The rise of 'Technocapitalism' and its impact on humanity, with economist Loretta Napoleoni

This episode explores the concept of 'technocapitalism', its rapid evolution, and the significant societal shifts it prompts.

1. Technocapitalism is altering traditional economic systems and societal norms at an unprecedented speed.
2. The consolidation of technology and capital has empowered a small group of entrepreneurs disproportionately, often at society's expense.
3. Governmental lag in regulating rapid technological advances poses challenges to addressing the resultant inequalities.
4. The episode questions the effectiveness of current capitalist structures to responsibly harness technological growth for the common good.
5. Discussions on the future role of AI and technology in society are critical as their impact deepens.

1: Introduction to Technocapitalism

Napoleoni introduces 'technocapitalism'—a blend of rapid technological growth and capitalist dynamics reshaping modern life. She discusses the societal anxiety stemming from constant technological upheavals. Loretta Napoleoni: "We're living in the present but are already in the future due to the unbearable pace of technological change."

2: The Control of Technology

The conversation shifts to who controls technology and how it's used, highlighting the dominance of a few over many. Loretta Napoleoni: "Technocapitalists control our access to technological knowledge, which should be a common good."

3: Government's Role in Regulation

Napoleoni criticizes the inadequate governmental response to the pace of technological change and its implications for democracy. Loretta Napoleoni: "Governments have failed to regulate technology swiftly enough to prevent the deepening of societal divides."

4: Societal Impact

This chapter deals with the societal changes brought by technocapitalism, discussing both the potential benefits and the severe inequalities it intensifies. Loretta Napoleoni: "While technology has brought advancements, it has also exacerbated societal inequalities."

5: Looking Forward

The final chapter explores potential solutions and the necessity for a reevaluation of how society, governments, and economies handle technology. Loretta Napoleoni: "We need to rethink our approach to technology and its regulation to ensure it serves the common good."

1. Educate yourself about the implications of technocapitalism and stay informed about technological trends.
2. Engage in discussions about the ethical use of technology in public and private sectors.
3. Advocate for transparent and equitable technological policies in your community.
4. Support initiatives that aim to regulate technology effectively, ensuring it benefits society as a whole.
5. Reflect on your own technology use and consider the broader impact of your digital footprint.

This week's episode features an interview with Loretta Napoleoni, conducted by Ross Reynolds, the longtime public radio host and occasional GeekWire Podcast guest host, in an event presented by Town Hall Seattle on April 18, 2024.

Loretta Napoleoni is an Italian economist and journalist whose books include "Rogue Economics" and "Insurgent Iraq." Her newest book is “Technocapitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good."

In this interview, she explains the concept of the "present future." This refers to the disorienting era in which we're living, characterized by rapid technological change that creates anxiety and a feeling of being constantly behind.

She also discusses the control of technology by a few powerful entrepreneurs, whom she calls "technocapitalists," and the failure of society and the state to direct technological innovation for the common good.

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"Techno the Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good"

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Loretta Napoleoni

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Loretta Napoleoni
So everything that is happening is happening because of political choices. And the political choices are related because we live in a democracy to our decision. We are the voters, and we put those people in place, and those people do certain things. So at the end of the day, it's not technology. The problem sells.

Todd Bishop
Welcome to G Choir, Todd. I'm Geekwire co founder Todd Bishop. Today on the show, we're featuring a conversation with Loretta Napoleoni, an economist and journalist whose books include Rogue economics and insurgent Iraq. Her newest book is Techno the rise of the New Robber barons and the fight for the common good. She spoke with moderator and interviewer Ross Reynolds, the longtime public radio host and occasional geekwire podcast guest host, in an interview presented by town Hall Seattle on April 18, 2024.

Ross Reynolds
Let's start out with some of your big ideas here, right from the introduction. You're right. We're in a disorienting era. You call it the present future, characterized by a pace of change so rapid and so disconcerting that we're in a pandemic of anxiety now. It's not the first time we've had rapid change.

In fact, when I read that, I was thinking of Alvin Toffler and Adelaide Farrell's book Future Shock, which was also an era when there was so much technology changing. So talk a little bit about what you mean by present future and compare it to other panics we've had about the speed of innovation and change. Well, thank you. This is a really good question because the original title of the book was present future. And then we decided that maybe it was too esoteric and too difficult for people to grasp right away.

