The Socialist Computer

An entertaining and ground-breaking introduction to the politics of information technology and how it can be part of the struggle for a better world.

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The Socialist Computer is a unique and highly topical analysis of capitalism and technology. Part cultural analysis, part political analysis, this book emphasises the contradictions and injustices that have stunted the utopian promise of information technology. Bob Hughes provides both a cultural history of computer science and a critical analysis of how it operates within the capitalist system. He gives a fascinating account of the alternative political structures within which computer technology has been used, such as Soviet use of computer technology in revolutionary Russia, and the utopian potential it still contains that is denied by corporate and government control. Referencing a wide range of critical thinkers, including Andre Gorz and Antonio Gramsci, to criticise the way in which information technology has been shaped under capitalism, The Socialist Computer is an entertaining and ground-breaking introduction to the politics of information technology.