Inequality, stagnant productivity, endemic instability... The new economy of the nineties promised a new era of freedom and prosperity fuelled by IT. It didn't deliver. Certainly, algorithms are everywhere, but but this does not mean that capitalism has become civilized
In the hand of private corporations, the digitalization of the world drives us toward an even darker future. The return of monopolies, the dependence of subjects on platforms, the blurring of the distinction between the economic and the political epitomize a systemic mutation. Information and data networks push the digital economy in the direction of the feudal logic of rent, dispossession, and personal domination.
Techno-feudalism brings a fresh genealogy of the Silicon Valley consensus and its aporias. It disentangles the principles of an emerging system-wide rationale. Large firms compete in cyberspace to gain control over data sources. Subjects are attached to the digital glebe. In this new economic order, capital is moving away from production to focus on predation.
Inequality, stagnant productivity, endemic instability... The new economy of the nineties promised a new era of freedom and prosperity fuelled by IT. It didn't deliver. Certainly, algorithms are everywhere, but but this does not mean that capitalism has become civilized
In the hand of private corporations, the digitalization of the world drives us toward an even darker future. The return of monopolies, the dependence of subjects on platforms, the blurring of the distinction between the economic and the political epitomize a systemic mutation. Information and data networks push the digital economy in the direction of the feudal logic of rent, dispossession, and personal domination.
Techno-feudalism brings a fresh genealogy of the Silicon Valley consensus and its aporias. It disentangles the principles of an emerging system-wide rationale. Large firms compete in cyberspace to gain control over data sources. Subjects are attached to the digital glebe. In this new economic order, capital is moving away from production to focus on predation.
Do we still live in a bad old capitalist system or in a new evil one? This book argues that, with the digitalization of the world, a great regression occurs which has given a new relevance to feudalism
Cédric Durand is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Geneva and a member of the Centre d'économie Paris Nord. He is the author of Fictitious Capital. How Finance Appropriates Our Future. He is a regular contributor to the online journal Contretemps and to Sidecar, the blog of the New Left Review.
A must-read on the ongoing debate on techno-feudalism. A great
book!
*Thomas Piketty*
Cédric Durand's book adds to the excitement. He treats Big Tech as
monopoly capitalists whose digital platforms (e.g. Facebook,
Amazon) function like utilities (e.g. electricity providers, water
and sewage corpoations, railway networks or phone companies),
except that Big Tech use the cloud to harvest our data so as to
boost their monopoly power over us.
*Yanis Varoufakis, author of Technofeudalism: What Killed
Capitalism*
The publication of this book by the French economist Cédric Durand
represents the most sustained attempt so far at a serious
consideration of the economic logics involved.
*New Left Review*
What does Big Tech want? Cédric Durand helps us see that an
industry built on size tends towards the capture and monetization
of all existing social relationships. This is a handbook for we
Lilliputians trying to bind Gulliver
*Quinn Slobodian, author of Crack-Up Capitalism*
Cédric Durand is always insightful and his latest book is a must
read to make sense of our age of overlapping crises and chaos. He
sketches technofeudalism as a dystopia - not of a future to come
but of the present we live in. The Silicon Valley Consensus has
promised for everyone to become a start-up entrepreneur but instead
gave rise to monopolies that command unprecedented power,
structuring economies, societies and lived experiences around the
globe.
*Isabella Weber, author of How China Escaped Shock
Therapy*
If you want to understand how platform capitalism is turning into a
predatory form of techno-feudalism and how the digital economy is
radically transforming politics, society, and our everyday lives,
read this book. An essential and fascinating analysis of the
ideology and political economy of the digital age.
*Matthias Schmelzer, co-author of The Future Is
Degrowth*
A sparkling, provocative and must-read analysis of contemporary
capitalism. To understand how economic power relations unfold amid
technology and how this has altered capital accumulation, Durand
simultaneously captures general trends and the underlying
mechanisms and dynamics at play. While many agree on today's
growing concentration and resulting inequalities, this book offers
a unique explanation of the sources of economic (and political)
power. In the wake of the AI fever, reading it becomes even more
indispensable.
*Cecilia Rikap, author of Capitalism, Power and
Innovation*
The technofeudalist model involves establishing a monopoly position
and using sophisticated data extraction to secure it... Durand
invokes the world of Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 dystopian sci-fi film
Alphaville, in which a dictatorial sentient computer rules society
down to the most personal decisions.
*New York Magazine*
Durand has provided a very insightful view of finance-driven
capitalism over the last three decades. Why was it able to prosper
alongside sagging investment and plummeting productivity gains? The
answer, argues Durand, lies in the tight connection between the
shareholder value principle and the globalization of the real
economy.
*Michel Aglietta*
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