"Techno-Feudalism"

version

Well-known member
using the virus to destroy small business is another nudge towards feudalism. As you say it's about total dependence on the lords of the manor.
My dentist has apparently just been bought out by some big corporate operation. I hate these bastards.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
From 2017, I gather. Anything in this graphic significantly different today?

the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic32.jpg
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
What would a rent amount to in a thoroughly data-fueled economy? Perhaps like meeting quotas regarding the robustness of your digital footprint, quotas of data production?

It could also be socially operationalized, an operation of steering and enclosing individual life experiences with ever greater precision and depth. And subjectively this is experienced as a competition, an arena of influencers, The Hustle Zone. At the least, you will just be coerced into providing more data, even seemingly banal data. In any case, is as if the egos are becoming denucleated and spilling into one another. Some will learn to adapt, to harness the attention.

Only, we're well into it. Young people are effectively raised into this arena, and can casually document some portion of their life's vital social experiences. But I suppose we don't have the data-collection caliber for really maximizing this opportunity.

Wait a minute. You know who does? China.

That would mean china will be setting the tone. But still, I don't think anyone has gotten far enough. They need to get to the point when they are presented with higher data than they expected, not just more.

edit: disclaimer, a lot of the above needs a few more pinches of science, and a few fewer of gnosis.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
And a becoming-algorithmic would be foundational for such jumps.

Edit: which may even come as coercion.
 
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Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Like the system learning to value growth for its own sake, rather than as a means for eventual consumption. Pure capitalism would be perpetual reinvestment of stock into its own development, minimal actual consumption of stock.
 

version

Well-known member
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. He also claims Europe's finished, irrelevant, and just another area caught between the 'Big Tech' poles of America and China as it has no competitors to Apple, Google, TikTok, etc. What he calls "Cloud Capital".
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
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. He also claims Europe's finished, irrelevant, and just another area caught between the 'Big Tech' poles of America and China as it has no competitors to Apple, Google, TikTok, etc. What he calls "Cloud Capital".
One could argue that the free market can reach a point where private firms accumulate such a market share that the market ceases to be free in the real sense, and in this sense you could argue a paradigm shift would occur, to something approximating data feudalism in our case.
 

version

Well-known member
One could argue that the free market can reach a point where private firms accumulate such a market share that the market ceases to be free in the real sense, and in this sense you could argue a paradigm shift would occur, to something approximating data feudalism in our case.

That's his argument. That there is no market and the capitalists are now vassal capitalists for the lords running these fiefdoms.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I also tend to believe in what could be called dynasty churn, or that elite entities and institutions can only last so long before internal or external politics disrupt them. In the case of big tech today, the main issue is all the anti-competitive behavior, IE facebook buying up its competition.

I'm sure there are a bunch of neoliberals (and I'm not that far removed from neoliberal myself) think anti-trust is antithetical to the free market - but markets can be captured by governments and private firms alike. In that sense, when a market is on the precipice of being captured by a private firm, government anti-trust regulation is arguably an act which affirms free markets.

There does seem to be a sweet spot, almost like what could be called the neoliberal overton window for economic regulation, whereby states only regulate when said regulation is actually in protection of the free market. Of course, I also think some regulation is necessary to protect social welfare to some extent, even at some cost of free markets, IE not all government regulation should be neoliberal in my mind.

I might start reading Road to Serfdom soon, wonder what Hayek thinks of social welfare.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
There does seem to be a sweet spot, almost like what could be called the neoliberal overton window for economic regulation, whereby states only regulate when said regulation is actually in protection of the free market. Of course, I also think some regulation is necessary to protect social welfare to some extent, even at some cost of free markets, IE not all government regulation should be neoliberal in my mind.
This is where I suspect I diverge from what I understand to be "orthodox" neoliberalism, if there is such a thing. IE for me its not 100% about letting markets be efficient - there needs to be some state-enforced policies and frameworks.

Ideally, as I explore in my latest piece, some of these matters of social welfare can be more systematically addressed via private philanthropic efforts, using what could be described as capture-resistant coordination hyperstructures (basically digital organizations built out of algorithms running on the peer-to-peer permaweb, IE what DAOs have been trying to do).
 

version

Well-known member
I also tend to believe in what could be called dynasty churn, or that elite entities and institutions can only last so long before internal or external politics disrupt them.

Yeah, I don't think you can look at history and think anything will be around forever.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah, I don't think you can look at history and think anything will be around forever.
Totally, the only alternative really being this conspiratorial/metaphysical idea of cabals or elites who are distanced from the churn. IE all winning streaks end but the house keeps winning sort of thing. Anyway, I don't lend any real credence to that. I think interpersonal politics and vying ambitions threaten any position of power, as far as I can tell.
 
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