Science and technology are not, as is commonly believed, the unbiased application and development of technical capabilities and knowledge. They are political, and their primary purpose is to serve the ruling class of a society. Powerful military weapons, advanced surveillance capabilities, job-eliminating automation, and increased job precarity thanks to Uber and similar companies are not natural or unavoidable developments of technology; rather, they are the result of a deliberate plan developed by the class that finances and directs it. One of the many significant contributions that Science for the People (SftP) made during its initial publication run in the 1970s and 1980s is this political analysis of technology. Of course, technology has come a long way since that time: the smartphones we carry in our pockets today are a lot more powerful than the supercomputers that used to take up entire rooms. However, many of the political issues surrounding technology that we face today are largely unchanged from those of the past. Science for the People provided many other political analyses that we can and should build off of in our current struggles, including structural critiques of the impacts of automation on workers’ struggles, the lack of diversity in STEM fields, the increased capacities of the state to conduct surveillance and repress dissidents, the development of AI and its relationship to the military, and many others.
A brief summary of these contributions from the second half of the initial SftP is provided below, along with commentary on their connections to current debates and ideas for our movement’s future direction. The world was astonished in 2013 when Edward Snowden, an NSA whistleblower, revealed the extent of the mass surveillance apparatus. However, states have long used advanced computing technologies to monitor, analyze, and oppress their citizens. This article delves into the West German surveillance state’s construction, which is supposed to be used to prevent terrorism (sound familiar?). but actually utilized to suppress all dissent within society, particularly the Left. Private businesses were more than willing to assist, as Snowden’s revelations demonstrated. Similar to how technological automation can be used for good, some of the first algorithms developed to analyze behavior could be used for good if they were geared toward the masses rather than the ruling class. Rather than looking at a person’s education level, income, and neighborhood to determine if they need to be surveilled and controlled due to their increased likelihood of committing crimes, we could use the results from these algorithms to help analyze and alleviate the root problems that actually cause crime to occur.