The Phenomenon of Surveillance Capitalism

Sociologist Shoshana Zuboff popularized the concept of "surveillance capitalism." Let’s explore what this phenomenon entails and some of the critiques of the sociologist’s perspective.

There’s a term that has become common over the past few years in discussions about the “data economy” and the processing of personal data, both in public and private sectors.

The term is surveillance capitalism, which gained popularity after the release of the eponymous book by sociologist Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

Before we continue, don’t forget to leave a like!

In her book, Zuboff meticulously traces the events that led to the emergence of this unique phenomenon, including the history and evolution of Google—the first "surveillance capitalist" in human history.

The phenomenon described by Zuboff is real and tangible, but framing it solely as a capitalist phenomenon might be limiting.

What Is Surveillance Capitalism?

Let’s start with the basics. According to Shoshana Zuboff, surveillance capitalism is:

A new economic order that exploits human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales. A parasitic economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioral modification.

An expropriation of fundamental human rights, best understood as a coup from above: the overthrow of the people's sovereignty.

The emergence of a new instrumentarian power that asserts dominance over society and poses startling challenges to market democracy. A movement aimed at imposing a new collective order based on total certainty.

In summary, surveillance capitalism is a new economic and productive phenomenon that claims human experiences as raw materials to produce tools for predicting human behavior.

Surveillance capitalism follows parasitic logics, inevitably leading to the development of a global architecture for human behavior manipulation.

Are we certain that the phenomenon Zuboff describes fits within the concept of capitalism? In fact, even according to the sociologist, it is not just a new economic phenomenon but also a “movement” aimed at imposing a new collective order based on the standardization and total certainty of human behavior. This is achieved through the violent expropriation of fundamental human rights, such as privacy and self-determination, forfeiting any hope of individual sovereignty.

Let’s delve deeper, starting with the classic definition of capitalism and moving on to discuss the surveillance mechanisms driving this new phenomenon.

What Is Capitalism?

Wikipedia defines capitalism as: