The agglomeration of Third Way politics and the technosphere is one of the more insidious developments of our time. It’s as close to a real-life Borg as we’ve yet seen outside the fictional universe of Star Trek. Its staying power is testimony to its influence. With the uptick in Elon Musk–bro conservatism and the fractiousness of our political moment, it may appear anachronistic. Yet outside the dark, seasteading precincts of the Peter Thiel–dominated sphere of Silicon Valley, much of the tech nexus remains the domain of Stepford-smiley, liberal techno-utopianism. But this should come as no surprise: the boilerplate progressivism of the professional-managerial class “left” that has come to dominate much of Western politics has roots in the technocratic promises of Silicon Valley.

The phenomenon isn’t the sole purview of any one program or enterprise. But some are banner representatives of the trend. In 2021, the public benefit corporation Findhelp had raised just under $50 million, positioning itself as a leader in “building a better social safety net.” The company’s website notes that “the social safety net was created to ensure people’s basic needs are met.” But there’s a problem — one that, apparently, only a tech start-up can solve.

The problem it seeks to solve? “The collaboration between government programs, philanthropy, and community-based initiatives is clunky, frustrating, and inefficient.”

The solution it recommends? Well, naturally, it’s “software to support collaboration across the public and private sectors.” A subscription model, of course, with tiers to meet client needs. Findhelp licenses its service to organizations, offering four levels ranging from $5,400 a year for the basic package to $75,000 a year for “enterprise+.”

The Findhelp Evolution

With over fifty-one million users, the company exists to “simplify the complicated process of connecting people to help” and cites hundreds of clients in health, education, housing, and more as it serves as a bridge for organizations, programs, and individuals.

The company, which has been accused of anti-labor practices, is also currently in the courts arguing that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional. It’s revealing that a company whose promotional materials trade in care and compassion draws such a firm line in the sand when it comes to supporting those fighting for a better workplace.

Findhelp is the natural outgrowth of a social welfare system that has been neglected and increasingly outsourced to the free market — a market that includes B Corps, which, whatever their social goals, are still fundamentally for-profit. The more the welfare state recedes and the task of providing necessary services like health, housing, and education falls short, the more the private market steps in, monetizing and profiting from gaps in social support.

Running a welfare state requires investment, but for-profit companies, driven by the need to maximize revenue, often carve out fiefdoms within this ecosystem. Their focus on profits undermines the core goal of welfare state programs: serving the public, not making bank.

As tech companies come to dominate more of the welfare space, harnessing “progressive” language to justify their encroachment, the welfare state will increasingly fall to the idolatries of the market and the lust for profit. The tech industry is full of anti-state activists, libertarians whose call to arms, “move fast and break things,” is a promise to dismantle not only old market models but also the state and its social programs.

That Third Way progressives looking for “solutions” and “innovations” are easy marks for this play is beyond doubt. For years, reformed progressives from the Tony Blair and Bill Clinton era have been constructing playbooks in brushed aluminum prose, always “innovating” and solving problems by way of “deliverology,” or whatever new fad is sweeping marketing schools or MBA programs or Silicon Valley boardrooms.

“Progressive” Platform Patter

Any commitment to solving welfare state challenges by way of for-profit tech subscription models — instead of, say, a state database or service — is a canary in the coal mine for the government’s commitment to serving those in need. By the time third-party websites are singing the required but perfunctory praise of “health equity,” “community engagement,” “overcoming systemic barriers of inequity,” and so forth, while extracting whatever profit they can manage, the welfare state is in deep trouble.

By endorsing these “market-based solutions,” liberal enthusiasts of tech solutionism are constructing a powerful and terrible beast that will ultimately seek to displace what’s left of the state’s role in ensuring widespread care for its citizens. Why create state-led initiatives when you can farm them out?

Organizations like Findhelp present a perfect marriage of libertarianism, professional-managerial class technocracy, and Silicon Valley techno-utopianism. While the socialist left struggles for a return to class politics and universal programs, this new model undermines these efforts by way of a sanctimonious air of superiority.

You can almost hear the condescension in their questions: “Do you want actual help or government ineptitude?” Or the judgment, as they admonish that “while you fret about inequality, we’re doing the work to smash inequity in the workplace!” Or perhaps, worst of all, for those of us who are sometimes forced to rub shoulders with these people, are the lectures over dinner or drinks about the power of the gizmos and sublime genius that will, at last, “unlock Whole Person Care.” It’s a hellscape.

Techno-Solutionism Won’t Save Us

The idea that technological tools can help solve coordination and access problems isn’t mistaken; in fact, these tools are essential for tackling such problems. The issue is that the tools aren’t the point. The danger of profit-driven techno-solutionism lies in its tendency to privatize fundamentally public projects, ultimately overshadowing, and potentially eliminating, the role of the state. It echoes the Ronald Reagan–era mantra that government isn’t the solution to your problems, but the problem itself.

Implicit in missions such as those of FindHelp is the premise that the state cannot or will not accomplish the work that must be done to care for its people. And if that’s true — and hollowing out the welfare state will, indeed, ensure it is — then, of course, only the free market can step in to solve the problem. Never mind that the problem has been created by the very class that wishes for the state to fail, wither, and die so that it can fill the void.

Rebuilding the welfare state means rejecting the marriage of Third Way politics and Silicon Valley promises. We must begin by turning away from the burnished claims of the start-up community. We must recognize that its “progressive” argot is nothing but the seductive rhetoric of forces that are, at best, naive do-gooders blinded by their class positions and, at worst, cynical profiteers deploying shiny-happy bombast to mask their true goal of making a killing.

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