Corporate Anarchy and the New People Trade

If slavery persisted because the law failed to restrain inhuman greed, we are dangerously close to entering a renaissance…

A new era is dawning. Don't dig out your party hat - it's no cause for celebration. Slowly but surely, a new realm of authority is re-normalising the concept of people as property.

The authoritarian cartel of new wave capitalists has absorbed almost every trait exhibited by old-time people-traders.

BEYOND "ENSHITTIFICATION"…

Through the course of 2023, Cory Doctorow has been publicising a concept dubbed "enshittification", and the meme has gone very significantly viral. I'm not gonna dwell on what most people in this genre have seen regurgitated ad infinitum for months on end, but for anyone who… oh I dunno, has a life or something:

Enshittification is, in the broadest terms, a process in which a monopoly, neo-monopoly or oligopoly service effectively imprisons its users with lock-in tactics, then progressively derails their user-experience as a means to milk them for ever-greater profit.

The net effect is a perception among users that the services just keep getting worse, and worse, and worse, until… Well, in Doctorow's prediction model, they die.

In practice, however, there's precious little evidence of enshittified services dying. Indeed, the very lock-in mechanism that Doctorow cites in his model is a pretty rigid safeguard against that happening. I mean, in all seriousness, can you imagine Amazon dying?

Check the tag on Mastodon and you'll notice that nearly all of the people complaining about enshittification are still using the offending services.

You leave Company Z and switch to Company C. But in six months, Company Z buys Company C, so you're back with Company Z. In that climate - which has become a norm in essential utilities - you cannot leave. You can take a break before you're bought back. That's all.

The problem is, if a "service" in the business of immiseration for profit doesn't die, there's a point in its ever-worsening existence at which it goes beyond simply cheesing people off, and starts abusing them. And if they're held captive within that realm of abuse, we have a very, very grave problem.

ONE VISION, MANY FEARS

Enshittification's broad concept of new wave capitalists holding people captive, then lucidly hosing greater and greater quantities of dog piss into their faces, definitely struck a chord across communities far and wide.

The word finally allowed the public to articulate their unspoken sense that capitalism has now become a race to imprison them in some hostage-filled dungeon and then… Well, opinions may differ there. Immiserate them until they pay for relief? Sell them to the Devil? Force them to train robots to destroy their livelihoods? All of the above?

The one thing we can agree on is that there's a chilling precedent to holding people captive in labour-based ecosystems. We know where that leads. This is a grossly, and grotesquely bigger problem than simply "platforms getting worse".

And we're already well down that road. Glaringly, the new face of capitalism that we all associate with "enshittification" is subject to authoritarian and colonial dynamics. Various traits exhibited by "enshittifists" have a familiar ring within the darker echelons of history. Here are some of the things for which new wave capitalists have become known…

Calculatedly partnering with the authorities in order to legitimise their own authoritarian standing and reduce friction against their abusive schemes.
Deliberately inducing fear, anxiety and panic among the community through a regime of arbitrary, wildly disproportionate and unjust punishment.
Punishing people without explaining what they've done wrong.
Cultivating a bubble of ignorance through artificial restriction of, or imbalance of, access to information.
Branding people with numerical scores that represent their value.
Marketing people as a product.
Building communities of people with the primary intention of selling them.
Buying communities of people with the primary intention of exploiting their labour.
Stalking and monitoring the community 24/7.
Gatekeeping life-essentials.
Deep-seated elitism.

Yes, the authoritarian cartel of new wave capitalists has absorbed almost every trait exhibited by old-time people-traders, and conveniently adapted it all for the digital domain.

We know that in principle, these dictatorial corporations WILL enslave the general public.

The proof-of-concept for new-age slavery has already run to a successful conclusion. Think of all the times you've completed a CAPTCHA on demand. That's you working for the enrichment of Big Brother, for free. Training AI robots to put people - very possibly including yourself - out of work. We may vehemently disagree with the ethics of this, but a) we were never told we were training robots. And b) in some instances, even if we had been told, we were met with extortion tactics and therefore had no choice but to complete the labour task.

Every single one of Big Brother's messages informing you that you're not allowed to use bots, is delivered by a bot. Bots today have a similar role to fists in the halcyon of people-trading. The slavemasters used fists to overpower and command, whilst the people were checked to ensure they had both arms tied behind their backs.

