[AFAIK]

I'm currently reading Technofeudalism by Yannis Varoufakis in which the author argues that the economy is increasing dominated by digital fiefdoms that extract rents from their users in exchange for access to their services. He states that Amazon isn't a market place despite hosting huge volumes of buying and selling. All interactions are governed by algorithms that deny space for market transactions to occur. Other examples include Android OS, which mobile phone manufacturers must use to gain access to a large userbase of app developers and end users, the app store, which charges developers 30% of total revenue in exchange for access to Apple users, and Youtube, which splits advertising revenue between itself and the producers of videos hosted there.

He also discussed Chinese tech giants that are even more successful than their US counterparts in many ways although they are more vulnerable to regulation due to the CPP's ability and willingness to control capital.

What is Technofedalism?
Interview by The Guardian

[Rich]

The classic Technofeudalism was Obamacare. With the so called health mandates, effectively reintroducing serfdom. This is why we have no truck with the international liberal lie machine's scare tactics over Trump. It is Biden that is trying to create technofeudal dictatorship. With his health mandates, his support for lockdowns, his support for taking away our guns our cars and free speech. It was Biden who when vice President pushed for Stalinist style campus show trials, who said women must always believed, well of course not if they are accusing Joe Biden.

[late]

It is Biden that is trying to create technofeudal dictatorship.

Funny, that's exactly what Republicans are doing. Say, you wouldn't happening to be projecting your sh*t onto us, would you?

Naw, didn't think so...

[late]

I'm currently reading Technofeudalism by Yannis Varoufakis in which the author argues that the economy is increasing dominated by digital fiefdoms that extract rents from their users in exchange for access to their services. He states that Amazon isn't a market place despite hosting huge volumes of buying and selling. All interactions are governed by algorithms that deny space for market transactions to occur. Other examples include Android OS, which mobile phone manufacturers must use to gain access to a large userbase of app developers and end users, the app store, which charges developers 30% of total revenue in exchange for access to Apple users, and Youtube, which splits advertising revenue between itself and the producers of videos hosted there.

He also discussed Chinese tech giants that are even more successful than their US counterparts in many ways although they are more vulnerable to regulation due to the CPP's ability and willingness to control capital.

What is Technofedalism?
Interview by The Guardian

Try Price of Inequality.

https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers/dp/0393345068/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20OPGWUTQ92PE&keywords=the+price+of+inequality+by+joseph+e.+stiglitz&qid=1705415248&sprefix=price+of+ine%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-1

[AFAIK]

Thanks @late, I think Yanis agrees with Stiglitz's position that top down regulation is futile and he advocates a form of market socialism in which each employee of an establishment will be granted 1 share with which they vote on decisions the company makes including who gets a bonus and how big it is (everyone earns the same wage/ salary). Shares cannot be bought, sold or traded. He also proposes creating digital currencies issued by central banks so that private banks are no longer needed to complete transactions.

@Rich
Obamacare was modeled on healthcare reforms Romney passed when he was governor of Massachusetts. Romney turned his back on the policy when he and his party realised they could get away with treating ordinary Americans even more poorly and lean more heavily into making healthcare an extractivist oligarchy. So I'd agree that USA's private healthcare and insurance has similarities to feudalism but technology pays a small role in its function.

[late]

Thanks @late, I think Yanis agrees with Stiglitz's position that top down regulation is futile and he advocates a form of market socialism in which each employee of an establishment will be granted 1 share with which they vote on decisions the company makes including who gets a bonus and how big it is (everyone earns the same wage/ salary). Shares cannot be bought, sold or traded. He also proposes creating digital currencies issued by central banks so that private banks are no longer needed to complete transactions.

@Rich
Obamacare was modeled on healthcare reforms Romney passed when he was governor of Massachusetts. Romney turned his back on the policy when he and his party realised they could get away with treating ordinary Americans even more poorly and lean more heavily into making healthcare an extractivist oligarchy. So I'd agree that USA's private healthcare and insurance has similarities to feudalism but technology pays a small role in its function.

A lot of poor countries have a few rich people, and poverty for most everyone else. High levels of income inequality is what feudal countries, banana republicans, and the United States have in common.

