Seeing tech as new accumulation regime versus continuation changes political strategy

Evidence

In part, this book is a synthesis of existing work. The discussion in Chapter 1 should be familiar to economic historians, as it outlines the various crises that have laid the groundwork for today’s post-2008 economy. It attempts to historicise emerging technologies as an outcome of deeper capitalist tendencies, showing how they are implicated within a system of exploitation, exclusion, and competition. The material in Chapter 2 should be fairly well known to those who follow the business of technology. In many ways, the chapter is an attempt to give clarity to various ongoing discussions in that world, as it lays out a typology and genesis of platforms. By contrast, Chapter 3 hopefully offers something new to everyone. On the basis of the preceding chapters, it attempts to draw out some likely tendencies and to make some broad-brush predictions about the future of platform capitalism. These forward-looking prognoses are essential to any political project. How we conceptualise the past and the future is important for how we think strategically and develop political tactics to transform society today. In short, it makes a difference whether we see emerging technologies as inaugurating a new regime of accumulation or as continuing earlier regimes. This has consequences on the possibility of a crisis and on deciding where that crisis might emerge from; and it has consequences on our envisaging the likely future of labour under capitalism. Part of the argument of this book is that the apparent novelties of the situation obscure the persistence of longer term trends, but also that today presents important changes that must be grasped by a twenty-first-century left. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 18

Categorization

• XREF: The continuity-vs-novelty framing is a live analytical question the reader could bring to Zuboff, who heavily accents the ‘new’ in surveillance capitalism; Srnicek claims the novelty is overstated by the left. — connects to: Technology’s political neutrality collapses when it becomes the universal form of production — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 572; Scientific-technological ordering is inherently political — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 618; Communist states replaced political coercion with technological domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 158 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Technology’s political neutrality collapses when it becomes the universal form of production #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 572
• Scientific-technological ordering is inherently political #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 618
• Communist states replaced political coercion with technological domination #exemplifies (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 158
• Political will works through existing forces to create a new equilibrium #expands (0.70)
• Structural change continues beneath the surface of conscious politics #qualifies (0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1132