Surveillance Capitalism

http://monthlyreview.org/2014/07/01/surveillance-capitalism

by mgunes • 12 years ago

75 7 12 years ago

monthlyreview.org

explorigin• 12 years ago

That is a very long article. I'm glad it has sources but tl;dr; anyone?

usumoio• 12 years ago

The tldr is, "Plutocrats are bad." Just about the same as every other similarly titled article....

chillingeffect• 12 years ago

I've been skimming it.

Grossly put, it's making the case that the U.S. is economically and technologically vulnerable and our security services have responded to that by initiating surveillance of citizen and corporate internet habits surrounding consumption and other practices involving money.

The author does build up a respectable synthesis of these ideas, but then in a sentence or two comes to the vague conclusion that we must demilitarize internet consumption. Unfortunately, this second, major thought is not as well-developed.

It's a fascinating concept though- that law enforcement would de-emphasize -or expand beyond- protection of bodily harm in favor of protecting us from events that would destabilize commerce. In other words, they might not search your smart phone for banned porn as eagerly as they would for evidence of cybercrime. The logic being that porn might hurt individuals, but cybercrime could empty corporate bank accounts, leading to disruption of international trade and therefore social instability through missing food and employment.

morsch• 12 years ago

I thought it was a good collection of historic developments -- military involvement and spending, the history of the Internet, the history of (domestic) surveillance, the revolving door between government and corporations, somewhat obliquely advertising and changes in the financial system -- but it could have done a better job tying it together.

I already knew most of history and would have preferred to read a much more thorough treatment of the parallels and/or relationships between these topics and agents.

cyphunk• 12 years ago

too many conspiracy undertones to take much of this seriously. The facts are correct, but the framing is very grandiose. It's like watching a BBC documentary on psychology, just missing the eerie music. On the first part (as much as I could get through) the paring of different productive functions in society to the military industrial complex has more to due with the increased importance of federal institutions than some grand movement of capitalism as the author seems to put it. I'd love to complete the article but it just seems to be a full of more leaps and assumptions as i go on.

woah• 12 years ago

I see what you're saying, but the article didn't really have any sort of accusations or theories which aren't already broad public knowledge.

mark_l_watson• 12 years ago

A great historical summary. I tend to agree with the opinion stated about the US's vulnerabilities. I probably have the minority opinion here, but in different ways the US and China look fragile. If China has severe problems maintaining the economic growth required for social stability, the effects on the rest of the world will likely be less when the US dollar is phased out of being the world's reserve currency in favor of SDRs.

Surveillance Capitalism

Related Stories