Technofeudalism: Digital surveillance as new capitalist policing mechanism

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*

Capitalism as a global system continues to evolve, continuously reshaping itself, accommodating with the new environment, aligning itself with different forms of regressive, right wing, reactionary, religious and authoritarian powers to reinforce its rent-seeking nature in the form of "technofeudalism” where technology mediates the traditionally insidious structures, agencies, and processes of capitalist accumulation.

The outcomes of contemporary feudal techno-capitalism, in the form of alienation, exploitation, hunger, homelessness, and inequality, are not very different from those of old capitalism. The technological shift within capitalism represents continuity and intensification of capitalist exploitation.

However, the brutality of contemporary capitalism is far more sophisticated than its primitive colonial version. The overt forms of violence, coercion and colonial brutality have transformed in new capitalism where technology controls, domesticates and demeans labour less than a commodity.

The digital surveillance is a new policing mechanism of new capitalism where power continues to be in the hands of few technologically dominant platform companies. It has neither transformed its exploitative systems nor facilitated any form of progressive idealism into its processes.

The technology led feudal capitalism in the disguise of digital revolution has not transformed the material conditions for social, economic and cultural progress and deepening of democracy. The underlying dynamics of capitalism remains strikingly similar to its brutal lineages.

The old debates on ‘combined and uneven development,’ the exploitative relationship between ‘center and periphery,’ the growing gap between the ‘Global South and the Global North,’ the persistent ‘regional disparities,’ ‘racial and patriarchal capitalism,’ widening social and economic gaps, inequalities, and regional underdevelopment are resurfacing as if these issues are new.

In reality, these issues are the net outcomes of old capitalism and have been expanded and intensified beyond borders by new forms of global capitalism driven by technology.

The policies of liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation were introduced as projects for global prosperity and were promised as tools for economic growth and poverty eradication. However, these policies were projects of global capitalism that further concentrated wealth in the hands of a few in the Global North, while impoverishing people across the globe.

These policies marginalised the working masses by dismantling welfare state. These policies have also helped to establish market led democracy where profit prevails over people. The market democracies have enabled exploitative practices and normalised them as natural.

The progressive elements of technological and digital revolutions are controlled and manipulated by the platform capitalists to control availability, accessibility and use of technological knowledge by the masses for the growth of digital consciousness. Capitalism leverages technology for its own benefit while restricting the working people’s access to technological education, knowledge, skills and consciousness.

The technology led feudal capitalism in the disguise of digital revolution has not transformed the material conditions of society

Capitalism survives, secures, consolidates, expands and perpetuates itself by employing reactionary mechanisms such as everyday structural violence, regional conflicts, interstate wars, and the support of authoritarian and anti-democratic regimes. These elements are not mere byproducts but integral tools that ensure the capitalist system's existence. Without these mechanisms of control and suppression, capitalism as a system risks collapse.

These tools serve to subdue the working masses, ensuring the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a very few, while offering miseries for many. The inherent inequalities and systemic exploitation within capitalism are sustained through these very methods, making the concentration of wealth and the dissemination of misery an inevitable outcome for the many even within digital revolution.

The ideas surrounding 'the human face of capitalism,' 'progressive capitalism,' and 'the Great Reset' are offered as alternatives. However, these deceptive and misleading concepts cannot solve the issues of inequality and exploitation.

Capitalism, both as a system and a process, is not designed for human prosperity, happiness, or environmental sustainability. It is designed to accumulate profit by exploiting human beings and nature. The strategies of rebranding, reform, and restructuring can never address the inherently structural problems of capitalism.

The ideals of true freedom, including both material and non-material equality, lasting and collective happiness, genuine peace for human beings and animals, and widespread prosperity with solidarity between people, animal and nature, are impossible to achieve within the capitalist system. The working masses must seek these ideals outside of capitalism.

Therefore, anti-capitalist struggles are central to upholding the interests of working people and nature in the search for viable alternatives.

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

The Galgotia model: How India is losing the war on knowledge

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Galgotia is the face of 'quality education' as envisioned by those who never considered education a tool for social change or national uplift — and yet this is precisely the model Narendra Modi pursued in Gujarat as Chief Minister. In the mid-eighties, when many of us were growing up, 'Nirma' became one of the most popular advertisements on Doordarshan. Whether the product was any good hardly seemed to matter.

Bangladesh goes to polls as press freedom concerns surface

By Nava Thakuria* As Bangladesh heads for its 13th Parliamentary election and a referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests and prioritize the greater interests of the Muslim-majority nation, regardless of the poll outcomes.

Beyond the conflict: Experts outline roadmap for humane street dog solutions

By A Representative In a direct response to the rising polarization surrounding India’s street dog population, a high-level coalition of parliamentarians, legal experts, and civil society leaders gathered in the capital to propose a unified national framework for humane animal management. The emergency deliberations were sparked by a recent Suo Moto judgment that has significantly deepened the divide between animal welfare advocates and those calling for the removal of community dogs, a tension that has recently escalated into reported violence against both animals and their caretakers in states like Telangana.

Search This Blog