Which is to say that even very intelligent people can be very vulnerable to believing in things which are patently false provided that the end result is the ability to continue to live in a state of complete denial, and a world of pure imagination, where no action is required on one's own part and you can just continue to hope that all of this is a temporary aberration that will get better on its own :)

Yep. Even clever engineers can be delusional fuckwits.

There's also a time component.

It's entirely possible that in the post-IBM microcomputer, pre-Google AdWords span, they were correct.

However, it's pretty obvious that current era, power has slid back from labor towards extremely-large corporations.

Obviously. Why else would people on hacker news advocate for all the socialist economic policies that humanity just spent the entire 20th century proving don't work?

Sadly history repeats so we'll probably just have another "cultural revolution" and "great leap forward" in the 21st century.

I disagree. I think most tech workers identify more with their employers and their class than their own status and that of their colleagues. They’re moving up, fast, and they’re satisfied with their prospects more than anything they might get from solidarity.

In Marxist terms, lumpenproletariat is a close approximation, but a weird accident of history.

That's not strange is it? If you're making 100k+/year, you're well into bourgeois territory, and FAANG benefits are practically near-instant-owner-class. Why would you expect anybody getting that kind of money to identify with the lower classes?

"Bourgeois" is not defined by how much you make per year. It's defined by your relationship to the means of production.

Anyone getting paid 100k+ is also getting stock options.

Sure, and many people getting less still own stocks via 401(k) etc. The important question is whether a person can live entirely off their rents, or they have to work for someone else for a living.

> That's not strange is it?

That depends on your baseline, of course. Or to answer your other question:

> Why would you expect anybody getting that kind of money to identify with the lower classes?

I don’t expect it, though I do have deep solidarity myself. Because, to return to the middle of your response:

> If you're making 100k+/year, you're well into bourgeois territory, and FAANG benefits are practically near-instant-owner-class.

I can speak to six figures, and I’m in no way into bourgeois territory. I’m approximately as comfortable as middle class boomers, ie I can make financial decisions to benefit my aging family with some hope I’ll still be comfortable myself. I don’t own anything in the sense meant by “bourgeois” in this context. I may yet, in the sense of a retirement plan. That’s a middle class aspiration. Which, having grown up poor and then broke and then getting by… I recognize very much is still working class.

There certainly is a larger segment of the tech work force than the general population which has reason to believe it can cross the bridge from gentry to ownership… but it’s still a minority of us and it’s mostly scraps. I don’t expect most of my colleagues to be comrades, but I certainly don’t agree with their class analysis which you have expressed so clearly.