The Chinese state reasserted control when a private firm amassed vast credit-scoring power.

Evidence

In 2017 the central bank retracted its support for the private-sector personal credit programs, perhaps because they were too successful, their concentrations of knowledge and power too great. Sesame Credit had acquired more than 400 million users in just two years, staking a claim to just about every aspect of those users’ lives. A journalist who wrote a book on Ant Financial anticipates that the government is preparing to assert control over the whole system: “The government doesn’t want this very important infrastructure of the people’s credit in one big company’s hands.” The Chinese government appears to understand that power accrues to the owners of the means of behavioral modification. It is the owners who set the behavioral parameters that define guaranteed outcomes. Thus, fusion advances. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1243

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the earlier argument that surveillance capital’s power lies in ownership of behavioral modification means — here demonstrated by state confiscation of that ownership. — connects to: China’s social credit system is a political rather than market instrument — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1256

Broader Connections

• China’s social credit system is a political rather than market instrument #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1256