A small group of high-tech-savvy entrepreneurs who understand the velocity of technological innovation have harnessed this new power to establish predatory high-tech monopolies such as Uber or Amazon. They subvert labor laws, strip the state of its powers, gut regulation, ignore legal norms and amass personal fortunes in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Their apps, services and private equity firms dominate our lives. They are technological predators seeing in every aspect of social existence commodification. The living wages of working people decline, the gig economy abolishes job protection, sustainable incomes and benefits, AI replaces humans. The most vulnerable are pillaged for profit. The sick feed the profits for Big Pharma. The bodies of poor men and women on the streets of our bleak, deindustrialized cities, are worth nothing until they are locked in a cage in the world’s largest prison system, generating 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year to the prison-industrial complex, including privatized phone services, money transfer services, commissary and medical services. Utilities, sold to private companies, gouge us with overpriced water, electrical, parking and sewage bills. At the same time, we are the most watched, photographed, spied upon and monitored population in human history. This technology, far from improving our lives, is creating a new serfdom, if not a new slavery, all the while propelling us at a dizzying rate towards ecocide. Joining me to discuss our dystopian present and our dystopian future is Loretta Napoleoni author of Techno-Capitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good.
Not everybody has a smart phone. And I would never use an uber even if I had one and had to walk 10 miles to get wherever I was going. I consider uber a criminal company.
I had great difficulty understanding Ms. Napoleoni. I will get her book, however, because I am interested in what she is saying. Many thanks for the interview.
"In nearly four hours of grueling congressional testimony before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce, the president of Columbia University, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, said she had taken serious action against accusations of antisemitism on campus in recent months amid Israel’s assault on Gaza, including dismissing or removing five faculty members from the classroom, suspending 15 students and suspending two student groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace."
This is a part of it:
"NERMEEN SHAIKH: Later in the hearing, Republican Georgia Congressmember Rick Allen brought up the Bible in his questioning of Shafik. He cited the Old and New Testament and asked Shafik if [she] wanted Columbia University to be cursed by God.
REP. RICK ALLEN: Are you familiar with Genesis 12:3?
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: Probably not as well as you are, Congressman.
REP. RICK ALLEN: Well, it’s pretty clear. It was the covenant that God made with Abraham. And that covenant was real clear: “If you bless Israel, I will bless you. If you curse Israel, I will curse you.” And then, in the New Testament, it was confirmed that all nations would be blessed through you. So, you do not know about that?
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: I have heard that, now that you’ve explained it.
REP. RICK ALLEN: OK.
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: Yes, I have heard that before.
REP. RICK ALLEN: So, it’s now familiar. Do you consider that a serious issue? I mean, do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God, of the Bible?
Much of this is beyond my understanding - I don't think in AI or in scamming and am not a techy. But I can understand enough to be deeply disturbed at the thoughtless insanity, the selfish greed and self and Earth-destructiveness. Thank you so much, Loretta Napoleoni, for the great service to us all in writing this book!
Anyone who seriously believes we're going to colonize Mars--ever--knows zero about what Mars is like, its capacity to sustain life as we know it, or much anything else about the whole idea of space travel as we can manage it at all in the near future. In the somewhat farther future, we're all dead from climate catastrophe or nuclear war, because we're ignorant as hell and can't even figure out how to avoid destroying ourselves. Elon Musk is a total idiot if he really believes he'll ever even take the first step in "colonizing Mars."
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: The moment you enter Amazon.com, you’ve exited capitalism. It looks like capitalism, but it isn’t. There are thousands of buyers and sellers, but we are all — whether we are buying or selling on Amazon.com, we are all the serfs of Jeff Bezos. He doesn’t produce anything. He simply has encased us in that digital fiefdom — I call it a cloud fiefdom — using very powerful algorithmic capital, which I also call cloud capital. And every time you buy anything, from a book to an electric bicycle, on Amazon.com, which he has not been produced, he charges up to 40% to the vassal capitalist that has produced it. So, markets have been replaced by these digital fiefs, and profit has increasingly been siphoned off into what is essentially a kind of rent, like the feudal lords of yesteryear used to charge rent or extract rent from the serfs. My view is that this is what already has — in other words, capitalism was killed by capital, not by us on the left, not by trade unions. Capital became so triumphant that, like a stupid virus, it mutated into a very toxic version, which killed its host, capitalism — that’s the basic premise of my book.
The interview is about 8 minutes long. (And Yanis's using the word "rent" reminded me of Michael Hudson who has discussed and written about the economic notion of "rent" for many years.
