The state cannot command instrumentarian power but must work through surveillance capitalists
Evidence
This status quo was interrupted in 2013, when Edward Snowden revealed the hidden complicity between state security agencies and the tech companies. In the backlash that followed, surveillance capitalists confronted new public relations challenges in what they portrayed as an uneasy or even unwilling alliance between private power and state security needs. Nevertheless, new terrorist threats invariably orient public officials toward the intensification and deployment of Big Other and the instrumentarian power it signifies. However, their ability to access this immense power is fraught with tension. It is not simply theirs to command. They must work, at least in part, through the surveillance capitalists. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1230
Categorization
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: what leverage do surveillance capitalists retain over the state that formalizes the coercion-resource asymmetry of digital firms?
- SEED: Possible essay angle: the reversal of state-capital hierarchy, where the state begs private firms for the certainty machines it can no longer build itself.
- XREF: connects to: Western states must operate through surveillance capitalist firms to access instrumentarian power — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1255; Surveillance capitalism structurally requires lawless extraction and must defeat democracy to survive — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 338; Calling surveillance capitalism totalitarianism obscures rather than clarifies its threat. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1119 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Calling surveillance capitalism totalitarianism obscures rather than clarifies its threat.
#qualifies(0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1119 - Surveillance capitalism structurally requires lawless extraction and must defeat democracy to survive
#expands(0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 338 - States lacking technological autonomy cannot sustain genuine revolutionary politics.
#corroborates(0.75)