One sort of positive affect of the downturn, is that computer programmers of a libertarian bent are finally starting to wake out of their Wired(TM) stupour, and realise that they're being screwed just as surely as smoke stack old economy employees.
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based upon personal observation, they seem to be moving to something closer to fascism. They've kept their sort of libertarian, individualistic, outlook (mixed with market fundamentalism) - but they've added to this a hatred of both immigrants and workers in places like Bangalore - while manufacturing a conspiracy in big government to sell their jobs abroad.
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Yes but, this is nothing new and should not be surprising. Also, it is important to not over-state the signifigance of the fascist-esque rants you might read on programmer mailing lists.
We have to start at the beginning.
During the 1990's, particularly in the latter half, people with IT skills - ranging in degree of depth from wannabes who didn't know how to format a diskette but held vendor supplied certifications to folks who dreamed in assembly language and wrote new operating systems for fun - were told that they were the vanguard of a new era of capitalism.
Some of those people, probably mostly the young, probably mostly the men, probably mostly those sheltered-in-life experience, swallowed this rhetoric whole and without filtration.
Everyone likes to be flattered. One of the reasons for the persistence of racism is that racist agitators excite the 'I'm-better-than-you' center of the brain with great success.
It would have been miraculous indeed if tens of thousands of young, well-paid people, bathed in a relentlessly warm media light of adoration, adopted a political outlook that was anything else besides libertarian or some variant thereof.
We deride these folks for their false class consciousness but we fail to take account of the massive propaganda effort to which they (we) were subjected and the, for a little while at least, quite tangible material rewards they received.
So the belief in meritocracy and libertarianism and other new economy ideas can be seen, in retrospect, as a natural consequence of the prevailing information environment.
Which brings us to today.
Ideas often die hard deaths, even when the material conditions supporting them have vaporized.
So, we now have a cohort of outcasts from Olympus, worshipped (it seemed) for nearly a decade as 'new economy' warriors, now finding themselves as vulnerable to corporate whim and 'market forces' as the once dismissed 'old economy' workers.
Of course, some of these people will think and say things that seem fascisistic or indulge in conspiracy musings or call upon the (always handy) pool of xenophobia and racism to explain their plight.
Anything besides a re-analysis of cherished assumptions or a review of the 'American way of life.'
It's not that late stage capitalism is rotten you see, it's just that Enron was a bad apple.
But as I said, we've seen this before.
Didn't some auto and factory workers also, during the first shock of job losses and 'off-shoring' which hit in the 1970's also say and do rude things about and against 'foreigners'.
Do you remember that photo of auto workers in Detroit smashing a little (already pretty much wrecked) Toyota? These men were not re-evaluating their place in the American system, they were striking an (ineffective) blow against those damn Japanese.
Some of those men probably drifted into fascist-esque affiliations through which they could nurse grievances with like minded fellows.
Isn't this just what some Americans do when the promised gravy train fails to hit the station as expected?
The IT worker saga is merely the latest, almost completed chapter of a long book of woe, confusion and inaccurate identification of one's true enemies.
DRM
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