It's death for democracy, and it's even bad for the economy.

[Rancid]

Thanks @late, I think Yanis agrees with Stiglitz's position that top down regulation is futile and he advocates a form of market socialism in which each employee of an establishment will be granted 1 share with which they vote on decisions the company makes including who gets a bonus and how big it is (everyone earns the same wage/ salary). Shares cannot be bought, sold or traded. He also proposes creating digital currencies issued by central banks so that private banks are no longer needed to complete transactions.

Let's do it. That said, people might find a way to game such a system.

[QatzelOk]

...the economy is increasing dominated by digital fiefdoms that extract rents from their users in exchange for access to their services. He states that Amazon isn't a market place despite hosting huge volumes of buying and selling. All interactions are governed by algorithms that deny space for market transactions to occur. ...

We no longer buy "stuff" from "stores." Instead, we log on to Amazon and buy stuff that they deliver.

Why don't we just buy stuff online and have it delivered by the Post Office - an organization that was created to deliver stuff? Because organized crime wants to replace the post office.

Organized crime also wants all the profits from purchases, and organized crime also wants a record of what you bought, and what social media you were reading while you bought it.

In other words, organized crime wants to remove all the pesky competition from real capitalism - the same way that organized crime removed all the pesky competition in the former Soviet Union.

As long as the public stares credulously at media stimulation, they will be governed by a monopoly that considers them cattle to exploit.

The Republicans!... The Democrats...

Totally irrelevant. Nice try at drowning a new idea on the forum... with boring political theater.

[late]

We no longer buy "stuff" from "stores." Instead, we log on to Amazon and buy stuff that they deliver.

Why don't we just buy stuff online and have it delivered by the Post Office - an organization that was created to deliver stuff? Because organized crime wants to replace the post office.

Organized crime also wants all the profits from purchases, and organized crime also wants a record of what you bought, and what social media you were reading while you bought it.

In other words, organized crime wants to remove all the pesky competition from real capitalism - the same way that organized crime removed all the pesky competition in the former Soviet Union.

As long as the public stares credulously at media stimulation, they will be governed by a monopoly that considers them cattle to exploit.


Totally irrelevant. Nice try at drowning a new idea on the forum... with boring political theater.

In the 1800s, a company kinda like Amazon happened. It was Sears, and they took advantage of the new rail system to sell direct to consumers.

You could buy a house, guns, clothing, most anything a person could want.

Most lived in small towns, and were farming. If you had needed something, it could take a long time to get it. Even if a store had it, it usually wasn't the best option for you. With Sears, you needed a special plow, they could have one headed your way quickly.

Point is, what Amazon does, has been done before...

That isn't organised crime, it's business.

[QatzelOk]

In the 1800s, a company kinda like Amazon happened. It was Sears, and they took advantage of the new rail system to sell direct to consumers.

You could buy a house, guns, clothing, most anything a person could want.

Most lived in small towns, and were farming. If you had needed something, it could take a long time to get it. Even if a store had it, it usually wasn't the best option for you. With Sears, you needed a special plow, they could have one headed your way quickly.

Point is, what Amazon does, has been done before...

That isn't organised crime, it's business.

All you have done is to suggest that perhaps Sears was another organized crime operation, with connections to government officials. That they used rail to spread their marketing and distribution network... demonstrates that they profited from the genocide of Western aboriginal groups in the 1800s.

[Rancid]

@late, I'm going to backup @QatzelOk here.

While what you say is true, that Amazon is basically the modern day Sears, and the sort of "business revolution" Amazon ushers, is of the same cloth as what Sears did in the 1800s. It is still true that Sears and Amazon manipulated the system/government to gain favor.

We are slowly moving towards a corporate state. That is, corporations will be what we answer to, while the government is simply the administrator of corporate will.

We should be against corporations getting more power and money globally.

[late]

All you have done is to suggest that perhaps Sears was another organized crime operation, with connections to government officials. That they used rail to spread their marketing and distribution network... demonstrates that they profited from the genocide of Western aboriginal groups in the 1800s.

Ahh, so breathing is criminal.

Psst, you are one of us...

