By CESAR BOLAÑO & FABRICIO ZANGHELINI*
Just as we fought against the patenting of genes at the turn of the century, today we must fight against the private exploitation of our data
The objective of this article is to present some key elements to criticize the idea of a new “data economy”, which would supposedly differentiate itself from the mode of regulation dominated by finance (Chesnais, 1996). In the current context, a consequence of policies to combat the structural crisis of the 1970s, two general aspects must be considered.
From the point of view of the real economy, capitalist restructuring, based on the development of productive forces whose genesis dates back to the Second World War and post-war period (Noble, 1977), in particular with the so-called microelectronic revolution, resulted in the constitution of the digital paradigm and an extensive transformation of production processes. This phenomenon occurs under the influence of a broad movement of subsumption of intellectual work and general intellectualization of all work processes, generating crucial impacts on consumption and sociability.
In Marxist terms, this process can be defined as the Third Industrial Revolution (Bolaño, 2002). Telematic convergence, the internet, digital platforms, so-called artificial intelligence, among countless other socio-technical innovations that have emerged in the last five decades, are consequences of this same revolutionary process.
The second aspect to be considered is the well-known detachment between the real and financial orbits of capital, resulting in a mass of “idle capital” (Marx, 2017), which moves freely around the world, promoting greater centralization of capital and generating crises. recurring (Belluzzo, 2009; Guillén, 2015; Sá Barreto, 2019). The advance of neoliberalism is closely linked to the development of informational technologies, since “platforms not only accompany the neoliberal process of deregulation of institutional work and employment standards, but also deepen it and give it new tools” (Cingolani, 2022, p .3).
Based on this theoretical-historical perspective, two issues must be considered in the discussion about the so-called data economy. On the one hand, this is a development linked to the Third Industrial Revolution, which expands the capabilities of collecting, storing and manipulating enormous volumes of data by digital technical systems. At this point, for methodological reasons, it is only important to reflect on the strictly economic aspects of the problem, but we cannot forget the fact that among the destinations of data extracted from populations, surveillance and social control systems stand out. by agents with economic power (Furtado, 1978). In fact, this is the ultimate meaning of the entire process of constituting the so-called Big Data: control.
On the other hand, the construction of large databases, where raw material that can be used in various work processes is stored, gives rise to a market where data packages are bought and sold. As interest in statistical, demographic and behavioral data increases – with a view to advertising strategies, political propaganda and much more, including the famous training of artificial intelligence – the idea of a data economy may seem increasingly appropriate in perspective. of orthodox economics. However, this vision does not refer to an economy based on the production of a specific commodity, but on the exchange of mere abstractions.
Now, it is clear that the collection and use of data, facilitated by information and communication technologies, can serve specific purposes and be linked to concrete production processes. To cite just one example, in a state-of-the-art industrial plant, such as a car assembly plant, workers, using laptops and wearable devices such as enhanced vision glasses and exoskeletons provide data that helps with work coordination and surveillance, significantly impacting productivity. However, this is not what the supposed data economy takes into account.
In fact, data cannot be defined as a commodity – not even as raw material, contrary to what has become commonplace in the literature (Srnicek, 2018) –, but rather as raw material. Data collection is becoming increasingly viable due to “the expansion of platform infrastructures in the form of applications, plugins, active and passive trackers and sensors” (Poell, Nieborg and van Dijck, 2020, p. 4). However, the work objectified in these digital infrastructures has the sole purpose of capturing data, one might say, separating it from its immediate connection with individuals.
According to Karl Marx (1968, p. 203), “all things that work only separates from their immediate connection with their natural environment constitute objects of work, provided by nature”. The same can be said of data which, therefore, will only be considered raw material after having “suffered a modification carried out by work” (ibidem) or, in other words, after having been filtered, organized and structured by living work. objectified in infrastructures different from those that carry out simple capture (Zanghelini, 2024).
César Bolaño (2003) emphasizes this idea in a study on the genome project, mentioning both databases and clone libraries preserved for future experiments. In both cases, the transformation into raw material, that is, the initial valorization, depends on the recovery of data in banks through the teleological action that characterizes human work (Lukács, 2013). In the case of the information worker, although using intelligent machines, the action is guided by a project in which the industrial cycle and the cycle of certified academic production are eventually articulated (Bolaño. 2003). But in this case it is essential to highlight that we are no longer dealing with data simply, but with information that circulate within collective processes of physical and intellectual work (Bolaño, 2000).
However, data, as it is extracted and stored on a large scale by companies that control the repositories, can be and is packaged to serve the fictitious appreciation of capital, with the justification of its subsequent usefulness in concrete processes, such as those linked to the advertising sector, the main source of financing for companies that own the largest and most obvious digital platforms. This data trade constitutes, in essence, a form of fictitious capital, whose mobilization follows the same logic as the financial innovations that have marked the development of capitalism in the neoliberal period, intensifying the cyclical crises of capital, such as the subprime during the 2008 crisis (Carcanholo and Medeiros, 2014).
