The Capitalism of Perpetual Surveillance

As history repeats itself, capitalism reinvents itself in different shapes and forms. Capitalism, as defined by Marx, is a socio-economic relation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It was not only the exchange of commodities but the advancement of capital to generate profits. 

Although Marx believed that capitalism, due to its internal contradiction, will stagnate and eventually be replaced by socialism, history has witnessed capitalism reinvent itself over and over again. In its present form, capitalism has yet survived on our behavioral data as its capital and the tech giants, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, to name a few, as modern-day capitalists. Human data, thus, human activity, is being harnessed for the profiteering motives of technology capitalists. 

Remember when you sent your friend a link to those irresistible pair of headphones you found on Amazon via Facebook messenger and ended up scrolling through advertisements of the same product the next minute you logged in to check your Facebook feed. Or when you started watching a new Netflix series, and a range of articles detailing trivia for the same show pops up in your Google news feed. Anyone and everyone has witnessed such targeted advertising campaigns across all social media platforms. This pattern shows how human behavior is automatable in the era of an information civilization. 

Shoshana Zuboff, an academic at Harvard Business School, termed this business model as surveillance capitalism. Her article, an academic one titled Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization, reveals how this data architecture, leading to surveillance capitalism, was pioneered by Google, just like managerial capitalism by General Motors, and industrial capitalism by Henry Ford. The computer-mediated global data transactions extract and analyze data, which is possible due to a contractual trust, leading to better monitoring and customization of results. 

After all, no one even read the terms and conditions before signing up for a social media channel. Peer-effect and the desire to connect to the world drove us to such platforms until Cambridge Analytica exposed us to the realities of how these platforms functioned. With WhatsApp’s new privacy terms, the debate of how important our data to us has come to light again. Though the update affects different regions differently – 27 countries within the European Union, regulated by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will not have to share their data with third-party apps. 

In her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (2019), Shoshana Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as follows – “Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. Although some of these data applied to product or service improvement, the rest are declared a proprietary behavioral surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as ‘machine intelligence,’ and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later. Finally, these prediction products trade in a new kind of marketplace for behavioral predictions that I call behavioral futures markets.”

Google et al. have created an institutional regime that has removed uncertainties in real-time behavior, which is now predictable by the Big Other – equivalent to the twenty-first century ‘God view.’ (Zuboff, 2015) It has destroyed the unpredictability of human nature and constricted it to modeling and mechanical interpretation. Our privacy redistributed in the hands of third-party, making their decisions our decisions. Accumulation of these behavioral data, which we grant full access to and permission to use, is the modern accumulation of capital in surveillance capitalism. This accumulation of perpetual surveillance data has led these technology capitalists to earn enormous profits out of advertisement revenues and minimal costs. 

Facebook’s worldwide advertisement revenue grew from USD 764 million in 2009 to USD 84,169 million in 2020. (Statista, 2021) The advertising revenue of Google grew from USD 22.89 billion to USD 146.92 billion in the same period. (Statista, 2021) These tech-giants have a global footprint across continents and geographies and an ever-growing consumer base. 

If you’re not paying for it, you become the product. The Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, aptly describes the perplexity of the matter. All these social media services that we use are free of cost to the general public and only require an internet connection (and a minimum age to sign up). But, not the monetary costs alone matter. What one gives up is the cost of time, effort, and privacy with the click of the ‘I agree’ button while signing up. It is when you agree to be their product and enroll under constant surveillance.

Capitalism is an unjust socio-economic system as it has led to rising inequalities within socio-economic classes, between the ones with the means and the ones without it. The only difference in this form of capitalism is that everyone is subject to surveillance. However, this furthers information asymmetries between the entirety surveilled and the few that surveil, leading to an asymmetrical power structure. 

The conception of these platforms, such as Facebook, started with the novel idea to connect old and new friends situated in different parts of the world and spread information seamlessly. There is no doubt that it has successfully connected people, ensured better governance, and distributed life-saving information, at times, when need be. However, the urge to create a profitable business model out of machine technology and millions of data points put to algorithms, predicting our every move accurately, has led to this day of misinformation, alongside information and imaginary friends, alongside real ones.