Building the Future? Software Workers’ Imaginaries of Technology

Abstract

This article investigates an actor’s perspective on digital capitalism. Building on the literatures on control and autonomy of software workers in digital capitalism and on the New Spirit of Digital Capitalism, we argue that an investigation of software workers’ orientations towards the use value of their work and of their imaginaries of technology contributes to our understanding of digital capitalism. We ask how software workers make sense of their work and how different imaginaries of technology might form the basis for a critique of digital capitalism or strengthen its legitimacy. We find that software workers hold strong claims of a societal use value of their work. While their ethos of good technology forms a strong foundation to critique hindrances they perceive in creating useful technology, imaginaries of technology as an autonomous force might delegitimise the workers’ claims.