I recently closed my Twitter accounts. In every case I was extorted into training a robot before I was able to strip down and close the account. The grounds? I, myself, "mIgHt Be A bOt". Obviously, there is a breathtaking level of hypocrisy in the practice of using a bot to tell a human they're not allowed to use a bot, then forcing said human to help you enable yet another of your bots as a means to prove that said human is not a bot.

But the subtext is that these subjugative scumbags know you're not a bot anyway. Their properties deploy behavioural micromonitoring scripts as a condition of access. Under those conditions, "Prove you're human" is purely an extortion tactic.

You may say that as a proportion of your life, the time you've spent completing extortively-placed CAPTCHA puzzles is minimal. But it's still involuntarily performing an act of labour, for someone else's profitable gain, without pay. And AI training doesn't stop at CAPTCHAs. It's ingrained into everything we do. If you're forced to submit a suspension appeal, you're training AI. If you're forced through a "questionnaire" process in order to request a refund that should be made automatically (I mean, they KNOW it's your money, right?), you're training AI. Do you have any choice but to train a robot in these circumstances? Most people would say no.

So we know that in principle, dictatorial corporations WILL enslave the general public when they have the leverage. The bad news is that they're gaining more and more leverage by the week.

THE WAKE-UP CALL

Current attitudes to the unprecedented levels of power that we now encounter in corporations are divided across two main groups of people. Those who have had a wake-up call, and those who haven't.

Wake up calls vary in nature, but a good example is the classic account lockout. This is where a massive tech corporation which has already rendered a person sufficiently captive to prevent them from leaving, suddenly disables their access to essentials, and to their own work, and sometimes to possessions they've bought - without legitimate reason or explanation.

It's routinely a blackmail attempt, designed to extort the person for monetisable data, labour, or a combo thereof. But not everyone is able to meet the extortionist's terms.

And when that happens, the person is plunged into a literal life crisis, which immediately awakens them to the danger of lock-in culture. This is a perfect example of the wildly disproportionate and deeply authoritarian punishments I mentioned earlier. It instills fear into the public, and that's intentional.

Even the government acknowledges that 2FA has no bearing on cyber security. In truth it's just a means for Big Brother to identify its captives. You can't trade people without first knowing who they are.

People who've experienced the dreaded lock-in, lock-out combo have reported clear signs of serious trauma such as an inability to sleep, depression, the need to take emergency absences from work, etc. It's not irrational to believe that in an extreme case an ordeal such as this could lead to suicide.

IF INSANITY PREVAILS, THE LAW HAS FAILED

This is powerful stuff, and it compels people to do things that are expressly against their interests, and which amount to straightforward servitude of a master.

Exhibit A: tech monopolists have been so successful in demanding the submission of a phone device - whether or not it has any relevance to their "service" - that some businesses now purchase a mobile phone and a contract, per employee, JUST TO KEY A COMPLETELY NEEDLESS 2FA ON A MICROSOFT ACCOUNT. That's literally the sole existential purpose of the phone. To key the 2FA. AKA, to serve Microsoft's global identification agenda.

In fact, the UK government's National Cyber Security Centre even acknowledges PHONES USED ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF KEYING 2FA in its Cyber Essentials [PDF document] assessment for businesses - taking the trouble to specifically declare these phones out of scope. In other words, they're irrelevant to the company's cyber security. They only serve the surveillance industry.

Consider the insanity. An SME buying a hundred phones and contracts, just so a completely unaffiliated cyber-stalker in another country can have control over that SME's login regime, and persistently ID check its workforce, for free. If that's not blind servitude I don't know what is.

Take away the brainwashing and blatant force that Surveillance Valley employs in order to implement these scandalous schemes, and It's a totally irrational purchase. Flat-out, balls-down-the-chimney, waste of money. Government KNOWS it's a waste of money.

And yet it's been normalised to the point where the government actually needs to declare it out of scope in a security assessment. They don't even want the data on it. Because if they have the data on it, they're demonstrably aware of the problem, and can be accused of failing to act against it once a big enough subsection of the public finally wakes up and realises it's a straight violation of the law.

Orwell's predictions have become a reality. Why are we not screaming?

