[PaulDavisThe1st]

(1) There are privately held companies who are not answerable to shareholders (certainly not a large group of them), and who may not even operate with profit as their primary goal.

(2) There are more nuanced definitions of "working class" which might be useful in this context. As much as I applaud class solidarity, there are ways in which software engineers currently are not subject to the same issues as other people who sell their labor to capital in order to make a living.

(3) Empowering the working class has not been a particularly successful strategy when done at scale, from a historical perspective. It seems more effective to focus on empowering people you know, the place you live, organizations that have something to do with you. "The working class" is, at this point in US history, far too amorphous and ill-defined a group, riven by division sown by capital in its own interest, to really be the focus of much empowerment.

[acephal]

Yeah really can't behind this idea software engineers are in any way "working class". Kind of an affront in my book.