Mahi Sall, Advisor, Fintech-Bank Partnerships, Payments and Financial Inclusivity
January 25th, 2023
Mahi Sall is the CEO & Founder of FinXpair, a Berlin-based strategic advisory boutique firm focu[...]
Surveillance Capitalism: Policymakers must put an end to abusive practices
Financial Post | Jim Balsillie | Dec 15, 2021
I believe that capitalism in a liberal democratic society is by far the best system to promote human flourishing. It’s the best economic system for the generation of new wealth, which is why even authoritarian states like China have embraced it. The generation of new wealth is a critical first step for any debate on redistribution or expanding publicly funded social services.When entrepreneurs have access to capital, they can channel their ideas into products and services that can improve the lives of fellow citizens, industry and even governments. No other economic system allows a single individual to profoundly shape society for the better and to simultaneously create public and private good — this is why capitalism is worth protecting.
Today, there is a renewed belief that government invariably shapes the economy, and that it must continue to do that effectively. This is especially critical now in the age of surveillance capitalism, which is not only reshaping markets but threatening to unmake liberal democracy.
See: Biden’s ‘Antitrust Revolution’ Overlooks AI—at Americans’ Peril
As Professor Shoshana Zuboff has shown in painstaking detail, surveillance capitalism leaves a trail of social wreckage in its wake: the wholesale destruction of privacy, the intensification of social inequality, the creation of a mental health crisis amongst our youth, the poisoning of social discourse with misinformation, the demolition of social norms and the weakening of democratic institutions.
If we are to preserve the very best of capitalism and especially its ability to generate new wealth, we must bring this mutant form of capitalism under democratic control. Throughout the last century, industrial production-based capitalism was tamed through employment rights, new social supports, mandatory environmental practices and many other industry-specific regulations.
Today, because we lack meaningful regulation of the data-driven economy, we have competition to control markets rather than competition within markets. Unlike physical assets, data has unique features such as its “economies of scope and scale,” “network effects” and “information asymmetries.”
If capitalism is going to survive this century, our policymakers must put an end to abusive practices and develop marketplace frameworks that force companies to contribute to the productive capacity of the market.
See:
China’s Communist authorities are reinventing state capitalism
Lawmakers Take Aim at Big Tech with Push for Sweeping Overhaul of Antitrust
Only then can entrepreneurial individuals make the best use of what capitalism has to offer and continue to sustain and advance shared economic prosperity and democratic values, as they have done for centuries.
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