On a more general level, we raise the hypothesis that this type of configuration of the so-called data economy – excluding cases involving productive work processes, such as the one mentioned above in the example of the car manufacturer, which require a more detailed and individualized study – does not act to counteract the downward trend in the average rate of profit. This occurs because, from the perspective of totality, this configuration is restricted only to the distribution of socially produced surplus value. This phenomenon is similar, from the predatory point of view of capital, to what happens with platforms like Uber (Bolaño and Zanghelini, 2024), which, by building their own database and, consequently, an algorithmic architecture, manage to take hold of and externally control the work process, carrying out a parasitic measurement between drivers and passengers (Zanghelini, 2024).
Of course, database ownership can also serve more directly commercial purposes. Given the limits of this text, it is worth briefly mentioning only the form of spoliation that refers to the rupture of the national State's monopoly on the production, custody and organization of official information, in favor of external agents, which puts national sovereignty at risk ( d'Alva and Paraná, 2024).
But the case of official statistics, although emblematic and crucial, is only part of the general problem we are facing at this moment, when digital networks and platforms have assumed a central role in the way capitalism is regulated, deepening the trends installed since the beginning of the period. neoliberal, in the wake of the extension of the commodity form towards the most hidden areas of human relations.
A good example is given by Sergio Amadeu da Silveira (2024), referring to the so-called cloud computing, when showing how the recent “blackout” of the Microsoft operating system is clear evidence of the power (and potential damage) exercised by these companies: “Amazon Web Server and Microsoft Azure, in 2021, held 60% of the global cloud market offering infrastructure as a service. What does that mean? That several companies, institutions, governments replaced their own local data processing and storage infrastructures with contracts for Amazon and Microsoft to “take care of” and “rent” data storage space and computing services […] The blackout demonstrated the power gigantic that has a mediator of digital relations and a data processing operator like Microsoft. Without a doubt, the unintentional failure caused the blackout. But, it is clear that Microsoft has the power to block companies and institutions from accessing their own data located on their data centers, far from our jurisdiction and our ability to physically access”.
In this way, we move to another plane of analysis, in which it is no longer a question of knowing whether the supposed data economy involves the production or mere distribution of socially produced value and wealth, an issue already mentioned above, nor of pointing out, as well as we have already done, its character of fictitious capital appreciation. The issue now is that of development policies and economic planning. The Brazilian reindustrialization project presented by the Federal Government (2024), for example, outlines a roadmap in this direction, adopting and expanding the logic of the Health Economic-Industrial Complex (CEIS).
This model is understood as a development strategy aimed at meeting the urgent needs of the national population (Gadelha, 2021, 2022), in line with Furtado's perspective of inverting the logic of transmuting means into ends, characteristic of capitalism.
We have already had the opportunity to extend the perspective of the CEIS project (Bolaño and Zanghelini, 2022) – highlighting the importance of elements related to information and communication technologies – for the regulation of digital platforms. But, in Furtado, it is not just a question of meeting immediate needs, but of “expanding the horizon of possibilities” (Furtado, 1978) or, in another sense, of going beyond the “[…] plane of practice and [d]as measures to manage the problems of capitalist reproduction” (Medeiros and Bonente, 2021, p. 110).
In a recent interview, Morozov (2023) highlights that the strategy of companies based in Silicon Valley consists of starting operations in a single area, but then diversifying into many others. As the author notes, “we have seen efforts by large technology companies in the US to enter the area of health, education and national security. They started as content distribution mechanisms, just organizing information and selling advertising. Now, they have become a gateway to almost everything” (ibid).
To use van Djick's (2022) tree metaphor, from a digital ecosystem perspective, this means that so-called big techs, which form the “trunk”, are spreading across the most diverse “branches”, that is, across the most different economic sectors, whether public or private. To counter this strategy, Morozov (2023) suggests that there are two courses of action. The first, less effective, involves the State “imposing restrictions on data that can be used for, for example, generative artificial intelligence”. The second involves the State “creating robust public infrastructure that can encompass as many layers as possible of these digital systems” (ibid).
In the example of the CEIS, whose objective is to guarantee the sustainability of the Unified Health System, the domain of data presents itself as a central element for the aforementioned national development strategy. This contrasts sharply with the neoliberal project of health commodification, which, among other things, seeks to obtain public information through the implementation of an open system called open health, which would serve as a “repository of care and health data on all Brazilians, collected from an electronic medical record; and a 'positive health registry', with financial data on plan beneficiaries” (Fraga and Rocha, 2022).
Just as we fought against the patenting of genes at the turn of the century, today we must fight against the private exploitation of our data. Their own management by the State is only acceptable to the extent that citizens trust the responsible official technical bodies, which guarantee statistical secrecy and “unnamed” access to data – a “basic rule for being able to work with information from the point of departure.” statistical view” (Pochman, 2024), aiming to improve public management, at the service of citizenship and good living.
*César Bolaño He is a professor of Economics and Communication at the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS). Author, among other books, of Cultural Industry, Information and Capitalism (Hucitec).
*Fabricio Zanghelini has a PhD in economics from Federal Fluminense University (UFF).
Originally published on the website Other words.
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