Reviewing the New Deal’s Global Political Economy Framework and Its Current Challenges
This blog post argues for reclaiming January 6th as the anniversary of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech (1941) rather than the date of the Capitol attack. The post traces the arc from FDR’s “Global New Deal” to the modern digital financial order.
Global Liquidity Theory and the SACT Layers
Citation APA (7th Edition) Pennings, A.J. (2026, Jan 19) Global Liquidity Theory and the SACT Layers. apennings.com https://apennings.com/technologies-of-meaning/global-liquidity-theory-and-the-sact-layers/ Introduction How does financial liquidity impact financial markets, asset prices, and geopolitical stability in the emerging context of an AI-driven political economy? Using my SACT (Substitution, Abstraction, Symbolic Computing, and Telecommunications Synchronization) layers framework, I’ll explore how […]
Silver, Anchored by Spreadsheet Logic
In spreadsheet capitalism, silver remains valuable precisely because it is material, scarce, and physically constrained. Yet its power and price are determined less by where it is mined than by how it is calculated. Silver stands as a rare bridge between the physical world and the abstract financial architectures that now coordinate global political economies.
The SACT Attack: How Spreadsheet Capitalism Conquered the World
Once Substitution is complete, the other layers of SACT can take over. You cannot apply Abstraction (comparing unlike things), Symbolic Computing (formulas), or Telecommunications (speed) to a physical house. But you can apply all of them to the token of the house sitting in a spreadsheet cell.
Spreadsheet Knowledge and Production of the “Modern Fact”
Poovey’s book provides a critical background and framework for understanding how certain forms of knowledge became authoritative and seemingly “objective.” She argued that the rise of double-entry bookkeeping and statistical sciences in the early modern period was not merely a technical advancement but a profound epistemological shift. These systems created a new way of seeing and organizing the world through numerical representation, presenting complex realities as quantifiable and manageable facts.
Peirce and Derrida on the Logic and Power of Spreadsheets and Dashboards
The growing ubiquity of spreadsheets, dashboards, and AI models across organizational life marks a shift in how meaning, decision-making, and authority are structured. These systems do not simply reflect reality or suggest more than an increase in computational capability. These techniques construct reality symbolically, substituting formulas, predictions, and metrics for presence, memory, and deliberation. This […]
Markets and Prices: Pros, Cons
This post looks a how the notion of markets emerged and what is useful and determental about them. It discusses the underlying economic understanding of markets and includes several critiques of this term and our allegiance to them.
AI and Government: Concerns Shaped from Classic Public Administration Writings
Drawing on the classics of public administration, we can start to specify some constraints and goals for artificial intelligence (AI) and develop a “smart” but ethical government that is efficient but also responsive to public concerns.
« go back — keep looking »Categories
Referencing this Material
About Me
Professor (full) at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Research Professor for Stony Brook University. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and global political economy
You can reach me at:
anthony.pennings@gmail.com
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
About me
Writings by Category
- artificial intelligence
- automatrix
- blockchain
- books and films
- characteristics of digital media
- creative cities
- creative industries
- crisis communications
- cryptocurrencies
- cultural Industries
- data analytics and meaning
- democratic political economies
- digital coordination
- digital destruction
- digital geography
- digital media economics
- digital media management
- digital monetarism
- digital spreadsheets
- disaster risk management
- disruption
- dystopian economies
- educational innovations
- electric money
- enabling frameworks
- enterprise systems
- financial news
- financial technology
- food policy and security
- futurists
- geopolitical risk
- global communications
- global e-commerce
- health IT
- how IT came to rule the world
- intellectual property
- journalism
- meaning makers
- meaningful play
- media strategies
- mobile technologies
- multimedia
- political economies in sf
- political economy of media
- public administration
- science and technology studies
- sensing technologies
- smart new deal
- social media
- space systems
- spreadsheet logic
- strategic communications
- sustainable development
- technologies of meaning
- technology management
- telecom policy and net neutrality
- telegraphic political economy
- telelearn/telework
- the cold war
- the smith effect
- uncategorized
- visual literacy and rhetoric
