"Techno-Feudalism"

[vimothy]

Varoufakis is promoting his new book on this and claiming capitalism's dead by its own hand, replaced by the fiefdoms of Amazon, Google, and the like.

And what if it were ever thus?

"Above this layer [of the market economy], comes the zone of the anti-market, where the great predators roam and the law of the jungle operates. This–today as in the past, before and after the industrial revolution–is the real home of capitalism." (Braudel)

 

[Clinamenic]

And what if it were ever thus?

"Above this layer [of the market economy], comes the zone of the anti-market, where the great predators roam and the law of the jungle operates. This–today as in the past, before and after the industrial revolution–is the real home of capitalism." (Braudel)

Interesting yeah, if you have enough money you can effectively (if even imperfectly) insulate yourself from the rule of law, via endless lobbying and litigating.

 

[vimothy]

I would characterise it slightly differently. It's not that, if you have enough money, you can insulate yourself from the rule of law. It's rather that institutions--including "the rule of law"--are constitued on the basis of their creating "the zone of the anti-market".

 

[vimothy]

A really interesting and highly recommended case study of this is Donald MacKenzie's An Engine Not A Camera, which shows how modern derivative markets are predicated upon the existence of modern finance theory--in particular option theory and the Black-Scholes equation, without which derivative trades could not be priced. MacKenzie's insight is that option theory is not an objective assessment of how a particular market prices a trade (or should price a trade - option theory fails empirically due to the presence of the "volatility smile"), but instead a constitutive element which enables the creation of those markets.