Towards a Socialist Technology

Technology is a powerful tool in shaping social life; it is as well shaped, to a great extent, by the most salient values and the power relations of the societies where it is designed. History has proven wrong the hope that technologies issued from a capitalist orientation, particularly those related to production, will be turned at the service of socialism once social relations change in that direction. So, the chapter departs from the following assertion: it is not possible to advance socialist values if the intellectual and physical tools with which we understand and attempt to modify the world and our society are oriented exclusively by capitalist goals. Thinking of a technology with socialist inspiration faces a sort of technological TINA—There Is No Alternative—, that paralyzes imagination and contemptuously dismiss any attempt to propose heterodox knowledge and innovation agendas and even more so heterodox heuristics of solving problems. However, capitalism is not less resilient than capitalist technology: Why, then, if the search for alternatives to prevailing capitalism continues should not be the same with technologies of socialist inspiration? This is not the case, though, even when leftist governments are in place. The chapter presents an effort to explain what does “technology of socialist inspiration” mean and why its search has been so elusive. Examples of successful experiments of technologies with such inspiration are presented and their limits discussed. Finally, some prerequisites for the emergence—perhaps interstitial—of technologies of socialist inspirations are presented as challenges that can be addressed.