[late]

@late, I'm going to backup @QatzelOk here.

While what you say is true, that Amazon is basically the modern day Sears, and the sort of "business revolution" Amazon ushers, is of the same cloth as what Sears did in the 1800s. It is still true that Sears and Amazon manipulated the system/government to gain favor.

We are slowly moving towards a corporate state. That is, corporations will be what we answer to, while the government is simply the administrator of corporate will.

We should be against corporations getting more power and money globally.

This isn't the first time we've had a lot of corruption, massive income inequality. During the Robber Baron era, TR and then FDR fought them off.

Now we have to do it again.

[QatzelOk]

This isn't the first time we've had a lot of corruption, massive income inequality. During the Robber Baron era, TR and then FDR fought them off.

Now we have to do it again.

They were called "the Trusts" back during the last starvation-causing Depression.

[Rancid]

This isn't the first time we've had a lot of corruption, massive income inequality. During the Robber Baron era, TR and then FDR fought them off.

Now we have to do it again.

I hope you are right. Feels like because it's much easier for corporations to manipulate voters via social media, it might be harder to fight.

[AFAIK]

When you open a Sears catalogue everything you see is being sold by Sears and you can only purchase products from Sears. When you log into Amazon you can buy goods from millions of different companies and any retailer can list any product on the website and store it in Amazon's warehouses.

Was Sears a vertically integrated monopoly? That's another trend that's harming consumers today.

[QatzelOk]

...monopoly... That's another trend that's harming consumers today.

Thing is, "monopoly" isn't really a trend. It's the long-term ambition of capitalism: total control.

Totalitarianism... like Lords ruling over ignorant Serfs - that is the long-term objective of our leaders.

They have even gone as far as MK Ultra brain-control research to see who they could accomplish this through brain-damaging billions of human animals.

[FiveofSwords]

I'm currently reading Technofeudalism by Yannis Varoufakis in which the author argues that the economy is increasing dominated by digital fiefdoms that extract rents from their users in exchange for access to their services. He states that Amazon isn't a market place despite hosting huge volumes of buying and selling. All interactions are governed by algorithms that deny space for market transactions to occur. Other examples include Android OS, which mobile phone manufacturers must use to gain access to a large userbase of app developers and end users, the app store, which charges developers 30% of total revenue in exchange for access to Apple users, and Youtube, which splits advertising revenue between itself and the producers of videos hosted there.

He also discussed Chinese tech giants that are even more successful than their US counterparts in many ways although they are more vulnerable to regulation due to the CPP's ability and willingness to control capital.

What is Technofedalism?
Interview by The Guardian

It is intrinsicslly absurd to even say 'technofeudalism' because the social contract in feudalism was that the upper class were required to actually risk their life in wars in order to earn their 'privileges'. The estate of a lord, with all of its servants, was part of the requirement of producing heavy cavalry...which in that era was fundamental to military power.

Being a tech person is nothing like being heavy cavalry.

So making the comparison is basically just propagating fake ideas about what feudalism was like and how it worked, while concealing the reality of what we are seeing. It feels like when people describe anything they don't like or anything that happens to be authoritarian as 'fascism'...which results in to most absurd terms like 'communist fascists' lol...

What your book is probably trying to describe is just called plutocracy. Not feudalism. It is what Aristotle claimed all democracies inevitably degenerate to.

[SpecialOlympian]

I only read two sentences of the OP but yes feudalism is the end state of unchecked capitalism. And this is good.

Once we are bound again to the land and only allowed to travel for pilgrimages to venerate the shrines of saints like Bezos, Musk, and Buffett we will finally be free to dedicate our time to spiritual pursuits so that we may hone our souls for the afterlife.

[Potemkin]

I only read two sentences of the OP but yes feudalism is the end state of unchecked capitalism. And this is good.

Once we are bound again to the land and only allowed to travel for pilgrimages to venerate the shrines of saints like Bezos, Musk, and Buffett we will finally be free to dedicate our time to spiritual pursuits so that we may hone our souls for the afterlife.

Capitalism will finally fulfil its sacred mission of bringing people to the joyful worship of God. And by ‘God’, I mean money of course.