Loretta Napoleoni
So techno capitalism is more concrete. The book became techno capitalism. But the present future is a central concept of the book, because in reality, what it means is that we're living in the present, of course, but we're already living in the future. And this is because technology moves so fast that it is almost unbearable for the human being to keep pace with this speed, with the speed of change, especially technological innovation. And that creates anxiety, because you are constantly feeling that you are behind, that you are not adequate to the modernity of life.

So that creates, of course, anxiety. And this is part of our everyday life now, why today this is happening. It didn't happen, for example, when the steam engine was introduced, when the industrial revolution took place. Well, I think the main difference is partly is the speed, because the way, I mean, think about AI, it came about a year and a half ago, and now it's already everywhere in our life. But also, there's another aspect, which is how this technological innovation is affecting every single aspect of our life, including our private life.

So not only when industry changes, our entire existence is reinvented continuously. It's like, you know, we're becoming part of this app system whereby we have to update ourselves constantly. And I think it's very difficult, actually. I think it's unnatural for a human being to move so quickly. So that's the concept of the present future.

Ross Reynolds
Well, I want to talk a little bit more about the techno part of the book, and we'll get into capitalism a little bit later. But there's always a moral panic about new technology. I love that socrates warned that the written word was going to destroy our memories. It was a terrible idea to be using the written word. And since then, all new technologies have created some kind of a moral panic.

I did a program on radio, and people were completely freaked out by radio when it came on. They just thought it was going to destroy the world. Everything bad that happened in the early 20th century was blamed on radio. If it rained too much, it was the radio. If it rained too little, it was the radio that caused it.

So how is the technology of today qualitatively different from technology of the past? I don't think that technology is different from the past. I think technology. How can we define technology? I would define technology, product of the human brain.

Loretta Napoleoni
So it's our creation. So it can't be different from the invention of the wheel. It's still a technological event. I think what is changing today is who controls technology? Who uses technology?

Who feels comfortable with technology? Well, it's not only the technology, but it's also those who control the technology. You write that present future has allowed just a few savvy entrepreneurs to have a unique advantage that damages society. I wonder if you could expand on that. Yeah, that's another thing I discovered doing this research.

Now, I must say before I answer you that I decided to write this book because I wanted to understand. So it was an educational exercise for me. So it's part of what you said before. I had to educate myself in order to understand technology and also to use it. And I discovered very, very many positive things.

So from that point of view, yes, I would say that you need this kind of educational process. But technology is also part of our everyday life from the beginning. Why is it so different from before? I would say that the techno capitalists have managed to control our access to the knowledge of technology. I mean, this is what I wanted to put through in the book capitalism is capitalism.

So, I mean, this is not a critique of capitalism. I think it's more a critique of how the society and the state have approached the control in the hands of the tech titans, as I called them. So we were unable to direct technological innovation towards the common good, so towards the society as a whole. It's difficult to. I don't want to sound like, you know, I am against them.

I don't want to sound that, you know, they are the bad guys and we are the good guys. What I'm saying is it's a failure of the system. Well, and one of the failures you point to is the technology is advancing so quickly, it has outrun government's ability to regulate it in a reasonable way. Yes. I mean, technology is moving so quickly, but why?

As in society appointed certain kind of individual in order to make sure that this technological innovation was shared by everybody. Why haven't we done it? So that's a key question, I think, you know, because we didn't believe in technology initially. So at the beginning of the book, I talk about the cyberpunk, for example. So these were people that, the early pioneers of Silicon Valley, and these were individuals that had a very complex relationship with the state.

Some of them were libertarians, but some of them were also marxist. So they saw the state as an enemy, and they didn't want the state to control the Internet because they believed that the Internet. So the technological revolution that came through the Internet had to be shared by everybody. So they thought that the Internet was the great equalizer. I think philosophically they had the right approach.

But then something happened between the early 1980s and 2000, and in that period, the state did try to control the Internet. So the state did not try to make sure that the Internet became what the cyberpunk actually wanted, the great equalizer. And as a reaction on the other side, the techno guidance managed to get control of big chunks of it. So it was the battle of control. It was not a battle of opening up.

