The rise of the data and technology industry plays a key role in the rapid deterioration of social and economic conditions in the U.S.
In the Marxist view of economics, the development of the productive forces is a key element which defines the overall development of a certain country or place. This generally means urbanization paired with real industrialization and the reduction of the urban-rural gap through land reform and an agricultural policy that promotes food sovereignty and self sufficiency. All of this paired with schools, hospitals, mass public transit and other markers of the development of social and cultural life can provide people with jobs and livelihoods that are the building blocks for socialist development.
In the North American republic, contrary to this, the ruling class has ensured that this society develops as what Jean Baudrillard terms ‘the desert of the Real’. Indeed, the cities in the North American Republic are the ‘desert of the future, neatly marked with spires that no longer shelter, but memorialize the death of social life itself’. This article will explore the lumpen development of the North American Republic; lumpen development signifies economic development that neither improves the economic outcomes, the social life, or the cultural development of a place but rather creates redundancies, very few jobs and extravagant wealth for the ruling class. Samir Amin defines it as “social disintegration resulting from development as currently practised”. The focus of the article will be on how lumpen development affects both rural and urban or semi-urban communities in the North American Republic. This is especially pressing given the fact that the government is no longer a front for the billionaires and bourgeois class, but is openly and undemocratically giving unlimited power to them (i.e. Elon Musk and “DOGE”).
One key node in the ruling class strategy of lumpen development–positioned at the intersection of tech, environmental degradation, surveillance, infrastructure construction, and governmental mismanagement of the economy–is the rapid construction of data centers. These buildings once started in abandoned warehouses and housed small scale computing machinery, and now they are in buildings which range from 200,000 to 700,000 square feet. The investments in these data centers are staggering as well, with Amazon pledging to invest $150 billion in their cloud computing infrastructure over the next 15 years. Google has been investing billions in the Rust Belt for the construction of these data centers as well. The monopoly capitalist firms headquartered in the North American Republic are at the leading edge of this: Oracle, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. According to Steven Gonzalez Monserrate, in 2022, 70% of the world’s internet traffic passed through Virginia’s ‘data center alley’. He also states that 40% of the electricity used in running these data centers is dedicated to the air conditioning system. As a union electrician who is currently working for a firm building one of these data centers, I can confirm–if only anecdotally–that much of the wire we have pulled and the panels we have installed are dedicated to the massive air handling units. Without dwelling too much on the technical details, these huge AC units are needed because of the sheer amount of heat dissipated by the servers and computers in each building.
Needless to say, the environmental impact of these data centers is catastrophic, especially because they draw energy from traditional or ‘dirty’ power grids, which use fossil fuels to keep them going. Yet, outside of the environmental impact, two other key facets of these data centers are important to note: their use in surveillance and the false notion of ‘job creation’.
By now, it is well known that companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Oracle are deeply enmeshed in the national security apparatus and use their massive reach online to help the government spy on the American people. These data centers, where massive amounts of personal metadata are stored, are an integral part of PRISM– the spying operation run by the NSA, FBI, and CIA–which was exposed by Edward Snowden years ago. Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle says that his company is ‘all-in’ on this new wave of mass surveillance and he hopes that this will keep people ‘on their best behavior’. Coupled with Elon Musk’s undemocratic government post, and the ways in which the ruling class is shoring up more power, this should be cause for alarm. On the false notion of ‘job creation’, these data centers are promising that they will be a source of economic prosperity.
The Amazon Web Services data center in New Carlisle, Indiana is promising a measly 1000 jobs after construction is done and the centers are operational. These jobs will mostly be in security, maintenance, and tech support. With most of the 1000 jobs already being filled by pre-existing AWS personnel, it will likely only be 500 or less jobs given to those living in the semi-rural community.
The way in which this hoax goes is as follows; Amazon has invested $11 billion in the New Carlisle site, which will take 5-10 years to complete. During this time, thousands of jobs in construction will be created, but after everything is said and done, the construction workers will move on, and what will be left are very few sustained jobs for the community. None of these jobs aid in the development of the region, which suffers from a lack of resources after the Reagan years stripped the North American Republic of a majority of its industry. The large trade unions are the ones who have the construction contracts, and these contracts offer handsome pay for backbreaking work and 6-7 day work weeks. Thus, American trade unions continue to be complicit in the ruling class strategy of lumpen development by only having narrow, economistic demands. Thus, the notion of the ‘labor aristocracy’ is given validation once again.
All around the North American Republic, lumpen development is evident. Urbanization is not paired with real industrialization, and job creation remains confined to the service sector. Even in the service sector, when workers demand better conditions, or try to form unions they are fired and replaced by a fresh new crop of workers languishing in what Marx termed the ‘reserve army of labor’. This strategy is currently in use by Starbucks and Costco.
Meanwhile, the government’s foreign policy prioritizes sending taxpayer money to fascist and authoritarian “Israel”. The ruling class of the North American Republic is chomping at the bit for a war with China, as evidenced by Trump’s tariff policies since entering office. As workers we should understand that China is not our enemy, and that we can learn a great deal from the Chinese when it comes to people-centered development instead of lumpen development. In 2017, HSBC revealed that 70% of Chinese millennials owned their home, while only about 65% of Americans in total own their own home. In China, a country-spanning network of high speed rail has been built which serves both commercial and pedestrian uses. Year-on-year Chinese workers are seeing gains in their wages and standard of living.
What this country needs is a movement against the tech oligarchs, against the forever wars, and in solidarity with the peoples of the world. No more money for wars! No more lumpen development! Peace, development, and fraternity!
Hanna Eid is a Palestinian American writer, researcher, and Union electrical worker. His writing concerns mainly imperialism and anti-imperialism in west Asia and west Africa.
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