Is Technology Liberal?
These days, I can’t say I have a burning passion for these topics, but without a doubt, given the season and my profession, both technoloy and politics are front and center on my RADAR. However, outside of silly DMCA issues and ‘trucks in tubes’ and the like, I never really tied the two together in any obvious way.
Today, David Brooks has a column talking about the class war. It’s mostly an opinion piece on how the GOP is bleeding itself of traditional supports. The snippet that stuck out to me, however, was this one:
The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.
That’s a ratio that seems oddly outside the norm for an industry that I never really considered leaned one way or the other politically. What makes technology liberal (aside from Al Gore inventing the Internet jokes)? I could come up with some random theories, but I’m probably not in a position to back any of them up. Just thought I’d share that interesting datapoint at the intersection of technology and politics. I’ll leave the analysis up to the pundits.
8 Comments
I think one big thing is open-mindedness. Present-day Bush and McCain-style conservatives seem very close-minded, very anti-intellectual, and very anti-science. If the Republican Party ever shifts from a focus on social conservatism to economic conservatism, that huge imbalance of support for the Democratic Party will probably start to level out.
Virtually everyone I know in the tech industry leans liberal, at least socially (Democrats, Green, Libertarian). I think there is a strong foundation in the tech industry of “equalizing” and “democratizing,” whether via the sharing of open source software or in providing open and equal access to computing time and resources. The GPL is particularly political in nature, and is definitely a left-leaning license, valuing the rights to individual access and affording community protection. Add to that the tech community’s long-standing connection with the art world via designers and writers, and those fields’ classic association with liberal and progressive ideals, and you have the foundation for a politically left-leaning industry.
I’ve been curious about this too and like what you, Jesse, pointed out about the art world. Most of the folks I follow on Twitter, for example, lean left, and are mostly tech folks and creatives.
As a former “right of center” tech guy who himself is now left of center, it’s my belief that the Republican party represents a command-n-control mindset; a hyperfocus on tradition and yes, “looking backwards”; and the art of the snippet or headline (vs. depth).
The Democratic party represents a depth and expansive mindset; a focus on the people (i.e., the ‘crowd’); and deep thought and issue consideration that is exactly how tech views the world.
So Republicans feel ’stale and old’ to tech folks while Democrats feel ‘forward looking and futuristic’.
What Jesse said.
And tech folks are generally pro-science.
There’s a bunch of data about how the brains of conservatives are fundamentally wired differently than liberals.
Conservatives like certainly, they don’t like ambiguity, they don’t like change, and minor bad things REALLY scare them.
You just can’t survive in a fast-paced crash-and-burn field like technology if you brain is wired like that… Maybe you could be a DBA
The Republicans I know in the tech industry are usually more libertarian. They lean Republican because of perceived fiscal benefits, gun rights, and a general dislike of most Democratic leaders.
Great theories here!
“The Republicans I know in the tech industry are usually more libertarian.”
Good call. Now that I think about it, I’d have to agree based on those that I know.
> The Republicans I know in the tech industry are usually more libertarian. They lean Republican because of perceived fiscal benefits, gun rights, and a general dislike of most Democratic leaders.
The key to that statement is perceived. Republicans have been anything but “fiscally conservative” over the last 8 years. Libertarians (disclaimer: I consider myself a left-leaning libertarian) should disavow any association with Republicans and their anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-curiosity culture.
Many people in technology are younger. The youth skew left. If you sell to government you need to donate (ahem, bribe) both repubs and dems. Many technology business owners I know lean republican due to tax concerns. Neither party is all that different today except for some key social issues.