So this is really a major societal problem. Can government ever catch up, or is the change you see in technology happening so quickly the government never can catch up? No, I don't think the government wants to catch up. That's the problem. I mean, the Europeans, for example, the EU tried to regulate certain aspects of the Internet.

There is a privacy legislation which was introduced in Europe, which is actually very, very good. The Americans didn't. The Americans were very much against. Now, things have changed recently have changed because, you know, we reach a certain level in which you know, you do need to intervene. It is too late.

How are you going to regulate Facebook, for example? Well, in fact, our senator Cantwell has just proposed some privacy legislation before Congress. It was kind of a big surprise, and no one knows if it'll pass yet, but there are attempts to try to rein it in. But I want to talk about who is advantaged by these benefits in technology. And certainly you couldn't argue that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and others have been tremendously advantaged.

Ross Reynolds
But also, what about the people who've also been advantaged because they work for these companies and they're paid very well. What about the small investors who have benefited greatly from these tech stocks? What about the people who use smartphones and email and online maps? Have they not also benefited from the technology revolution? Oh, absolutely, yes.

Loretta Napoleoni
Absolutely, yes. I think everybody's benefiting from the technological revolution. But the issue is not if technology is positive or negative, because technology is positive. The issue is the inequalities that is creating. So it's the negative side.

Everything can be positive and negative. So, I mean, drugs, if given in the right way. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, the opioid crisis, we were discussing this before. There is positive in producing medicine that can be given to people in extreme pace in particular circumstances. But of course, if those drugs can be given freely to everybody, then you have a problem.

So we go back to society. Up next, human solidarity and artificial intelligence. I wanted a career in it, but I didn't know where to start. WGU makes it simple. Their accredited online degree programs cover all kinds it specialties, and they have valuable industry certifications built in at no extra cost.

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Todd Bishop
We're listening this week to Loretta Napoleoni, the author of Techno Capitalism, the rise of the New Robber barons, and the fight for the common good. In conversation with Ross Reynolds at town. Hall, Seattle, Loretta, you write, quote, westerners have come to the conclusion that instruments our species have used until today, for example, human solidarity, do not work anymore. And we've entered into a new everyone for themselves phase of history. End quote.

Ross Reynolds
I read that and I thought, what about unions? What about political activists? What about volunteer organizations? What about people working on homelessness? What about religious groups?

It seems as though there are a lot of people still working in the area. Of human solidarity. Oh, yes, of course there are. Of course there are many people that work. Think about medicine San Frontier, for example, what they're doing today in Gaza.

Loretta Napoleoni
But these are organizations that are not in the network. See, this is the issue, I think, is the fact that there is a lot happening at local level still. There is also something happening at international level, like, you know, middle sands and frontier, but there is no movement. There is not a global phenomenon whereby people feel connected.

COVID also contributed very much to this isolation. So the individual is isolated more and more because, you know, with this phone, it's actually in communication through a virtual dimension of life, but it doesn't communicate anymore with the other human beings. It's always through that instrument that people talk to each other. Think about, you know, the younger generations. The younger generations spend a phenomenal amount of time at home with their phone, texting each other.

My generation didn't spend very much time at home because, you know, the way to see your friends, the way to talk to your friends was to go out and be in a group. Now all of that doesn't happen anymore. That changes completely the way that the young generation are actually interacting with each other. It's changing the social way in which people interact with each other. It's said we're in the anthropocene era, where humanity kind of controls what's going on with nature.

Ross Reynolds
And you write, nature no longer drives change, but instead, humanity and its Frankenstein creature, artificial intelligence are at the helm of the planet, and I'd like you to talk a little bit more about that. Clearly, there are valid concerns that artificial intelligence will be the death of us that have been strongly expressed. But do you think AI is already at the helm of the planet? No, not yet. Luckily, not yet.

Loretta Napoleoni
But AI is. AI should be enslaved by us. So AI is, again an instrument, and it can be extremely, extremely positive. I think the age of the Anthropocene is not necessarily bad. I know that saying something like this can be shocking for people, but I think that we have conquered.

