As long as “capitalism” has existed, there have been observers predicting its demise. The most famous is Karl Marx himself, who helped popularize the term. Almost a century later, James Burnham foresaw a “management revolution” in which control of production would be taken over by a new class of managers and technocrats, while Joseph Schumpeter predicted that the position of intellectuals and businessmen would change and capital He predicted that the doctrine would be destroyed by its very success. On the other hand. Marxist writer Fredric Jameson said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, but many thinkers believe that the way to witness the end of capitalism is not imagination, but Burnham’s It would be argued that a simple observation of “what is” is necessary. what’s happening in the world. ”
and Techno-feudalism: What killed capitalism?, Yanis Varoufakis also joins this strange canon, claiming that capitalism has disappeared before our eyes. Varoufakis, who rose to worldwide fame as finance minister during the Greek debt crisis, is a self-proclaimed “libertarian Marxist.” technological feudalism As interesting and puzzling as his label is, it’s ultimately not as convincing.
Varoufakis argues that new technologies over the past decade have brought an end to capitalism. But contrary to traditional Marxist promises, it could be replaced by something even worse. In capitalism, owners of capital are supposed to pursue profits in the market and compete with each other. But marketplaces, forums for direct interaction between buyers and sellers, have been replaced by digital platforms that control every feature of previously free transactions. Think Amazon or Apple’s App Store. And with the establishment of this digital “fiefdom,” profits, the surplus revenue that drives competitive advantage, are being lost. Through the intermediation of these digital transactions, fiefdoms can receive a cut of all sales without producing anything themselves. This reduction constitutes “crowd rent,” which is any money earned through a privileged position that would be eliminated by competition.
These two transformations, from markets to digital platforms and from profits to rents, have simultaneously moved us beyond capitalism to technological feudalism, with capitalists being replaced by “crowdists.” These cloud lords constitute a new feudal class, overseeing the business of many vassals, which in turn shapes the decisions of the everyday serfs: you and us.
It would be easy to dismiss Varoufakis’s high-flying theorizing as an example of a misguided economist getting high on his own supply. But this kind of macroeconomic speculation about the inheritance of capitalism is worth taking seriously. Because it makes the reader question whether what we are observing is business as usual or something else, and what does business as usual mean. In particular, by linking the development of capitalism with the evolution of the Internet and computers, technological feudalism This raises serious questions. Why did the Internet, which many thought would be a fundamental tool for decentralization, come to be dominated by a small number of giant corporations? And why are so many users lacking autonomy? Or rather, do we feel a sense of invasion, that others are controlling our data and digital identities? Steve Jobs said that computers will become “the bicycles of our minds” and that free individuals will become free individuals. We thought it would allow us to explore the world. But the Internet often feels more like a tank rolling over our heads, or perhaps a roller coaster we can’t get off of.
Varoufakis argues that the dream of a decentralized internet has become a reality, if only for a short time. The early Internet was a “digital commons” characterized by open source protocols that anyone could copy and modify for free. But a series of sophisticated events, including President Richard Nixon’s stripping of dollars from gold and central bank responses to the 2008 financial crisis and pandemic, allowed financiers to inject money into Big Tech. Big tech is using its investments to expand digital infrastructure and their cloud serfdom. As a result, “billions of us have been transformed into willing cloud serfs who labor for free to reproduce cloud capital for the benefit of their owners.”
There’s an interesting story about how software’s seemingly inevitable growth was the fortuitous result of a complex interplay of political and economic factors, but Varoufakis details the rise of the Crowderists and says, Too fast to be convincing. A more convincing presentation of this history would have drawn more attention to these details rather than Varoufakis’ opinions. mad men And Homer.
Still, Varoufakis’s central point that capitalism changes as technology changes is certainly correct and essential. For example, Adam Smith famously used the new pin factories of the Industrial Revolution to understand the division of labor. That said, it is by no means clear that a dramatic new phase of history is required. The quest for rent that Varoufakis placed at the heart of this feudal system has been a thorn in the side of capitalism’s defenders since Smith himself. Businesses have always sought special privileges for themselves that exclude competitors and increase their influence over customers. Why not? Apple’s ability to charge his 30% commission to developers who want their products on the App Store is a real obstacle to a more vibrant Internet, but it’s not feudalism. . If this phenomenon had to be described in words, fellow leftists Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow were more on point when they called it “chokepoint capitalism.”
Varoufakis’ more liberal praise of competition over nepotism also contradicts his left-wing commitments He criticized the privatization of the Internet. “Our digital identities do not belong to us or to the state. They are scattered across countless private digital realms and have many owners, none of whom belong to us,” he said. “No,” he laments. Many of us are certainly confused about what is actually “ours” online. Think of our concerns about incomprehensible terms of service agreements and artificial intelligence duplicating our words and images. But if the goal is private ownership of digital identities, the obstacle is not privatization; Not enough Its. More secure ownership and a sense of privacy over our data is a worthy goal, but going back to the early “digital commons,” there is a growing need for user sacrifices in terms of who actually owns what online. The confusion only gets worse.
Reviving the dream of an earlier, freer, purer Internet should also raise deeper questions. “Wasn’t that ‘Internet One’ what it used to be? After all, the Internet itself is a product of Cold War military innovation,” Varoufakis sarcastically calls “the greatest contradiction in history.” I’m here. Its purpose was the defense of the capitalist realm. ” And for all his flowery language about personal liberation, it was Steve Jobs himself who came up with his App Store, a “walled garden” that locks developers into a centralized system. Arguably, a decentralized digital commons will always be a point of instability between a more centralized equilibrium. In that case, the solution cannot be a libertarian fantasy of using the Web to escape the state.
But neither is the second part of Varoufakis’ liberal Marxism. His proposal for a “cloud revolt to overthrow techno-feudalism” is the weakest part of the book, as he moves from mind-opening theorizing to brandishing a boring manifesto. Here, Varoufakis may have learned from his predecessor. What makes Burnham and Schumpeter so fascinating is, paradoxically, that their observations are so detached and callous. Varoufakis offers some provocative provocations, but a clearer assessment of the transformation of capitalism will require more sobriety than he can provide.
Techno-feudalism: What killed capitalism?
Written by Yanis Varoufakis
Melville House, 304 pages, $19.99
Robert Bellafiore is a research manager at the American Innovation Foundation.
