<nettime> tech orders

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

There is an interesting twist that may help guide how to upgrade Marx to 
relevance.

The traditional industrial workers had only their bodies and time, and 
would get employed based on generic or specific skills. A consumer 
driving Ford or Chevy could not infer, in any way, anything specific 
about the workforce, least of all their ideological or political 
inclinations.

Things are a bit different with platforms today.

Initially the big new ones (GOOG, FB, TWTR) and their client companies 
groomed a very specific semi-infantilized workforce infused with 
identity politics and adoration for employers ("googlejugend" for short, 
calling them liberals, progressives or such doesn't make any sense - 
it's more like a chivalric order.) This paid off big time, as 
googlejugend happily and organically pushed the political agendas of the 
owners. It did not go unnoticed, and the competition found that they 
need compliant workforce to stay afloat. Case in point is TWTR 
competitor Gab, which lost its key techies, hosting provider, payment 
provider and registrar within few days after fatwa. Gab came back, but 
now they are looking for something extra in all of the above:

"We have been interviewing and hiring engineers who have a passion for 
liberty and freedom."

"What we need are providers with a backbone who share our values. 
Thankfully we’ve found a few."

In other words, the workforce in this industry cannot be safely 
separated from the product any more. Driving these cars today you do get 
to feel the ideology (or brainwashing) of the line workers. This will 
have amusing consequences.


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