Yes, we have conquered nature. That's not necessarily bad, because we are part of nature. So we created an instrument that can actually even improve what is happening today in nature. So we have climate change, for example. Technology can help us solve the problem of climate change, but we're not doing it.

We're not using it. The Chinese are building a mega solar plant in space, in the low Earth orbit, and the idea is to harvest from the low Earth orbit, the sun, and transmit it down to Earth so that China will be totally self sufficient in terms of energy. It can be done. We do have the technology to do it. So why not using technology for these kind of aims?

Ross Reynolds
Well, let's get to the capitalism side of this. There are those who argue that capitalism cannot take into account long term change, that just basic economics in many circles doesn't value the future as much as it values the present. Companies looking at short term gains versus long term saving of the planet is capitalism kind of. And capitalism controls technology. I think we can safely assert that.

Is this sort of a recipe for disaster when it comes to climate change? Well, but, you know, circumstances have changed from the industrial revolution. So the industrial revolution took place at a time in which we didn't have this kind of problems that we have today. So maybe capitalism needs to be changed, can be reformed. Capitalism is not something that is going to be like that forever.

Loretta Napoleoni
I mean, if a change is needed, a change should come about. The issue is how to bring about that change. So we know that we have a problem with the climate, we know that we need to approach that problem. So let's approach it in the right way. So we have the technology.

So as China is doing what is doing with the solar plant, why doesn't Europe or the US do the same thing? You know what the US are doing with that technology? They have been experimenting on the microwave weapon in space for the last three years. It's a choice. It's a political choice.

So everything that is happening is happening because of political choices. And the political choices are related, because we live in a democracy, to our decision. We are the voters and we put those people in place, and those people do certain things. So at the end of the day, it's not technology the problem. The problem is us.

Ross Reynolds
But the new Robert Barons, as you call them, there are those who argue that they have a way outsized influence on politics. Yes, they do. To accrue more wealth and also, in some ways, to slow down some things we might need to do for the future. So I'm kind of wondering, how do we get ahead of this dilemma? If you point out that technology has kind of supplanted governments, it's very hard for governments to control technology.

Is there a way forward? Well, I mean, okay, the techno capitalists, the Robert Barons, do influence politics because they accumulated an immense fortunes. I mean, you know, we're talking about richness. That's comprehensible. Yeah, it's incomprehensible.

Loretta Napoleoni
We talk about people that are worth more money than the GDP of entire nations, which is you know, difficult for us to think so of course, you know, they're extremely powerful because, you know, they finance whatever political group is going to carry on the legislation that they want to be put in place. But that's nature, that's normal, happened in the time of ancient Rome and it's going to happen in the future. Also the issue is society because we are in democracies, so why are we not doing anything? Why nobody is contesting the fact that this individual has been able to create monopoly and oligopoly in our society. I mean, why this is not discussed, why there is not a debate about that in the presidential elections, for example, why there's no topic, because people are not aware of all of this.

People are using technology as an entertainment or means of communication, not to go to the office anymore, so often. So they, but they don't see what there is behind this screen, behind all these positive things. There is the danger, as I say in the book, that the nation state is going to be destroyed. That we go back to a new feudal society where there will be people, extremely wealthy that control everything, including politics and us, the serfs live at the bottom. I've heard it argued that we really need a wealth tax to curb the billionaires.

Ross Reynolds
There just needs to be a way to diminish their power by taxing them in such a way that some of their money goes away. Do you think that's a practical idea? No, I don't think so. I think that's not practical because they have so much money. It's like, you know, when they get fined, you know, Facebook will say fine, I don't know how many hundred millions because you know what the impact they had on youth, I mean they will pay, they have plenty of money.

Loretta Napoleoni
It's not going to make any difference to them anyway. So no, I don't think that monetary punishment is the solution. I think the solution is the fact that technology should be a common good, technology should belong to the people. It's like today we're at the stage and this is just the beginning because AI, you know, will go much, much farther. I mean we are at the stage in which our life cannot function without technology.

I mean you cannot have a banking system anymore working without technology. It won't be able to function. So we are at the stage in which technology is almost similar to water and air. So are we privatizing air? Because that's what is happening, that they control it.

