THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM by Shoshana Zuboff (Profile Books 2019)
‘The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power’ – that is the dramatic subtitle of this important study which warns that our very humanity is at stake as a result of fast-moving changes in technology over the last two decades.
Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School so one would expect that she is not one to exaggerate without good cause. As you read her brilliant and powerfully argued book, you realise she has good reason to express the negative view that surveillance capitalism is “a form of tyranny that feeds on people but is not of the people”.
Some of the invasion of privacy and manipulative actions she documents are probably known to most readers but it is the sheer scope and range of the influence that is so terrifying. The lawless and anti-democratic escalation of surveillance capitalist corporations leads to the chilling realisation that it may already be too late to halt or restrict their influence.
Without any controls or restrictions these bodies can pretty well do as the please and they have taken full advantage of this to infiltrate every aspect of our lives. Practically everyone on the planet is now traceable and trackable. We are all connected whether we like it or not. Opting out is no longer an option. Continue reading
Since 2014, I have set and maintained a relatively modest reading target on ‘
In his foreword, Aldous Huxley wrote that “A book about the future can interest us only of its proficies look as though they might conceivably come true”. Unfortunately for us, his nightmarish visions are increasingly coming to seem all too accurate.
What is it that derails dreams of utopia and resigns us to the notion that the future is fated to turn out dystopian? 
