Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

CORROSIVE SOCIAL CEMENT. The flow of drugs into Silicon Valley completed a productive circuit: California exported microchips and imported drugs; the drugs powered the labor that went back into the microchips; and so on. With every circulation, capitalists strengthened themselves in relation to workers by peeling off a growing share. The drugs were part of the corrosive social cement, binding populations together in the acid embrace of dispossession.