I was asked the other day, if you were going to rewrite the Californian ideology in 2021,

what would you say? And I said, it wouldn't be the Californian ideology. It would be the Shenzhen ideology. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us.

I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Richard Barbrook.

Richard is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Westminster.

And he's also the author of a number of books,

including imaginary futures and class war games. He helped to write the Digital Democracy

Manifesto for Jeremy Corbyn's 2016 leadership campaign, and helped make the Corbin-run app game

for the Labor Party in the 2017 UK general election. But you'll probably know him best

as the co-author with his late colleague Andy Cameron of the Californian ideology, a pioneering

essay that looked at the neoliberal politics of the network technologies in Silicon Valley,

and particularly how that was communicated through Wired Magazine.

I was really excited to talk to Richard about his work, in particular about the Californian

ideology, how that concept kind of came to be between him and Andy, and how those ideas

remain relevant in the present. You know, I think this is a great conversation to kind of

cap off the last four episodes where we were discussing technological and network histories.

But beyond the California ideology, we also talk about some of Richard's more recent work on

games and using board games and app games for political purposes, which I think is

really interesting, especially as we've seen this kind of resurgence of board games and interest

in those in recent years. So I think you're really going to like this conversation. Before we get into it,

I just want to touch on a few quick things. The first issue of the Tech

Won't Save Us newsletter launched last weekend. I don't know if you had the opportunity to subscribe,

but if not, I highly recommend you do so. You'll get it every Sunday, and it is called The Hammer,

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