The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

by Shoshana Zuboff

So here is what is at stake: surveillance capitalism is profoundly antidemocratic, but its remarkable power does not originate in the state, as has historically been the case. Its effects cannot be reduced to or explained by technology or the bad intentions of bad people; they are the consistent and predictable consequences of an internally consistent and successful logic of accumulation. Surveillance capitalism rose to dominance in the US under conditions of relative lawlessness. From there it spread to Europe, and it continues to make inroads in every region of the world. Surveillance capitalist firms, beginning with Google, dominate the accumulation and processing of information, especially information about human behavior. They know a great deal about us, but our access to their knowledge is sparse: hidden in the shadow text and read only by the new priests, their bosses, and their machines.