ABSTRACT
If Karl Marx had been alive to see the dot.com boom, one can imagine him viewing the development as logical, even unsurprising. As Marx and Engels observe in the excerpt from The Communist Manifesto above, constant technological and social change is the hallmark of capitalism, which is defined by “everlasting uncertainty and agitation.” According to Marx, the capitalist constantly innovates and revolutionizes the productive process in order to maintain power and exploit the working class. Just as it pursues new markets and new methods of management, the capitalist class pursues new technology as a means to maintain its class advantage. In this sense, the Internet and other new forms of technology may be viewed as weapons for the capitalist’s
arsenal. These weapons are multi-faceted in that they can be used for a variety of purposes. Technology, for example, can be used to create new products and/or to reach out to new consumer markets. Indeed, it seems as if every year, a new technology product becomes the “must have” for mass markets-from iPhones to Blackberries to Wiis. The skills associated with such technology can also be used to establish a market advantage or a market niche. For example, a degree in computer engineering can provide a professional worker with the skills to leverage a higher salary and a higher status in capitalist labor markets.
