Digital Sharecroppers
Are you working for “The Man”?
Should you be? This very interesting article on Tim BRay’s web raised some interesting questions for me about what I want to spend my time learning. (And, it doesn’t hurt that what little development I do is in PERL and usually for web-based CGI.)
Actually, I’ve felt for a long time that we’re really all just serfs serving feudal lords. All this fancy talk about “freedom” and “democracy” really is just that. We’re all still in thrall to the economic equivalent of a duke or king. We rely almost wholly on the generosity of our economic superiors. Should they turn against us, we are very much like the Medieval “out law”. We become excommunicated from our economic patron and, like a plant without water, we wither and die.
So, I find the sharecropping analogy quite apt.
In any case, it’s interesting stuff. Read, think, discuss.
