From useful idiocy to activism: a Marxist interpretation of computer development

Authors:
Bob Hughes
Affiliations:
Oxford Brookes University
Venue:
Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on Critical computing: between sense and sensibility
Year:
2005

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Abstract

Baran and Sweezy's 1966 study of U.S. capitalism [2] argued that its fundamental problem is not "diminishing returns" but "the tendency of surplus to rise" --- from which it has been rescued by wars, by "epoch-making innovations", and by a massive sales effort. In 1913 Rosa Luxemburg [12] showed that capitalism is unsustainable without the unacknowledged support of non-capitalist producers. Together these analyses seem to explain a great deal about today's, capitalist IT industries.