Ecological History Week 12

financialization

where financial markets increasingly dominate economic activity

• shapes corporate behavior, policy, and everyday life

• development of capitalism since the 1980s

  • ideological commitments that redesigned financial sectors to generate financial returns

  • increase in private equity

• goal: maximize returns for its shareholders

  • contrasting to 1970s corporate America under a stakeholder model that acknowledged obligations to employees, communities, and customers alongside shareholders

  • changed what firms did with their earnings, how executives were rewarded, and ultimately what industries financial capital chose to enter

Polanyi's thesis

Karl Polanyi - wrote The Great Transformation in 1944

• described “fictitious commodification” of land, labor, and money

• everything was becoming a commodity subject to market pricing

• writing about Industrial Revolution but applies to financialization now

Surveillance economy

information ecology

Applying ecological concepts for modeling the information society

• industrial capitalism has transformed nature’s raw materials into commodities

  • human nature is now exploited and for sale

• all interact like species of an ecosystem

  • our lives are behavioral data

• “Ecology and systems biology enriched simplistic theories of “survival of the fittest” by highlighting the network of symbiotic relationships and ecosystem services that determine the success of ever higher levels of life.”

data

collection of facts, information, statistics, etc. that is collected and used by companies to improve their prediction models

• created by us & extracted

• companies have found ways to translate these interactions into a “raw material” for purchase

  • at no cost to the company, only profit

  • procured through surveillance - privacy concerns

monetization of social media

monetization = earning revenue from something

Leveraging online presence to generate income

• promotes superficiality

• people want to create the most original content or do things that most cannot do

  • increase in travel, high luxury lifestyle

  • content clothing hauls

  • constant promotion / paid sponsorship

data centers

A facility used to house computer systems

• high water usage, greenhouse gas emissions, chemical runoff

algorithms

a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations

• push certain content, hides others

rabbit holes

social media rabbit hole?

“users”

social media “users” ?

Or referencing companies who use our data for profit?

"if you are not purchasing the product, you are the product"

We are extracted and expropriated

• example: data used to improve Google’s prediction factors

• sold to customers, not to us (those they have taken the data from)

the business model put forth by social media companies

advertising-based business model

• free access to users, generate wealth by selling advertising space

social, psychological and political effects of social media

• used for propaganda

• people become dependent on it

• taking over both the working sphere and the social sphere

• everything is social media/online based

surveillance capitalism

Serving the genuine needs of the people is less lucrative (therefore, less important) than selling predictions of their behavior

• became default model

• we are less valuable than betting on our future behavior

• turning nonmarket interactions into a surplus of money

behavioral surplus

Collecting the excess data generated by our online activities to predict and influence future commercial behaviors

• Defines Google’s earning success

• translate behavioral surplus from outside to inside the market allowed Google to turn investment into revenue

  • our data is hunted for aggressively

network states

communities that organize online around shared goals/values