I don't really understand why you would assume that the only alternative to surveillance capitalism is "surveillance socialism".
This sophism seems to be built on two errors:
* that there is nothing outside of pure capitalism and pure socialism
* that adjoining "surveillance" to capitalism means we're talking about an inevitable aspect of our society that is combined to capitalism, rather than a specific subset of the way business is done in this age.
To be honest, this lack of ability to conceive alternative social systems is concerning. The deformed Churchill quote comes as a cherry on top.
Of course there are an infinite number of alternatives...I just quickly picked something that sounded decent that tried to make my point about my observation lately that Capitalism was getting knocked around everywhere I looked.
In the last Econtalk podcast that I listened to last night, they discussed the loneliness "epidemic" and the author ended up blaming Thatcher-based Capitalism as perhaps the main reason why people are so lonely today!
I thought that was quite the stretch but imagine my chagrin when here was another spurious back-handed attack on it.
> Capitalism [is] getting knocked around everywhere I looked.
That's what happened with every social system in the past, and, while failures certainly have happened, we've always found ways for that criticism to result in improvements to our societies.
It would be very surprising for the current shape of our society or, more generally, capitalism to be an exception to the rule, unless you subscribe to the "end of history" thesis.
No need to believe Fukiyama. The exception to the rule concept can be based on the idea that capitalism is novel in its ability to absorb and transform any protest against it. The divine right of kings, to pick just one example, was unable to pull off this trick, and perished under questioning. So far, capitalism has done remarkably well at incorporating protest and criticism that targets it, in a way that does seem quite novel.
Presumably the "capitalism" in "surveillance capitalism" is to make it clear they're talking about private companies - as distinct from the traditional concerns about government surveillance.
I can’t tell if you’re being willfully obtuse or not. Harvesting people’s data for the express purpose of manipulating them into thinking/buying things that they otherwise wouldn’t is wrong in every sense of the word.
Capitalism has its problems just like everything else. Pretending it doesn’t is just as disingenuous as pretending that socialism would fix everything. If you’re concerned about people attacking capitalism, help fix the problems. Simple as that.
I'm interested in why this comment is getting so knocked down?
I asked what I think is a valid question and would like to hear honest reactions from people about my observation.
I feel I have every right to be a cheerleader for Capitalism as my father escaped communist Cuba in 1959 as Castro was coming to power and used the US's system and tons of hard work to create a extremely comfortable life for himself, while friends and family members who stayed there lived rather wretched lives.
He never forgot how lucky he was to be able to get out of there just in time and told me time and time again that the US while having flaws, was by far the best place in the world to live, so my original comment comes from this background.
I don't give a flying fuck if the comment gets modded down, but i would like to know just what in it is so offensive to those modding it donw so I can learn something.
Or are we supposed to imagine that under socialism, there would be no need for Big Tech surveillance? This I most certainly disagree with.
I'm just noticing a trend lately where the word "capitalism" is being attacked on many fronts, and I personally find that troublesome.
Like Churchill said..."Capitalism is absolutely the worse system there is, besides everything else of course"