Where was Chris Hedges during that techo-fascist vaccine mandate pushed by Big Pharma? Silent...not a word. His credibility on matters of human rights and Big Pharma is questionable.
The video wouldn't play properly for me in Google Chrome or Microsoft Bing, but it played for me using Firefox browser. There was still some jerkiness at the beginning but it didn't stop.
my video won't load.
They are vampires and cannibals and we are the only item on the menu.
Video won’t play
Video doesn’t work. 😪
My video won’t load either.
Not everybody has a smart phone. And I would never use an uber even if I had one and had to walk 10 miles to get wherever I was going. I consider uber a criminal company.
I had great difficulty understanding Ms. Napoleoni. I will get her book, however, because I am interested in what she is saying. Many thanks for the interview.
So much common sense here. It would be great if some of the people that control our government had some.
Watch for whom you vote. Did you notice the Christian right in action this week?
Democracynow.org 04/18/24
"In nearly four hours of grueling congressional testimony before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce, the president of Columbia University, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, said she had taken serious action against accusations of antisemitism on campus in recent months amid Israel’s assault on Gaza, including dismissing or removing five faculty members from the classroom, suspending 15 students and suspending two student groups — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace."
This is a part of it:
"NERMEEN SHAIKH: Later in the hearing, Republican Georgia Congressmember Rick Allen brought up the Bible in his questioning of Shafik. He cited the Old and New Testament and asked Shafik if [she] wanted Columbia University to be cursed by God.
REP. RICK ALLEN: Are you familiar with Genesis 12:3?
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: Probably not as well as you are, Congressman.
REP. RICK ALLEN: Well, it’s pretty clear. It was the covenant that God made with Abraham. And that covenant was real clear: “If you bless Israel, I will bless you. If you curse Israel, I will curse you.” And then, in the New Testament, it was confirmed that all nations would be blessed through you. So, you do not know about that?
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: I have heard that, now that you’ve explained it.
REP. RICK ALLEN: OK.
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: Yes, I have heard that before.
REP. RICK ALLEN: So, it’s now familiar. Do you consider that a serious issue? I mean, do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God, of the Bible?
MINOUCHE SHAFIK: Definitely not.
REP. RICK ALLEN: OK. Well, that’s good."
God help us. We must fight for our very lives and souls.
Much of this is beyond my understanding - I don't think in AI or in scamming and am not a techy. But I can understand enough to be deeply disturbed at the thoughtless insanity, the selfish greed and self and Earth-destructiveness. Thank you so much, Loretta Napoleoni, for the great service to us all in writing this book!
Anyone who seriously believes we're going to colonize Mars--ever--knows zero about what Mars is like, its capacity to sustain life as we know it, or much anything else about the whole idea of space travel as we can manage it at all in the near future. In the somewhat farther future, we're all dead from climate catastrophe or nuclear war, because we're ignorant as hell and can't even figure out how to avoid destroying ourselves. Elon Musk is a total idiot if he really believes he'll ever even take the first step in "colonizing Mars."
On April 16, 2024 Amy and Juan interviewed former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/16/technofeudalism Part of the interview involved Yanis's new book - Technofeudalism.
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: The moment you enter Amazon.com, you’ve exited capitalism. It looks like capitalism, but it isn’t. There are thousands of buyers and sellers, but we are all — whether we are buying or selling on Amazon.com, we are all the serfs of Jeff Bezos. He doesn’t produce anything. He simply has encased us in that digital fiefdom — I call it a cloud fiefdom — using very powerful algorithmic capital, which I also call cloud capital. And every time you buy anything, from a book to an electric bicycle, on Amazon.com, which he has not been produced, he charges up to 40% to the vassal capitalist that has produced it. So, markets have been replaced by these digital fiefs, and profit has increasingly been siphoned off into what is essentially a kind of rent, like the feudal lords of yesteryear used to charge rent or extract rent from the serfs. My view is that this is what already has — in other words, capitalism was killed by capital, not by us on the left, not by trade unions. Capital became so triumphant that, like a stupid virus, it mutated into a very toxic version, which killed its host, capitalism — that’s the basic premise of my book.
The interview is about 8 minutes long. (And Yanis's using the word "rent" reminded me of Michael Hudson who has discussed and written about the economic notion of "rent" for many years.
No video
Where was Chris Hedges during that techo-fascist vaccine mandate pushed by Big Pharma? Silent...not a word. His credibility on matters of human rights and Big Pharma is questionable.
The video wouldn't play properly for me in Google Chrome or Microsoft Bing, but it played for me using Firefox browser. There was still some jerkiness at the beginning but it didn't stop.
Gee- how about that- my video won't load either- no way Techno Fascism has anything to do with that, huh?