{"id":78784,"date":"2022-09-05T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T17:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=78784"},"modified":"2022-09-15T11:04:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T15:04:24","slug":"neoliberal-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/neoliberal-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"How Neoliberal Capitalism Endangers Personal Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is neoliberal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/capitalism-theory\/\">capitalism<\/a>? What is the underlying ideology? What&#8217;s the connection to surveillance capitalism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Author and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff claims that neoliberal capitalism is one of the contributing factors to surveillance capitalism, where big tech companies monitor and manipulate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/user-behavior\/\">user behavior<\/a>. In her book, <em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism<\/em>, she explains the connection and consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to learn what neoliberal capitalism is and how it endangers personal freedom, according to Zuboff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-neoliberal-surveillance-capitalism\">Neoliberal &amp; Surveillance Capitalism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Zuboff argues that surveillance capitalism was born out of a specific set of conditions\u2014a perfect storm of factors that gave birth to a new technological philosophy. <strong>One of these conditions is the rise of neoliberal capitalism.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Definition of Surveillance Capitalism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Zuboff, surveillance capitalism is an emerging form of capitalism in which <strong>companies harvest data about our behavior, make predictions about our future behavior using that data, and sell those predictions for profit.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Zuboff first invented the term \u201csurveillance capitalism\u201d in 2014. She used it in <a href=\"https:\/\/opencuny.org\/pnmarchive\/files\/2019\/01\/Zuboff-Digital-Declaration.pdf\">a paper exploring the future of Big Data and how we have both the power and responsibility to shape it how we want to<\/a>. The paper was the precursor to many of the ideas discussed in <em>The Age of Surveillance Capitalism<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zuboff explains that although most of us are aware that big tech companies are doing <em>something<\/em> to us, we aren\u2019t capable of understanding the situation\u2019s complexities, implications, or magnitude because it\u2019s entirely unprecedented\u2014we have no other event in history to compare it to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zuboff explains that <strong>companies often collect information without the knowledge or meaningful consent of their consumers.<\/strong> Additionally, they invade personal spaces\u2014both physical and psychological\u2014to do so.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, she says that even when we\u2019re inside our homes, devices like TVs, thermostats, and even mattresses are monitoring and delivering information about what we say and do to company computers. In addition, companies can analyze metadata\u2014like how often you change your profile picture\u2014to determine <strong>extremely specific information<\/strong> that you never intentionally disclosed, such as whether or not you have depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-neoliberalism-s-threat-to-freedom\">Neoliberalism&#8217;s Threat to Freedom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Zuboff explains that <strong>the anti-regulation mindset of neoliberal capitalism contributed significantly to the inception of surveillance capitalism.<\/strong> Following WWII and the height of the Cold War, the Western world\u2014in particular the US and UK\u2014was in the midst of an economic downturn. In addition, these countries were extremely wary of the governmental control underlying totalitarianism and communism in other parts of the world. As a result, the people of the US and UK began calling for more democratic participation and equal rights for marginalized groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a solution to both the economic decline and the public\u2019s demand for less governmental authority, neoliberal economists began to advocate for radical <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/free-market-reforms\/\">free-market capitalism<\/a> based on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hayek-economic-theory\/\">Friedrich Hayek<\/a> and Milton Friedman\u2019s economic theories. <strong>They pushed for an unimpeded market where competition would reign free, and deregulation and privatization would replace government oversight, labor unions, and government-owned corporations.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the US never adopted an entirely free market in practice, the essence of neoliberal capitalism took hold of the economy. Zuboff says that by the 1990s, the idea of <em>self<\/em>-regulation grew out of the absence of government regulation. <strong>Companies gained the ability to oversee themselves, which set up ideal conditions for Google to experiment with the data it had been collecting about people in whatever way it saw fit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>The Ties Between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-do-politics-affect-the-economy\/\">Economics and Politics<\/a><\/strong><br><br>As Zuboff explains, neoliberal capitalism grew in popularity because of how it seemed to address the public\u2019s political concerns following WWII and the height of the Cold War. However, she doesn\u2019t explain exactly why economists like Hayek and Friedman believed that neoliberalism was the answer to the public\u2019s fears of governmental control and the lack of a political voice.&nbsp;<br><br>In Friedman\u2019s book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/capitalism-and-freedom\"><em>Capitalism and Freedom<\/em><\/a>, which details his economic theories, he argues that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/capitalism-and-freedom\/chapter-1\">economic freedom is essential to political freedom<\/a>. This is because being able to choose which goods and services satisfy one\u2019s individual needs puts significant power in the hands of the people, rather than the government. In other words, free markets give control of the economy to the public, thereby checking the power of government, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/why-more-is-less\/\">maximizing<\/a> individual freedoms, and preventing the oppression of individual rights.<br><br><strong>However, one could argue that Friedman\u2019s assertion that economic freedom gives control back to the public is misleading due to the existence of monopolies, which are a product of free, unimpeded markets.<\/strong> A monopoly is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/basic-economics\/chapter-8#what-is-actually-a-monopoly\">when one person or organization becomes the only supplier of a product or service<\/a>. Without competition, they can control prices and therefore the market itself. When monopolies have total control, it undermines the benefits of a free market outlined in Friedman\u2019s argument, as the power is in the hands of a few corporations rather than distributed among the people. Therefore, perhaps neoliberalism wasn\u2019t the answer to people\u2019s fears that economists claimed it was.&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is neoliberal capitalism? What is the underlying ideology? What&#8217;s the connection to surveillance capitalism? Author and Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff claims that neoliberal capitalism is one of the contributing factors to surveillance capitalism, where big tech companies monitor and manipulate user behavior. In her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, she explains the connection and consequences. Keep reading to learn what neoliberal capitalism is and how it endangers personal freedom, according to Zuboff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":78815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,24],"tags":[743],"class_list":["post-78784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-society","tag-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Neoliberal Capitalism Endangers Personal Freedom - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is neoliberal capitalism? How is it connected to surveillance capitalism? 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