The state has lost control: tech firms now run western politics

[Commentary] By now, the fact that transatlantic democratic capitalism, once the engine of postwar prosperity, has run into trouble can hardly be denied by anyone with the courage to browse a daily newspaper. Hunger, homelessness, toxic chemicals in the water supply, the lack of affordable housing: all these issues are back on the agenda, even in the most prosperous of countries. This appalling decline in living standards was some time in the making – 40 years of neoliberal policies are finally taking their toll – so it shouldn’t come as a shock.

Today, however, there’s a major change. While the financial industry has historically been key to “buying time” and staving off the populist rebellion, in the future that role will be assigned to the technology industry, with a minor role played by the global advertising markets – the very magic wand that allows so many digital services to be offered for free, in exchange for our data. Since all this data generated on digital platforms has an immense market value, it can be profitably sold off to fit any holes in the budget – including by governments themselves. Universities, insurance firms, banks: plenty of companies would be happy to buy it. There’s something even more sinister afoot though. “Buying time” no longer seems like an adequate description of what is happening, if only because technology companies, even more so than the banks, are not only too big too fail but also impossible to undo – let alone replicate – even if a new government is elected.

[Evgeny Morozov is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy and runs the magazine's Net Effect blog. He is a visiting scholar at Stanford University and a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation.]