Instrumentarian power differs fundamentally from twentieth-century totalitarianism

Evidence

Surveillance capitalists have no interest in murder or the reformation of our souls. Although their aims are in many ways just as ambitious as those of totalitarian leaders, they are also utterly distinct. The work of naming a strange form of power unprecedented in the human experience must begin anew for the sake of effective resistance and the creative power to insist on a future of our own making. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1121

Although instrumentarianism and totalitarianism are distinct species, they each yearn toward totality, though in profoundly different ways. Totalitarianism seeks totality as a political condition and relies on violence to clear its path. Instrumentarianism seeks totality as a condition of market dominance, and it relies on its control over the division of learning in society, enabled and enforced by Big Other, to clear its path. The result is the application of instrumentarian power to societal optimization for the sake of market objectives: a utopia of certainty. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1267

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes instrumentarian power from totalitarianism by what it does not do — no murder, no soul-engineering.
• XREF: Extends the author’s earlier framing of surveillance capitalism as a distinct ‘horseless carriage’ phenomenon, and connects to Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism which this chapter engages. — connects to: Instrumentarian power governs through inducement and reinforcement rather than overt coercion — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1629; Instrumentarianism is a market project unlike totalitarianism’s political project. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1142; Instrumentarian social principles operate as lived facts on current platforms — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1493 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The ‘utopia of certainty’ and the division-of-learning mechanism as the defining nerve of surveillance capitalism is a top-tier distillation of the whole framework.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1121; Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1267

Broader Connections

• Instrumentarian power governs through inducement and reinforcement rather than overt coercion #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1629