Certainty and Change in Capitalist Order
(The Islamic revolutionary response to Digitalization)
Capitalism was born in the 11th century in some city states of Italy. Throughout its history it has undergone structural changes while remaining the same, as far as its spirit is concerned. This interplay of certainty and change is intensified in the postmodern era.
Big Tech’s Colonization of individuality and Society
Today’s global capitalist economy is dominated by relative production stagnation, financialization and rapid increase in interpersonal income and wealth distributional inequalities. Rapid digitalization has led to the macro/systematic dominance of a small handful of tech giants’ conglomerates which appropriate surplus through fictitiously enhanced rents and monopolies, rather than through innovation. We are in the era of “intellectual monopoly capitalism”.
The growth of monopoly power in the 21st century is not limited to Big Tech. Big Oil and Big Pharma companies are also increasing their monopoly in global markets but Big Tech is more resilient and capable of extending its tentacles much more widely and potentially dominate over most global capitalist sectors. Web users seem to be the leading source of the dominance of information service providers.
Big Tech depends crucially on the support of the capitalist state. But if Big Tech depends on political support of the state, hasn’t this always been the case in capitalist history - the history of capitalism subsumes the history of imperialism since at least the fifteenth century? Can it be argued that Tech Giants are more effective imperialist forces – more effective than imperialist armies, navies and air forces – pushing the global economy in the direction of dispossession and rent seeking?
Globalization, financialization, digitalization are all complementary aspects of the present day imperialist order. But Big Tech capitalism is creating a new world order in which capitalism no longer extract surplus mainly through the production of basic mass consumed commodities alone but increasingly depends upon political intervention for surplus extraction. This political intervention by imperialist powers guarantees monopolization and increased financial speculation. Hence the universal imperialist emphasis on adherence to globally sanctioned standards and procedures regulating trade, finance and technology transfer within and across national frontiers.
In the new imperialist era dominated by Big Tech there is a policy preference for finance over production. Big Tech imperialism represents a retreat from production facilitated by politically enforced coercion to establishment of relations of appropriation. Subservience to Big Tech necessarily implies a loss of national sovereignty – except for those imperialist powers (effectively America and potentially China) which can guarantee the monopolistic global grip of Big Tech and are designing global transactional procedures to strengthen Big Tech monopolization.
Big Tech monopolization is evident in its social monopolization of time. The web user is entrapped in Big Tech’s monopolistic grip on a whole time basis. Big Tech commodifies time through the commodification of almost all aspects of individual and social life – religion, health, education and entertainment. All are turned into fictitious commodities. This leads to a near total loss of personal identity and the “autonomy” that capitalism is supposed to generate. Big Tech commodifies the quality of mankind’s life. No form of life – activity, thought – escapes commodification by Big Tech monopolization. Every moment of the individual’s life is a moment of and for the Valorization of “intellectual” capital.
Digitalization effects the form of socialization. Digitalization does not commodify in the traditional sense. Most services offered on the net are commodified at a secondary level through advertising. They entrap their users within a capitalist algorithmic loop. Digital platforms are ecosystems that manipulate social interactions on the basis of detected patterns of behavior among unrelated people. Their output –services given to the users – and their input – the information the user provides – are indistinguishable. The wider the user web network the more effective the services provided. This induces the Big Tech service providers to offer free access to its services. This strengthens the social dominance of the Big Tech companies.
The success of the Big Tech companies is focused on enhancing social control. Their capacity to anticipate and influence behavior patterns is a function of the scope and amount of data collected. Data use is necessarily biased through the use of hidden criteria embedded in the articulation of the digital platform. This strengthens the monopolistic stronghold of Big Tech on individual consciousness.
Capitalism is evolving in such a way that Big Tech monopolists invest in and create mass intangible assets that generate new forms of social control. The expansion of their business gives Big Tech an unlimited access to social power. Data itself is not the source of this social power. It is the user metrics - number of users, level of interaction among them – that are the crucially important assets of Big Tech. It is through the user network that Big Tech companies control and manipulate data extending the social space under Big Tech’s control.
