Yeah I think frustration with capitalism is at a first time in 100 years high in the U.S., and there's a crack in the armor of the capitalist realism mood. But others also point out union memberships keep declining although there is more militant strike activity, and ofc the labor movement is stronger generally than it has been in a while. And the Biden NLRB has turned out to be pretty strong. Amazon isn't moving at the rate of success I'd like but it's going at the pace it takes to organize something of that scale.
Happy to subscribe to you, looking forward to reading more.
BTW I'll by integrating pretty in depth Marxist stuff into my next couple articles, although the audience is mainly going to be mental health professionals.
Calvin, thanks so much for your comment and subscription. It sounds like we have a lot of overlapping interests. I like your first piece and am looking forward to your future posts.
As someone in her 50s in tech (front end engineer, web dev) who has been laid off twice this year, I have all but given up looking for salaried work. The recent layoffs in tech are affecting women disproportionately, and there are many accounts of women leaving tech (see the r/womenintech subReddit). It is unfortunate, but it doesn't seem that tech workers are pushing to unionize, they see themselves above "labor", they are misinformed of course. But I was hopeful that some of that talent leaving tech would form coops to run privacy-first and open source projects. Some will. Problem is the funding, there is a strangle hold on what gets funded, and big tech and VCs controlling pretty effectively what is built. As more and more $ is vacuumed upwards, less is available down here and some of us will not survive. I believe an incoming Trump admin influenced by accelerationists like Elon means they will either let or cause the economy to crash, and say it is for our own good - that we have to go through that pain to set the ship right. Look to Argentina, a lot of the policies being implemented there will be used here. I could be very wrong about much of this, please let me know where cause i want to be able to understand where we are at.
Mona, I’m so sorry to hear about the recent layoffs you’ve experienced. I know that’s been a common story throughout the industry for several years now.
I understand IT is a field especially rife with misogyny as well as this lack of working-class identity, probably due not only to the highly technical but also bureaucratic nature of the work. Though, as you indicated, there’s certainly been some change there in recent years, especially as work in this field is increasingly treated as expendable, replaceable, and exploitable. These businesses act like they’re just doing what’s necessary to be “lean,” just recognizing areas of redundancy they hadn’t noticed before, but I think they’re mostly just throwing workers overboard in response to changes in the market (whether it’s the crisis in the market caused by the COVID disruptions or integration of automating tech like AI). But I have to believe this kind of industry-wide treatment, year after year, will cause some shifts in consciousness among workers in the field.
As critical as they are, even this author ends on a sort of looking out for yourself mentality. But I appreciate the article overall).
Unfortunately, your take on the Trump admin sounds pretty much on point to me, whether their exact intention is to crash it or not, it’s going to be ugly to whatever extent they intervene, and they seem poised to do so.
I’m sure we’ll see many people waking up to the reality quite quickly as it hits and hoping the left can build some resistance out of that.
Yeah I think frustration with capitalism is at a first time in 100 years high in the U.S., and there's a crack in the armor of the capitalist realism mood. But others also point out union memberships keep declining although there is more militant strike activity, and ofc the labor movement is stronger generally than it has been in a while. And the Biden NLRB has turned out to be pretty strong. Amazon isn't moving at the rate of success I'd like but it's going at the pace it takes to organize something of that scale.
Happy to subscribe to you, looking forward to reading more.
BTW I'll by integrating pretty in depth Marxist stuff into my next couple articles, although the audience is mainly going to be mental health professionals.
Calvin, thanks so much for your comment and subscription. It sounds like we have a lot of overlapping interests. I like your first piece and am looking forward to your future posts.
All the best,
Kevin
As someone in her 50s in tech (front end engineer, web dev) who has been laid off twice this year, I have all but given up looking for salaried work. The recent layoffs in tech are affecting women disproportionately, and there are many accounts of women leaving tech (see the r/womenintech subReddit). It is unfortunate, but it doesn't seem that tech workers are pushing to unionize, they see themselves above "labor", they are misinformed of course. But I was hopeful that some of that talent leaving tech would form coops to run privacy-first and open source projects. Some will. Problem is the funding, there is a strangle hold on what gets funded, and big tech and VCs controlling pretty effectively what is built. As more and more $ is vacuumed upwards, less is available down here and some of us will not survive. I believe an incoming Trump admin influenced by accelerationists like Elon means they will either let or cause the economy to crash, and say it is for our own good - that we have to go through that pain to set the ship right. Look to Argentina, a lot of the policies being implemented there will be used here. I could be very wrong about much of this, please let me know where cause i want to be able to understand where we are at.
Mona, I’m so sorry to hear about the recent layoffs you’ve experienced. I know that’s been a common story throughout the industry for several years now.
I understand IT is a field especially rife with misogyny as well as this lack of working-class identity, probably due not only to the highly technical but also bureaucratic nature of the work. Though, as you indicated, there’s certainly been some change there in recent years, especially as work in this field is increasingly treated as expendable, replaceable, and exploitable. These businesses act like they’re just doing what’s necessary to be “lean,” just recognizing areas of redundancy they hadn’t noticed before, but I think they’re mostly just throwing workers overboard in response to changes in the market (whether it’s the crisis in the market caused by the COVID disruptions or integration of automating tech like AI). But I have to believe this kind of industry-wide treatment, year after year, will cause some shifts in consciousness among workers in the field.
(BTW, just enjoyed this relevant article that I’ve seen floating around recently: https://twothirdshuman.substack.com/p/we-started-a-coup-at-work-heres-why
As critical as they are, even this author ends on a sort of looking out for yourself mentality. But I appreciate the article overall).
Unfortunately, your take on the Trump admin sounds pretty much on point to me, whether their exact intention is to crash it or not, it’s going to be ugly to whatever extent they intervene, and they seem poised to do so.
I’m sure we’ll see many people waking up to the reality quite quickly as it hits and hoping the left can build some resistance out of that.
All the best,
Kevin