Is capitalism on its last breath?

Sudhirendar Sharma

Sudhirendar Sharma

It may be hard to imagine that capitalism has outlived its relevance. No one can argue it better than Yanis Varoukakis, the former Finance Minister of Greece, who experienced the transition while negotiating his country’s debt crises with the European Union. Responding to his daughter’s compelling question ‘why is there so much inequality’ resulted in a slim volume entitled Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism which is a precursor to the book under reference. Capitalism’s two pillars, markets and profits, have mutated into cloud capital and cloud rent. Digital platforms are markets in themselves, and their primary function is to extract rent.

Techno-Feudalism

The mutation may seem subtle, but its impact is profound. Cloud capital doesn’t necessarily labor to bring a commodity to market but receives a significant portion of what the consumers pay for it. With every click and scroll, the consumer pays rent to access what is on offer at those digital platforms. Varoufakis argues that cloud capital no longer focuses on growth, value and profit, but instead on rent extraction and control. Further, cloud capital reduces consumers into fragments of data, identifies them as a pack of choices, and manipulates them through algorithms. This reshaping of our lives may seem transformative, but it is no less exploitative and an imminent threat to our social co-existence. 

Called cloudalists, the sphere of influence of the new capitalists extends to nearly every facet of our app-powered daily life. Such is the influence, according to Varoufakis, we are reduced as products with our incessant clicks and searches generate profit for massive corporations; our data too is a product that gets bought and sold, and on top of it those who control the platforms have direct control over us, reducing us as digital pigmies. Need it be said that our capacity to stay focused has been compromised. Under such changing scenario, algorithms reinforce patriarchal stereotypes and hate-mongers for optimizing capital flow. 

TechnoFeudalism is about the historical journey in which humans not only transformed matter by taking control of technology but got transformed in return too. Ancient Greek poet Hesoid had summed it up by saying that iron hardened not only our ploughs but also our souls. Marx had described our condition under capitalism as one of alienation, under technofeudalism we no longer own our minds. Under technofeudalism, elaborates Varoufakis, a new class draws power from owning cloud capital whose tentacles entangle everyone. The author leaves the reader with the choice - accept either the world resembling Star Trek, where machines help us improve ourselves, or like The Matrix in which we are the fuel that empowers machines.  

It is not easy to read this book, but the narrative is insightful and empowering. Getting slowly sucked into the world of technofeudalism, the compelling question remains: will the new-age capitalism leave space and scope for freedom and democracy? The answer lies in capturing all that has changed since Mad Men implanted longings into our subconscious. It has since then been replaced by Alexa taking charge, spinning us out of control into something that we can neither fathom nor regulate. The rules of game are indeed threatening 

Technofeudalism is all about authority and control, it erects strong barrier to being questioned. By giving fewer opportunities for people to come together, it incapacitates people to organize and forge alliances for representation. The challenge is how to represent ourselves when what seemed labor to be paid and work to be executed is anything but a rent seeking feudalism that subsists on high-tech form of serfdom. The emerging technofeudalism is indeed global, and its power truly global. This book is not about technology but about the treatment meted to capitalism and therefore to us through screen-based, cloud-linked devices. 

TechnoFeudalism 

by Yanis Varoufakis

BodleyHead/Vintage

Extent: 281, Price: Rs. 531.

(Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma is a writer and researcher specializing in development issues. He is based in New Delhi, India.)

First published in Deccan Herald.