Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Robert Dorschel, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism" (MIT Press, 2025)
Host: Dave
Guest: Robert Dorschel
Date: January 20, 2026

In this episode, Dave interviews sociologist Robert Dorschel about his new book, which investigates the social codes, class identities, worldviews, and lifestyles of tech workers—the professionals who program, manage, and design the digital technologies powering today's society. Dorschel challenges prevailing views that paint tech workers either as entrepreneurial elites or as mere cogs in the machinery of digital capitalism. Instead, his research reveals a nuanced, reflexive, and distinct middle-class position with its own emerging social codes.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining “Tech Workers” (03:33)

• Dorschel defines tech workers as professionals involved in programming, managing, designing, and often "imagining" digital technologies (software developers, data scientists, UX designers, AI engineers, product managers).
• Not included: top-tier tech entrepreneurs/managers or highly precarious gig workers.
• “These professional cadres, or knowledge workers, operate the backstage of digital capitalism.” — Dorschel (04:30)

Theoretical Framework: The “Post-Entrepreneurial Self” (06:38)

• Dorschel situates tech workers between the classic bureaucratic middle class and traditional professions (doctor, lawyer, etc.).
• He contrasts two ideal-types in white-collar identities:
  • Organizational self (Fordist era; long-term loyalty, collectivism, secure employment).
  • Entrepreneurial self (Post-Fordism; autonomy, network orientation, creativity, acceptance of precarity for self-fulfillment).
• His research asks: Are tech workers extreme entrepreneurs, new neoliberals, or something else?
• "Basically my interest in the book is, if we take this ideal type and we contrast the subjectivity of tech workers with it, what do we find?" — Dorschel (10:40)

Social Critique and Reflexivity in Tech (12:48)

• Tech workers are surprisingly reflexive and critical of their industry's problems—inequality, lack of diversity, techno-solutionism, and economic polarization.
• Many self-identify as “workers,” even with high incomes ($160,000 in US, €80,000 in Germany), and have a class-based worldview.
• “They see society as conflictive. They see workers as not getting their fair share... their preferred classification is, ‘oh, I'm a tech worker.’” — Dorschel (14:40)
• Tech workers critique industry leadership's grand promises, showing skepticism of technology as the sole solution to social problems.
• Emphasis on “reflective data work” and contextual understanding, but critical awareness does not always translate into union membership or tangible organizational change.
• “Only two of my interviewees are members of a union.” — Dorschel (17:35)

Lifestyles and Tastes: Ordinariness and Mindfulness (21:28)

• Tech workers foreground “ordinariness” in describing their lives—cafe visits, walking dogs, barbecues—rather than exclusive or highbrow culture.
• Efforts to cultivate authenticity and mindfulness are common; boundaries between work and life are actively managed.
• “They told me... I try to actually just work 9 to 5 or 9 to 6 and I try when I go home not to open my laptop.” — Dorschel (24:51)

Class Status: “Glitching” the System (26:25)

• Dorschel calls tech workers “a class fraction of the middle class with an upward trajectory” and unique “inscription power,” due to their influence over digital tools shaping society.
• Their combination of economic and informational capital positions them as key players in contemporary social space.
• Class analysis of tech workers is crucial for understanding both their own role and broader capitalist, technological change.
• "We have to understand... not only the objective class positions of these actors, but also their subjective class positionings...” — Dorschel (28:50)

The Role of Firms: Tension and Co-optation (31:12)

• Tech workers often more critical of the industry than of their own firms.
• Tech companies are adept at co-opting workers’ social codes—diversity and mindfulness—often commodifying them for productivity or branding.
• “There's an appropriation going on... contours of a new spirit of capitalism going on.” — Dorschel (33:45)
• Firms promote “diversity” and “mindfulness” as performance enhancers, not as ends in themselves.
• There is a tension: workers’ desires for morality/distinction and firms’ incentives to appropriate these for capitalism’s legitimation.

Future Research and the Evolving Middle Class (36:26)

• Dorschel is interested in following tech workers’ trajectories, especially as the industry and broader political contexts transform (e.g., AI disruptions).
• He plans future research on how generative AI affects various segments of the knowledge and middle class.
• Overarching interest: the future of the western middle class, its forms of distinction, cultural repertoires, and economic trajectories.
• “I’m intrigued to further study...middle class production and middle class reproduction beyond tech, but still including tech.” — Dorschel (38:20)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I thought I would find highly neoliberal subjects...but I think that's kind of almost a side story. The major story is that there are these prevalent social critiques among tech workers that really surprised me.” — Robert Dorschel (13:23)
• “People with these upper middle class incomes are classifying themselves as workers.” — Dorschel (14:35)
• “There's a foregrounding of ordinariness going on when I talk to them about their lifestyles...They told me, yeah, on the weekend I like to, you know, go to a cafe, walk my dog, barbecue with my friends.” — Dorschel (22:00)
• "Tech workers are often more critical of the industry, the broader tech industry, than of their specific firm." — Dorschel (31:18)
• "Job ads show a superficial appreciation of diversity, but it's grounded in the potential to fuel innovation and increased productivity." — Dorschel (32:24)
• “There's a new character, social character emerging that is distinct from this entrepreneurial self...” — Dorschel (18:19)

Key Timestamps

• [03:33] Defining “tech workers” & industry distinctions
• [06:38] Theoretical background—organizational vs. entrepreneurial self
• [12:48] Social critique, reflexivity, and the “return of class”
• [21:28] Lifestyles, ordinariness, and mindfulness practices
• [26:25] Class analysis: “glitching” the class system
• [31:12] The role of firms—co-optation and commodification of critique
• [36:26] Future research and evolving dynamics of the middle class

Overall Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is thoughtful and engaged. Both host and guest aim to demystify who tech workers are, how they view themselves, and what that means for broader understandings of class and work in digital capitalism. Dorschel’s findings challenge simplistic narratives about Silicon Valley as either pure entrepreneurship or exploitation, emphasizing instead a new, reflexive, and sometimes contradictory social character in tech's mid-layers.

This summary provides a comprehensive, timestamped outline of the episode’s key discussions, notable quotes, and theoretical contributions, capturing the original language and intent of the speakers.