply to librarianship and what are its implications on the discipline? I illuminate how these new power dynamics manifest, providing a lens to equip library workers with a broader vision of the systems of control that operate to outflank and absorb their agency, and conclude by exploring a framework for resistance.