Mechanic and the Luddite

I enjoyed the conversation through which this book was recommended to me way more than the book itself. Given that I have no training in political economy, I should have approached it as serious out-of-my-comfort-zone academic reading rather than struggling through it late at night or during sleepy Saturday brunches. Even so, the central chapters ("Data", "Labor" and "Landlords") were worth the effort. I only skimmed through the last two ("Risks" and "Futures"), but I guess that's ok because all of them are actually self-contained essays.

Jathan Sadowski introduces himself as a kind of 'learned proletariat' in this Marxist reading of contemporary technology. His upbringing is one that I understand well, having had a similar upbringing (albeit in a very different country). He repaired things at a young age, had little access to 'high academia' and went to a community college before extending his academic education. This story foreshadows his book on technology that covers many areas, from exploitative labour in AI to exclusionary practices in research funding.

I will preface that technology criticism is a large part of my work, so generally this book didn't introduce me to many new ideas. If you are not familiar with some of the more dystopic practices of big tech, then this might be a very good introduction. It's well written, although for me it has flaws. It does something that I always dislike about Marxist writing and tends to over-reference other obscure Marxist writers without qualifying their perspective. And like those writers, Sadowski tends to make matter-of-fact statements about things that he feels we must all believe to be true. While compellingly 'everyman' in tone, this is also often annoying, and I prefer the sharpness of writing of others who have covered these topics, such as Kate Crawford, David Graeber or Naomi Klein.