Surveillance Capitalism
monthlyreview.org
monthlyreview.org
I already knew most of history and would have preferred to read a much more thorough treatment of the parallels and/or relationships between these topics and agents.
Grossly put, it's making the case that the U.S. is economically and technologically vulnerable and our security services have responded to that by initiating surveillance of citizen and corporate internet habits surrounding consumption and other practices involving money.
The author does build up a respectable synthesis of these ideas, but then in a sentence or two comes to the vague conclusion that we must demilitarize internet consumption. Unfortunately, this second, major thought is not as well-developed.
It's a fascinating concept though- that law enforcement would de-emphasize -or expand beyond- protection of bodily harm in favor of protecting us from events that would destabilize commerce. In other words, they might not search your smart phone for banned porn as eagerly as they would for evidence of cybercrime. The logic being that porn might hurt individuals, but cybercrime could empty corporate bank accounts, leading to disruption of international trade and therefore social instability through missing food and employment.