Replication material for: “The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism.”

Replication material for: “The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism.”

Authors

Oliver Nachtwey (University of Basel)
Timo Seidl (University of Vienna)

Publication year

2023

How to cite

Nachtwey, O., Seidl, T. (2023). Replication material for: The Solutionist Ethic and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism. FORS - Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.25597/vk4j-g435

Abstract

Digital technologies are rapidly transforming economies and societies. Scholars have approached this rise of digital capitalism from various angles. However, relatively little attention has been paid to digital capitalism’s cultural underpinnings and the beliefs of those who develop most digital technologies. In this paper, we argue that a solutionist order of worth – in which value derives from solving social problems through technology – has become central to an emerging spirit of digital capitalism. We use supervised learning to trace the relative importance of different orders of worth in three novel text corpora. We find that solutionism is indeed central to the normative beliefs of digital elites and the broader digital milieu, but not to capitalist discourse at large. We illustrate the importance of these findings by discussing how the spirit of digital capitalism motivates, legitimates, and orients the actions of digital capitalists.

Keywords

digitalisation
digital capitalism
solutionism
legitimation

Description of the material

Readme; readme_input.Rdata; replication_file.qmd; replication_spirit_of_digital_capitalism.Rproj; results_cleaned.RData

Geolocation

Switzerland, Basel City

Publication

No. 5