zuboff: the value of learning

In Shoshanna Zuboff’s analysis of technology and the “informated organization” (from In the Age of Smart Machines), she makes a traditional social science critique of technology: it is not neutral. But she doesn’t end there, which is why I kept reading.

Like Lessig in Code, Zuboff argues that technology constrains choices. It makes new things possible, thereby altering our horizons, and it affects more than just the managerial class or the worker class. In fact, Zuboff points out that these classes are very hard to distinguish from one another in the informated organization. Yes! She’s willing to admit that the picture of technology and work is complicated and cannot be driven into simple categories.

She invokes Arendt’s vision of the future, where everyone surrenders their critical judgment to the system and becomes docile and unable to resist that system. Zuboff notes that in taking the path of least resistance, technology tends to favor those currently in power. This reminds me of the idea that there are no evil people in the world; everyone does their job, and when something bad happens in a system as complicated as ours, there are so many cooks in the kitchen that no one in particular has spoiled the soup. Zuboff warns that unless technology is harnessed for its equalizing possibilities, it may indeed perpetuate current hegemony, as other theorists have suggested.

The way out of this technological passivity and reproduction of current power systems is through learning. The informated organization sounds pretty nice in this characterization; learning is productive, in fact, the main source of productivity for one of these organizations. It is in the organization’s best interest to educate its employees, or to give them space to educate themselves. Wouldn’t it be nice if this were true for all jobs? While I’ve enjoyed learning from jobs, I have often found that management prefers a limit to my learning. And also, I wonder: what happens when employees switch jobs every 6 months? That’s often the case in high-tech sectors now. But then, perhaps cross-organization learning is to be valued in employees. While organizations may know they can’t hold on to an employee like this for longer than a year, the experience they come with (once purchased with an appropriate salary) is free.