Surveillance capitalism structurally requires lawless extraction and must defeat democracy to survive

Evidence

Extraction quarry must be both unprotected and available at zero cost if this logic of accumulation is to succeed. These requirements are also an Achilles heel. Code is law for Google now, but the risk of new laws in its established and anticipated territories remains a persistent danger to surveillance capitalism. If new laws were to outlaw extraction operations, the surveillance model would implode. This market form must either gird itself for perpetual conflict with the democratic process or find new ways to infiltrate, seduce, and bend democracy to its ends if it is to fulfill its own inner logic. The survival and success of surveillance capitalism depend upon engineering collective agreement through all available means while simultaneously ignoring, evading, contesting, reshaping, or otherwise vanquishing laws that threaten free behavioral surplus. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 338

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘engineering collective agreement’ while vanquishing law recalls Gramscian hegemony and the ‘code is law’ thesis from Lessig — a natural link. — connects to: Surveillance power erodes democracy from within rather than confronting it directly — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1211; The state cannot command instrumentarian power but must work through surveillance capitalists — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1230; Surveillance capitalism functions as a profoundly antidemocratic social force — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1643 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalism functions as a profoundly antidemocratic social force #corroborates (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1643
• Surveillance capitalism’s architecture is made by humans and can be unmade democratically #responds-to (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 181
• Privacy protections are structurally incompatible with surveillance capitalism’s accumulation logic #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 601
• Surveillance capitalism’s core activities proceed by misrepresenting extraction as something else #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 722
• Surveillance capitalism conquered through unilateral declarations, not permission seeking #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 564
• Surveillance capitalism’s design aim is the extinction of autonomous selfhood #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1512