The Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis “was briefly the Greek Minister of Finance in 2015,” remembers the Conversation. Now its new book asks the question “What killed capitalism”, with the first word of the title providing an answer.
“Techno-feudalism”.
Varoufakis argues that we no longer live in a capitalist society… “Today, capitalist relations remain intact, but techno-feudal relations began to overtake them“, writes Varoufakis. Traditional capitalists, he proposes, have become “vassal capitalists.” They are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “overlords” – big tech companies – who generate enormous wealth through new digital platforms. A new form of Algorithmic capital has evolved – what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” – and has replaced “the two pillars of capitalism: markets and profits”.
Markets have been “replaced by digital trading platforms that look like markets, but are not.” As soon as you enter amazon.com, you “leave capitalism” and enter something that resembles a “feudal fiefdom”: a digital world owned by one man and his algorithm, which determines which products you will see and which products you will not see. If you are a seller, the platform will determine how you can sell and which customers you can approach. The conditions under which you interact, share information and exchange are dictated by an “algorithm” that “works for (Jeff Bezos)’s bottom line”…
Access to the “digital stronghold” comes at the cost of exorbitant rents. Varoufakis notes that many third-party developers on the Apple Store, for example, pay 30% “on all revenue,” while Amazon charges its sellers “35% of revenue.” He says it’s like a medieval feudal lord sending the sheriff to collect a lot of the produce from his serfs because he owns the estate and everything on it.
There is “no invisible, disinterested hand of the market” here. Big Tech platforms are exempt from free competition.
And all the while, users are unknowingly training their algorithms for them — so “In this interaction, we are all high-tech “cloud serfs”… (T)he “cloud capital” we generate for them is constantly increasing. their ability to generate even more wealth, and thus increases their power – something we are only beginning to realize. »
According to Varoufakis, around 80% of the revenues of traditional capitalist conglomerates are spent on wages and salaries, while Big Tech workers, in contrast, receive “less than 1% of their companies’ revenues”… For Varoufakis, we do not We are not only experiencing a technological revolution, but a technology-driven economic revolution. It challenges us to accept what has happened to our economies – and our societies – in the age of big technology and big finance.
Thanks to reader Slashdot ZipNada for sharing the article.
