The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2353262 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Oliver Nachtwey (0000-0002-6246-1692, University of Basel), T Seidl (0000-0001-6895-7114, University of Vienna, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 91-112 |
| Publication date | 2024-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/02632764231196829 |
| OpenAlex | W4387904238 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 29 |
| References cited | 48 |
Digital technologies are rapidly transforming economies and societies. Scholars have approached this rise of digital capitalism from various angles. However, relatively little attention has been paid to digital capitalism's cultural underpinnings and the beliefs of those who develop most digital technologies. In this paper, we argue that a solutionist order of worth - in which value derives from solving social problems through technology - has become central to an emerging spirit of digital capitalism. We use supervised learning to trace the relative importance of different orders of worth in three novel text corpora. We find that solutionism is indeed central to the normative beliefs of digital elites and the broader digital milieu, but not to capitalist discourse at large. We illustrate the importance of these findings by discussing how the spirit of digital capitalism motivates, legitimates, and orients the actions of digital capitalists
Capitalism · Digital economy · Economics · Epistemology · Neoclassical economics · Normative · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Elite Sociology and Global Capitalism · Law · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Philosophy · Social Media and Politics
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| Unique citing works | 29 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 9,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 27 |