Techno Feudalism: Should We Embrace It or Destroy It?
Which is it?
Silicon valley has remade our world.
It is almost impossible to conceive of a world in the 21st century without the likes of Google, Ebay, Yahoo, Hotmail, Uber, Taxify, Air BnB, PayPal, Stripe, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Medium, WeWork, Netflix, Prime Video and our iPhone.
And the more time that we spend online, browsing what these platforms have to offer, the more these modern day behemoths have been able to maximize every penny coming out of our accounts.
And in a strange kind of way, what we are seeing is the kind of feudalism, which gave way when capitalism came into being, centuries ago.
Feudalism?
Yes, the system which was in place when aristocrats took full advantage of their political and economic powers at the expense of everyone else.
Silicon Valley is the all-powerful aristocrat of our time and their actions in monetizing the inner recesses our minds by way of our online activity has rendered hundreds of millions across the world, digital serfs.
And it’s precisely at this point that I must credit the Yanis Varoufakis —the left wing Greek-Australian economist, for putting this line of thinking into words.