Wired

04/09/2024

Are we at the beginning of fascism? And if so, is that really technofeudalism’s fault?

I think that fascism is already on the rise. In France almost 45 percent of the population are supporting a neofascist [Marine Le Pen]. In Italy, we have a neofascist prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. That was not the doing of technofeudalism, because technofeudalism came later. What happened is, the rise of cloud capital and the siphoning off of money from the circular flow of income increases the discontent within people. At the same time you have the algorithms which make money and accumulate cloud capital to the extent that we hate one another. Hate is the fuel of facism. So if you blend discontent, the fact that most people can’t make ends meet, and you throw in there the hatred that is reinforced by the algorithms, that’s fascism.

So if we have this new system that is fueling a new fascism, then what should we do about it?

Well, many things. But to begin with, let’s understand where we are, so we don’t blame the foreigners. We don’t blame women. We don’t blame trans people. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way towards recreating the circumstances for a decent conversation between us.

In economic terms, we need to introduce a cloud tax immediately. Tax Amazon 5 percent for every transaction that takes place on its platform. Then, introduce a capacity for you and me to own a digital identity so we don’t need Google or Facebook to vouch for who we are on the internet. Having a state-issued digital identity will go a long way towards restoring or handing you property rights over your data, because at the moment you do not own your data.

You can introduce interoperability. I am on X. I can’t go to Bluesky. Let’s say that Elon Musk decides to block me because I said something he didn’t like. He has blocked me before for a couple of weeks. Now, I have more than a million followers on X. I cannot leave without losing them. If I go to Bluesky, I have 10 followers. Interoperability would mean that if I go to another platform, to Bluesky, when I post something on Bluesky, then my 1 million followers on X can hear it.