Yes, a violation of the law, because this necessarily mandates surveillance across a large and growing proportion of the UK workforce. Surveillance without reasonable suspicion or consent is illegal, and being told by an employer: "You HAVE to carry this surveillance tool and you are not allowed to modify it", is not consent.

I won't get started with the absolute bullshit of 2FA and other login-appropriation schemes, and what an unmitigated con they all are. But mandatory surveillance is precisely what they're designed to achieve. As the SME feels forced to buy a mobile phone for every employee, every employee is then forced to carry what is essentially a convict's ankle tag repackaged for their pocket. How is this any different from Nineteen Eighty-Four's totalitarian hellscape? The law has broken down. We have a state of corporate anarchy. Orwell's predictions have become a reality. Why are we not screaming?

If the dictators orchestrating these oppressions are not stopped, where do you think it will end?

It will end where all stories of legally-untouchable psychopaths end. In a full-on reincarnation of the people trade.

WHO BOUGHT OR SOLD YOU THIS MONTH?

Have you noticed how it's getting harder and harder to sign up for any commercial service contract without the provider being "bought out" before your contract expires? I didn't choose my fuel provider, my banking provider, or my last telecomms provider. The providers I did choose sold their businesses to bigger fish. I did, in fairness, choose my new telecomms provider - because the buyer of the previous operation was incomprehensibly incompetent. But within days of the switch I'd already been notified that the new provider is selling the business to someone else. It's hopeless.

We're no longer enticed by these dictators-masquerading-as-"businesses". We're threatened by them. Punished by them. Locked in. Locked out. Forced to labour on their behalf. This is not commerce. This is colonialism.

But is this really akin to people-trading? I mean, yeah, we're constantly being bought and sold, but we still have the option to walk away from our new "owner", right?

It's much harder to do that today than it was forty-five years ago. I'm in England, and I can only speak from my own experience. But in the 1970s big services were nationalised. Then the services were privatised, with the promise that healthy competition would stimulate better deals for the public. But now, as monopoly gains a tighter grip across all industry, we're seeing the worst of both worlds.

Competition has evaporated to the point where there's no meaningful scope for "shopping around". But because the remaining few massive companies are private, an elected government is not responsible for their behaviour as it was with nationalised industry.

So the deals get worse, and the ballot box veto no longer exists. Any new company that gains popular appeal will inevitably be swallowed up by an existing monopolist. It's like farce. You leave Company Z and switch to Company C. But in six months, Company Z buys Company C, so you're back with Company Z. In that climate - which has become a norm in essential utilities - you cannot leave. You can take a break before you're bought back. That's all.

THE PERFECT STALK

We're already experiencing "captive-stress". A feeling of hopelessness, dread and fear that comes with being unable to escape a giant provider, or worse, an oligopoly, whose goal is to assert increasing levels of ownership over us.

And we know that's what these unelected, authoritarian dictators are doing. Engineering ownership over us. We can see they no longer perceive any need for us to like them. That state of affairs only arises when a community is trapped and held captive. We're no longer enticed by these dictators-masquerading-as-"businesses". We're threatened by them. Punished by them. Locked in. Locked out. Forced to labour on their behalf. This is not commerce. This is colonialism, and it will continue to scale up as long as governments permit the state of corporate anarchy that inevitably fosters it.

It's a very small step from being the product to being the possession.

To paraphrase an old news industry trope, if you're not lapsing into blind panic about the future, it doesn't mean you're of unflappable character. It simply means you've failed to comprehend the dynamics of the situation.

There will be people who'll say it's an insult to the victims of slavery to compare today's elite corporations with the horrific, physically violent, rampantly racist slavemasters from capitalism's past. But the point is, that's what capitalism has already shown itself capable of becoming when you fail to restrain power-crazed, wealth-crazed psychopaths with meaningful law.

Every week that goes by, morally-bankrupt corporate psychopaths gain a little more power, and apply a little more force, and spread a little more fear, and administer a little more punishment, and create a little more misery, and destroy another raft of jobs, and hoard a little more wealth. That cannot continue indefinitely without at some point resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe equivalent to those in capitalism's shameful past. And whether the punishment is a crack of the whip or a withdrawal of access to life essentials, the result is the same. An entirely subjugated human being whose least painful option is to do as they're told. Only the law can stop this. And at present, it's showing no intent.