i think ws talks about himself in one of his former instantiations. As you can see below, yuppies are to be watched like zoo animals. moreover, IT people can only be trusted as long as the economy is good (which flows for the blue collar workers, too, we guess). and they are generally conservative to begin with, only to become positively fascistic when the economy gets worse. $1 to the person who wants to search around for the time he's explained that the very structure of the occupation, working with code, binaries, etc., practically forces that world view on programmers and other IT types.
also, at the end, you will have a theory of how "yuppies" came to exist.
otherwise, wojtek generally has arguments with phantasms: straw people he makes up and then, when pressed as to whom he's speaking of, you get zippo in terms of evidence.
>I do not mind yuppies that much - I give them generally a Mencken treatment
>- i.e. watching them like zoo animals, which can be amusing. But otherwise
>they can be easily avoided simply by not fraternizing with them. Moreover,
>they have some usefulness in the form of the so-called "neighborhood effect"
>(e.g. clean streets, a good variety of shopping within a walking distance).
>It is the lumpen that I dread more, because it is not possible to avoid them
>that easily - they are loud, aggressive and obnoxious, leave their shit
>everywhere, steal from you, and have a very negative neighborhood effect.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2005/2005-September/020682.html
>It is also my understanding that things
>became much worse for the sector that so far felt immune from the
>downturns of the capitalist economy - software engineers. These folks
>are conservative to begin with, and it is unlikely that they will turn
>liberal when the going gets tough - au contraire, they will turn
>reactionary.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-March/005794.html
>I think that this is a bit of oversimplification - a quite complex
>social reality flattened under a simplistic psychological concept
>ready-made for identity politics ("They hate us, because they envy us,
>because we are special.") In fact, racism involves several different
>processes, such as:
>-status generalization (or attribution of conventional stereotypes to
>unobserved personal characteristics, such as skin color and intellectual
>or physical ability);
>- limited and negative personal experience (e.g. "I do not know many
>blacks/Poles/Jews, but the few ones I met were aggressive/stupid/greedy,
>therefore all blacks/Poles/Jews must be aggressive/stupid.greedy."
> - actual differences in cultural values and life styles
>- perceived differences, identity politics and reference groups
>- competition in zero-sum games (such as jobs or college admissions)
>- divide and conquer tactics of the ruling class (e.g. portraying
>affirmative action as a "racial quota" system to stir conflict).
>
>Reducing that gamut of to individual emotions obscures more than
>explains.
>The phenomenon of IT programmer fascist attitudes is, imho, a quite
>different phenomenon than racism, but both share some common traits.
>
>The IT programmer's (or any downwardly mobile profession or occupation)
>are probably best understood as a form of the "endowment effect" or a
>perception that what one actually has is worth more than a similar thing
>that one does not have. For example, the job that I have might appear
>to me as better than a job I can gain if I change my career. In case of
>IR programmers, or skilled smoke stack industry labor for that matter,
>that perception was reinforced by the "new economy" propaganda or
>popular perceptions of what a good job is. From that point of view, any
>job change appears as a loss and produces anger.
>
>More importantly, the overall direction of the economy and the position
>of an occupational group in that economy is probably one of the key
>factors in adopting different ideologies.
>
> If you start low in an expanding economy (as most of the workers in the
>19th century industry did) and you see that your upward mobility is
>thwarted by institutional obstacles (such as property relations) - it
>makes sense to adopt an ideology that promotes universal rights (as
>virtually all left-wing ideologies do) because you have nothing to loose
>from such rights but your chains, but everything to gain.
>
>If, otoh, you start high in a contracting economy or niche (as many IT
>programmers do) you see that "your" job and a high social status are
>being eroded. However, you have nothing to gain from promoting
>universal rights in that situation, au contraire - you have much to
>loose (e.g. your privileged position). Therefore you are more likely to
>adopt a protectionist stance and rationalize that by scapegoating some
>powerless outsiders (Asians, immigrants, etc.) for taking "your" jobs.
>The smoke stack industry workers did that (cf. the Japanese import
>smashing rituals in Detroit) and the IT programmers will most likely
>follow the same path.
>
>It is not surprising that the downwardly mobile blue collar workers and
>IT programmers who are joining their ranks are the main supporters of
>the Repug party and fascist politics in general.
>
>Wojtek
>Cool. The arrogant US techies meeting their just desert.
>
>Wojtek
>And the yuppie
>crap? I prefer that to Murdoch's tabloids prominently displayed in
>cashier lanes in every supermarket.
>Personally I do not like the new-age yuppies and
>would not befriend one, but I like them for their neighborhood effect,
>or externalities if you will. When the yuppies move int, theiy do not
>move to the burbs, their taxes go to the city, the retail outlets and
>service start coming back, new jobs are created and most folks benefit.
>It may not have the old homey small town feeling anymore - but that is a
>different story.
>As I previously argued, the notion that capitalist relations of production
>"produced" the class of people labeled as "working class" - that notion is
>historically inaccurate. There is plenty of scholarship suggesting that
>"working class" of the 18th or 19th centuries was in fact a product of the
>feudal relations - capitalism simply found a certain use for this class.
>Further more, "capitalism" (i.e. industrialization) profoundly changed the
>nature of that original working class by differentiating it beyond anything
>recognizable. So what capitalist relations of production actually produced
>was not the working class it initially exploited (that was the product of
>agrarian relations) but the middle "yuppie" class - skilled and while collar
>workers.