Digitalization, Capitalist Individuality and the State:
The development of digital technology significantly affects the capitalist mode of production. It augments rent taking and appropriation of unpaid labor as a means of surplus extraction though the fundamental nature of the relationship between labour and management in the production process does not change. Big Tech employs hundreds of thousands of workers, invests billion in tangible assets and manages and controls both employed labour and invested fixed capital in the conventional way.
Does the partial – though growing – transition from profit to rent as a source of surplus extraction represent a change in capitalism’s spirit?
Capital is essentially a spiritual not a material process. It is a manifestation of the evil forces of Hirs (avarice) and Hasad (covetousness) which embeds itself in wealth and men’s souls and circulates through them for never-ending self-expansion – as spiritual forces hirs and hasad (capital) know no limits. Throughout its history capital has grown by entrapping more and more men and women in the vicious grip of hirs and hasad.
Digitalization is a means for enhancing capitalist individuation and socialization. It strengthens capitalist individuation by entrapping billions of men and women in the circuit of capital (hirs and hasad) through constant commodification of their desires and consumption. The billions of users are its Big Tech’s workers supplying and utilizing capitalist services. It socializes personal interaction to articulate the capital spirit (hirs and hasad). It significantly speeds up the process of capitalist individuation and socialization and impedes the growth of non-capitalist valuation system. It is unambiguously an evil force seeking domination over individuality and society.
Moreover Big Tech is an imperialist artifact. The internet is an invention of the US Department of Defense and the American imperialist state is the ultimate guarantor of Big Tech’s global reach. Imperialist stooge agencies – WIPO and WTO – have crafted the intellectual property regulatory regimes which undergirds Big Tech’s systemic dominance. Big Tech is the main technical instrument servicing imperialist surveillance system.
Big Tech’s systemic dominance represents a change in the structure of capitalist production and exchange – a change which widens the scope for the dominance of the capitalist spirit (hirs and hasad).
The Islamic Revolutionary Response:
The domination of the capital spirit (hirs and hasad) at the individual and the social level can and should be resisted by Islamic revolutionary forces. The issue of Big Tech Capitalism must not be accepted as an inevitable, irreversible process.
Capitalist order is designed as an opaque system of power governance. But Islamic revolutionary praxis acts can strategically penetrate this opaque veneer. Capital seeks to shield its power through network of procedures and institutions which are designed to control its brutal power.
The key instrumentality for deconstructing capitalist order is the Islamic state The state is the means for contesting the growth of capitalist individuality and society – without the resources of the state the Mukhliseen-e-Deen remain powerless to influence governance structures in social order and to control capitalist individuation and socialization.
Alhamdulillah we possess two Islamic states in Iran and Afghanistan (and other Islamic states will Insha’Allah emerge in Sahili Africa). Iran already has taken several steps to thwart infiltration of the cyber space by Big Tech. Afghanistan is also seeking to develop (in association with Iran expertise) a proactive information protection policy. Both Islamic states must take action to develop indigenous platforms geared to serving Islamic objectives not linked to advertisement generated income. Delinking with Big Tech should be seen as complementary effort at delinking from the gharar and riba based global financial system.
In non-Islamic Muslim states – such as Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia, Islamic revolutionaries and Islamic communities must recognize the danger of using imperialist funded digital platforms. We must remember that we triumphed in the Afghan jihad without a major use of digital technology and we frustrated imperialist surveillance efforts using digitalized technology.
Today in non-Islamic Muslim states IT use is widespread. Its most lethal weapons the mobile cellular phone is vastly popular. Most madrasas are offering computer training. Islamic parties are organizing career IT programs for members. All this is counter productive as it opens up Islamic activities to imperialist surveillance and sabotage. More importantly it accelerates the process of capitalist individuation and socialization in the country. Islamic identity consciousness cannot flourish if it is subjected to capitalist commodification. We must oppose these trends and craft a strategy to revert to mosque and community based communication networks.