The bad idea from Marx that lead him astray into pseudo-science territory wasn't worker alienation. It was the labor theory of value (and the other stuff he created to make it looks like it works).

Worker alienation is perfectly visible on the real world. I don't think anybody disagrees it's common.

But software development is different. There has been many decades where software developers suffered very little alienation. It only changed with the universal adoption of "corporate agile".

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kagakuninja an hour ago | parent | next [-]

At age 62, I'm wondering which mythical decade did not alienate software developers?

There was a brief ray of hope in the late 90s, with the startup gold-rush idea that we would all be millionaires soon. Then the I realized the founders had 4000x my equity those companies...

	▲	marcosdumay an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Developers used to be freer to choose their tools, organize their routines, decide the result of their work, acquire transferable knowledge, and had access to their tools without any link to any organization (though that one has been steadily improving instead of post-peak). There is more to alienation than equity.

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almostgotcaught 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But software development is different. There has been many decades where software developers suffered very little alienation. It only changed with the universal adoption of "corporate agile"

Lol are you really gonna go with "I'm a software developer, fuck all the restaurant workers, teachers, plumbers, janitors!"

This is why Marx's ideas failed in the West - toxic individualism - and flourished in the East.

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taeric 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Flourished, you say?

	▲	bpt3 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Great retort, I actually laughed out loud. I don't know how delusional you have to be to look at the conditions behind the Iron Curtain, where nations had to build walls to keep their citizens from leaving and a meaningful number of people were willing to risk death to get out, and say they were flourishing, but I'm glad I don't have what it takes to get there.

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LudwigNagasena 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Surely Marx would disagree with such assessment and call it idealistic and not grounded in material reality?