Technocracy

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The advent of behavioral capitalism has radically reshaped the nature of economic relations. With technological progress comes new staging grounds for power-relations between labor and capital: providing new avenues for corporate exploitation, but also new means for labor to strike at capital. This collection explores the interaction between technological evolution and socialism.
Alex Mell-Taylor
January 2023
A troubling new technology risks deteriorating working conditions for working artists.
Bill Mosley
December 2022
Brief coverage of an anti-Amazon rally held on Black Friday.
Alex Mell-Taylor
November 2022
How Arlington rebranded Reaganomics as “diversity.”
Les P
June 2022
Gains the Mayor has made in improving DC’s public education system have been undermined by a callous approach to workers, funding mismanagement, and a disregard for transparency and open communication.
Ryan Cudemus-Brunoli
February 2023
Without a guarantee of healthful food to all, we will be unable to move forward or effectively organize any form of alternative to capitalism.
Woody Woodruff
January 2022
How equitably can federal funds be released for infrastructure? It depends on how skilled local and state governments are at scooping up and managing those funds.
Woody Woodruff
November 2021
An inventive new book uses a technology lens to show how the automobile took over culture, with capitalism guiding events at every turn
Dylan Craig
October 2021
District educators should consider abandoning pay-systems that reproduce competition and inequity in the workplace.
Dan Singer
August 2021
It's not as daunting as it looks.
Woody Woodruff
July 2021
An (admittedly old-fashioned) MDC DSA member outlines his skepticism about podcasts. Does the history of peasant rebellions in the 16th century provide clues to their value?
Andy Feeney
June 2021
A marxist analysis of Biden's signature infrastructure bill.
Bill Mosley
April 2021
The estate of Dr. Seuss was justified in ceasing the publications of several of his books. His legacy should be viewed against the entirety of his life’s (rather progressive) work.
Max B. Sawicky
April 2021
Modern monetary theory: what it is, where it comes from, who supports it, and how to separate the economic theory from political rhetoric.
Kurt Stand
April 2021
A labor contingent in PG County reviewed organizing efforts at Amazon and eco-socialist organizing around the PRO Act.
Alex McDowell
March 2021
The growing threat of fascism will require deeper attention paid to administrative security.
Gary zZz
March 2021
An annotated discussion on capitalism and virtual realities with the creators of Preserving Worlds.
Kam W.
March 2021
Building a policy platform based on oppositional politics risks putting the working-class in bed with otherwise hostile interests.
Alex McDowell
February 2021
Local socialists have been quietly building out an anti-capitalist technical operation for use by the DC-area left. Its impetus and activities are outlined here.
Woody Woodruff
August 2020
Adapting to life in the time of permanent biohazard is going to require permanent lifestyle and behavior changes, and we really don’t know which changes will be more or less pleasant and which ones not.
Woody Woodruff
June 2020
Automation provides the left an opportunity to mobilize socialism in the post-pandemic era.
Thom Hartmann
January 2020
While Facebook is currently embroiled in a controversy over whether it’s wrong for it to allow Trump’s political advertising that contains naked lies, the debate over fully or partially nationalizing the platform has gotten much less coverage.
Kaiser F.
July 2019
After Arlington County's vote, “For Us, Not Amazon” coalition will refocus around the issues we learned were the foremost concerns in the community.
Kam B.
May 2019
Pete Buttigieg and Howard Shultz are part of a larger phenomenon in U.S. cultural discourse that privileges a set of experiences and traits that are interpreted as merit, beyond any real policy value that a candidate brings to public debate.
Hunter T.
March 2019
With only two weeks to go before the Arlington County Board is set to vote on its $23 million incentive package for Amazon, the fight is more important than ever, and there are plenty of opportunities for comrades to get involved.
Daniel Adkins
January 2019
In the fast-changing world of automation trending toward AI, tech workers could find themselves in the same boat as other workers sooner than they think.
Bob Guldin
December 2018
A community forum held in Crystal City/Arlington showed that many NoVA residents are worried about the impact that Amazon will have on their home towns.
Elizabeth Stafford
July 2018
As a corporation, Amazon’s interests begin and end with their own wealth and influence. Any promises of corporate responsibility or community benefit not nailed down in ironclad legal contracts should be considered empty.
Daniel Adkins
June 2018
Education is a basic concern of the AFL-CIO. Millennial workers share this focus as one presenter noted that 50 percent of younger workers already have associate degrees or more.
Alex Howe
June 2018
Our local leaders have shown time and again that they are unable and unwilling to fight for what's best for the marginalized in our region
David Poms
January 2018
Last week, the DC Office of Planning (OP) released their first update in months, and unfortunately, it goes completely off-script from the process they laid out, putting those of us who care about housing, economic, and environmental justice in a tough spot.
Woody Woodruff
December 2017
A useful intercity rail system is in reach for Maryland if it defers the maglev and hyperloop dreams in favor of the needs of today's travelers.
Bill Mosley
July 2017
ATC privatization has been prevented for now, but privatization has powerful backers who aren't ready to quit after 30 years of trying, and it is likely to be resuscitated in the near future.
Michael Bindner
June 2017
How do socialists breach capitalism? Smucker's how-to provides some guidance.
Andy Feeney
June 2017
A lengthy recollection of DSA's engagement in the People's Climate March - and the panel we hosted before it.
John Grill
June 2017
The weekend of May 19th-21st, CWA workers at AT&T Mobility went on one of the largest retail worker strikes in U.S. history.
Dylan Shelton
June 2017
Getting money out of politics doesn't change the structures and institutions within which politicians operate.
A Discrete Socialist
May 2017
Local socialists join a united effort to push the DC government to pay stronger attention to investment policy.
Andy Feeney
May 2017
Carbon taxes are not every environmentalist's cuppa tea.
Lucy Duff
April 2017
Interest in a universal basic income (UBI) appears to be rising alongside a widespread sense that we are nearing the end of work. Two examples show what this sort of plan might look like.
Bill Mosley
April 2017
There is a wall of resistance to Trump and his agenda that will be difficult to break. Tim Snyder's review helps us build out a resistance strategy built for the long-term.
Woody Woodruff
April 2017
The Federal Communications Commission in Trumpland is allowing big telcom companies to sell more of your personal data.
Cecilio Morales
April 2017
As the nature of work becomes fundamentally upended by creative (and labor-abusing) technological-capital formations, novel perspectives are needed to combat these new modes of capitalist extraction.
Austin Kendall
April 2017
Trump's taking of the White House offered the possibility of shattering liberals' illusions of the neutrality of the state
Woody Woodruff
March 2017
The big problems that plague our society can only be solved with an effort that matches the size of their danger.
Kurt Stand
February 2017
In 1948, a socialist program was able to take hold in Wisconsin -- until the ascendance of neoliberalism began to peel back left-wing municipal planning.
Andy Feeney
February 2017
Kashkari, in introducing his proposal, stated that before Congress approved the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill during the Obama administration, the risks of the U.S. suffering from another big banking crisis amounted to some 84 percent. The enactment of Dodd-Frank significantly reduced such risk to just 67 percent, Kashkari added. But this is still much too high, especially given the ability of major financial crises to cause trillions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy and the world.
Andy Feeney
January 2017
Some analysts think Trump's clawback scheme could yield big stock buybacks but little capital investment.