Editing Neuromancer (section)

=== Political and economic ===
''Neuromancer'', its sequels and other cyberpunk stories are often discussed within the socio-economic context of the 1980s, a period of economic restructuring,{{Sfn|Rosenthal|1991|pp=90–91}}{{Sfn|Rieder|2020|p=338}} corporate globalization,{{Sfn|O'Connell|2020|p=287-286}} and government deregulation.{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|p=82-83}}{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|p=89}} In the 1990s, a particularly influential view was that the novel reflected the "dilemmas of [[Post-Fordism|post-Fordist]] work and life",{{Sfn|Rosenthal|1991|p=99}}{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|p=94}} with Gibson reflecting or recreating the societal change brought on by the economic and industrial changes of the 1970s and 1980s.{{Sfn|Rosenthal|1991|p=99}}{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|pp=93–94}} Cyberspace's reliance on the circulation of data can be understood as a metaphor for the global circulation of [[financial capital]],{{Sfn|O'Connell|2020|p=287-286}}{{Sfn|Bould|2010|p=120}} and its [[addictiveness]] parodies the culture of [[Workaholic|workaholism]] among [[Silicon Valley]] developers.{{Sfn|Rosenthal|1991|p=99}} His protagonists have been identified as resembling contract workers,{{Sfn|Rieder|2020|p=338}} with Case dependent on [[diazepam]] to cope with the barrage of "relentless and fragmented data [and] get through the workday".{{Sfn|Rosenthal|1991|p=90}} The novel's characters represent the [[professional–managerial class]] and the novel was popular with the demographic.{{Sfn|Murphy|2024|p=103}}{{Sfn|Strombeck|2010|pp=278–279}}

While the novel represents anxiety about societal change, it is not generally viewed as being about resisting it. Gibson's protagonists do not threaten the social order of his worlds.{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|pp=92–93}} Corporations view the novel's freelance criminal protagonists as another tool at their disposal.{{Sfn|Rosenthal|1991|p=99}} Gibson's inexperience as an author led to the novel capturing the essence of 1980s inequality but reinforcing and appealing to the dominant power structure,{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|p=94}} leaving his  "dead-cynicism [and] fashionable survival".{{Sfn|Moylan|2010|p=94}} Caroline Alphin writes that human life is worth whatever it is worth to an employer.{{Sfn|Alphin|2021|p=26}} After his nervous system is damaged and he loses his ability to work as a hacker, Case must murder people for money to replenish his [[human capital]] because of [[Chiba (city)|Chiba City]]'s [[Neoliberalism|neoliberalist]] order,{{Sfn|Alphin|2021|p=26-27}} expanding that death in the novel is represented as "failure to maximise one's human capital".{{Sfn|Alphin|2021|p=27}} The novel shows that human minds can be saved to a [[CD-ROM]], preserving deceased or unwilling people's technical skills for at-will use by corporations.{{Sfn|Alphin|2021|p=26}}