2020 TECH POLICY SHOWDOWN

The 2020 campaign season has begun in earnest. The DSA has officially endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. What would we like to see out of his yet to be revealed national tech policy? And what do we think of the plans being put forth by Elizabeth Warren, Andrew “UBI” Yang, and (former hacker) Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, among others?

For our general meeting last week, we tried to come up with some answers, applying our socialist analysis to topics such as universal basic income, automation, monopoly power, data collection, platform censorship, tech unionization, and nationalization. We discussed these issues together and brainstormed others that we would like to see addressed on a national level.

Ahead of the meeting, in order to provide some context for the discussion, we put together some background readings here. We will continue to update this document over the next couple months. Take a look and comment with links to more readings or other topics to consider!

The outcome of the meeting was our very own 2020 Tech Policy draft, a living, policy brainstorm document that’s linked here.

Any positive contributions are welcome to the document, including ideas that may be in opposition with others’ opinions, as well as links to arguments or data published by others online. The Tech Action OC (Organizing Committee) has populated the document with ideas from the conversations in our last meeting, but that starter content is far from comprehensive of what everyone discussed. If you have ideas, share them! As always, be respectful of your fellow comrades.