Sorry folks, full disclosure: I am a Commie who read Marx and therefore my advice is as follows: if a tech bro gazillionaire tells you his one goal is to free you, the wage worker, from the machine, it is probably a lie.

Because newsflash: just like 150+ years ago, if you don’t own the means of production in our current economic system, you will have to sell your labor - under its value - to someone else.

And that labor most likely involves you working in a hierarchy below one or multiple machines or machine-like reps from the PMC.

Period!

In Joanne McNeil’s “Wrong Way”, the fictional mega monopoly AllOver brands itself as totally pro worker, completely pro environment, of course pro leveling the playing field, and promises that with the help of AI the proletariat will finally be freed from its chains …

The reader senses from the start that the main protagonist, 48-year Boston area gig worker Teresa, will probably be getting - again, as with her previous jobs - the short end of a very thorny stick, and without giving away the premise of AllOver’s self-driving car scam, I will confirm that this indeed happens!

But will she fight back? How did she even got into this predicament of non-stable life/work balance? Is it her own fault, did she not grind hard enough? Will workers prevail in this near future scenario?

We will find out!

Meantime: visit the Book Club archipelago and watch past shows via the playlist below:

If you'd like to suggest an author, please email slbookclub@draxtor.com.