Technically Radical

Over 2024, we saw major tech investors and company owners overtly turn toward the right, overtly backing Donald Trump in his electoral campaign. This group of individuals, which commentators have taken to calling the “Tech Right”, are motivated by various concerns like the attempts by the Biden administration to regulate them and a general backlash against “wokeness”. Representative individuals and their respective justifications can be found in things like Marc Andreessen's essay The Techno-Optimist Manifesto or books like Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State, and Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska’s The Technological Republic.

How the Tech World Turned Evil

Once upon a time, they were counterculture idealists bringing power to the people. Today they’re greedy monopolists who’d sooner destroy our democracy than be reined in by government in any way—and they have to be stopped.

Radical markets: uprooting capitalism and democracy for a just society

Many blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking on its head. With a new foreword by Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier as well as a new afterword by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl, this provocative book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone. It shows how the emancipatory force of genuinely open, free, and competitive markets can reawaken the dormant nineteenth-century spirit of liberal reform and lead to greater equality, prosperity, and cooperation. Only by radically expanding the scope of markets can we reduce inequality, restore robust economic growth, and resolve political conflicts. But to do that, we must replace our most sacred institutions with truly free and open competition Radical Markets shows how

‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley

The industry’s liberal reputation is misleading. Its reactionary tendencies – celebrating wealth, power and traditional masculinity – have been clear since the dotcom mania of the 1990s

The Technological Republic: The Sunday Times bestseller from the great minds behind Palantir

The Sunday Times and #1 New York Times Bestseller‘The Technological Republic is far too important to ignore’ Times Literary SupplementSilicon Valley’s brightest minds once collaborated with governments to advance technologies, securing the West’s dominance on the global stage. But that relationship has corroded – with perilous repercussions for us all.Lifting the veil on tech giant Palantir and its broader political project, visionary co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and his long-time deputy Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective culture of complacency. To regain geopolitical power and preserve our freedoms, we must tackle the world’s most pressing challenges – including the artificial intelligence arms race – together and head-on. Now is the time for the West to wake up.‘Bold and ambitious ... Essential reading’ Eric Schmidt‘Fascinating’ Financial Times‘A stirring manifesto’ Niall Ferguson‘Provocative and insightful’ Jamie Dimon

Writings and rehearsals by Nathan Schneider

Welcome. I’m a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where I direct the Media Economies Design Lab and teach and learn from our students. I’ve written a book each on online democracy, cooperative enterprise, the Occupy movement, and God, and I’ve edited ones about solidarity economies, crypto, and co-ops. Reporting articles for both magazines and academic journals keeps my notebooks filled. Working with others to build a democratic economy keeps me accountable.

The New Utilities: Private Power, Social Infrastructure, and the Revival of the Public Utility Concept

From the renewed controversies over financial regulation and the problem of too-big-to-fail (TBTF) financial firms, to the clash over the FCC’s ‘net neutrality’

Technological parables and iconic illustrations: American technocracy and the rhetoric of the technological fix

This paper traces the role of American technocrats in popularizing the notion later dubbed the ‘technological fix’. Channeled by their long-term ‘chief’, Howard Scott, their claim was that technolo...

‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley

As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them

A Thesis on the History of the 21st Century: Technocracy, AI, and the End of the World

Reviewing a trio of books by a sextet of ruling-class ideologues, Mathias Fuelling finds an ambient anxiety hanging over a perceived crisis in American capitalism, with visions of bolstering a Silicon Valley-led technocracy fueled by AI investment reflecting American fears over the dawn of a "Chinese Century."

Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight over Intellectual Property

Andrew Ross, Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight over Intellectual Property, American Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 3, Rewiring the "Nation": The Place of Technology in American Studies (Sep., 2006), pp. 743-766

Pivot to People: It’s Time to Build the New Economy

Today’s calls for ethical, humane, responsible, regulated and beneficial technology, compounded with venture capital’s virtue signaling in…

The Anti-Intellectualism of Silicon Valley Elites

I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and now every time a reactionary Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation. Here's the column: On Instagram, there’s an activist named Brian Patrick (@pano.

Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism

Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism

Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism

Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism

The Beginning of the End of Big Tech

From politicians to VC firms, everyone is falling out of love with the massive, money-oriented, global technology titans. In their place, we have the chance to build something open and trustworthy.