Cloud capital’s historic step was automating the command of humans, not replacing them
Evidence
Then, cloud capital arrived. At one fell swoop it automated both roles. The exercise of capital’s power to command workers and consumers alike was handed over to the algos. This was a far more revolutionary step than replacing autoworkers with industrial robots. After all, industrial robots simply do what automation has been doing since before the Luddites: making proletarians redundant, or more miserable, or both. No, the truly historic disruption was to automate capital’s power to command people outside the factory, the shop or the office – to turn all of us, cloud proles and everyone else, into cloud serfs in the direct (unremunerated) service of cloud capital, unmediated by any market. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 360
Categorization
- XREF: Inverts the standard automation narrative that robotising workers is the historic disruption. — connects to: Cloud capital made humanity work for free or a pittance — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 444; Users rather than paid employees produce cloud capital outside markets — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 334
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 360
Broader Connections
- Cloud capital made humanity work for free or a pittance
#expands(0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 444 - Users rather than paid employees produce cloud capital outside markets
#corroborates(0.80) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 334