So imagine to have an oligar ballistic society whereby a few companies control the air that you breathe and you have to pay to have that air. Same thing. It's absolutely the same thing. So I think if we look at the situation from this point of view, then we have to have antitrust legislation that will break this oligopoly. But you also will have to have nationalization, which is a word that nobody wants to say.

Ross Reynolds
Of course, we'll expand on that a little bit. Well, I think as there was a nationalization of the railways, there should be nationalization of certain aspects of technology. I mean, I'm not talking about the electric car, but I'm surely talking about the communication system. Yes. Do you think that some of the efforts to use antitrust law to break apart the companies will.

Loretta Napoleoni
No, I don't think. I don't see any. I mean, the Europeans, of course, are working very hard at that. I had actually a conversation with the guy who heads the antitrust, the competition policy committee in Europe, at the European Union, and he said, we try, try, but these people are more powerful than political leaders. So, and they behave like that because they know, they know.

They're very well aware. So this is why I'm talking about nationalization. But this is, of course, something that has to be done globally because, you know, you may nationalize it in one country, but then you have the rest of the world. It's interesting to see what's happening in China because the Chinese have blocked all of these big companies. And I remember always in China, actually, when Google was blocked in China and there was massive uproar in the west about look at the Chinese, what they're doing, blah, blah, blah.

But at the end of the day, today, China is in a much better position than we are. Of course, they have their own, the equivalent of the Chinese. But if you think about that today in the US, they want TikTok, which is owned by chinese company, by the dance, to be sold to an american company, because we cannot possibly have a chinese company having such a power in our country. And, you know, the story that TikTok is used for spying is just, you know, the veneer. But, you know, the reality is we cannot possibly have, you know, a foreigner owning a company so powerful, because TikTok is very powerful.

So what's the issue here? I mean, the issue is we are protectionists now. As you know, China has been protectionist 15 years ago. But when China was doing that, oh, my gosh, look what the Chinese are doing when we do it, it's okay. And the issue is not what TikTok on the context of tick tock here.

Here. The issue is the ownership. So TikTok can continue to use the algorithm to send anorexic children videos of anorexia so that they become even more anorexic. That is not the issue. The issue is the ownership.

There cannot be a chinese ownership. Next up, the role of space exploration. This geekwire podcast is sponsored in part by Yale University Press. Are you concerned about the rise of AI and how it will impact our society? Every day, artificial intelligence presents us with urgent ethical challenges.

How do we harness this extraordinary technology to empower rather than oppress? Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson have written a how to for building ethical machine intelligence. Their new book, as if human ethics and artificial intelligence is now available wherever books are sold.

Todd Bishop
Welcome back. Let's return now to Loretta Napoleoni, the author of techno the rise of the new Robber barons and the Fight for the Common Good, in conversation with Ross Reynolds at town Hall, Seattle. You're right that one strategy to deal with this dilemma of present future may be up there. You've talked about, you write about how migration has actually solved a lot of issues in the past, saving humanity from starvation and hunger and wars. And you ask, quote, why should we not look to the cosmos and our first ancestors, as our first ancestors looked at the lands on the other side of the ocean, end quote.

Ross Reynolds
Talk more about that. Yeah, I mean, I'm actually very positive about space now. Of course I'm not positive, as Elon Musk is. We will never go to Mars. We will never colonize Mars, and Mars will never be the earth.

Loretta Napoleoni
Forget about that. That is a dream that is sold to people so that they can continue doing what they are doing. It's an illusion. I mean, the human body and I had a doctor actually doing the research about that. The human body cannot live in space.

I mean, we are built biologically and physiologically to be on Earth. Without Earth, our body cannot survive. So forget that. But we have the low Earth orbit where you still have some gravity, so you can be in the low Earth orbit for a certain limited amount of time. And then we will have AI, of course, we will have machine performing whatever we need.

But up there, as I said about the story of China building a massive solar plant, there is a lot that can be done there in order to improve life on Earth. There's a lot of medical research that can be done in zero gravity, in the low Earth orbits. In spatial labs, there's a possibility to grow. Also, you know, plants or agriculture can be done on space. It's immense it's vast, the potential.

And, you know, this is the only area that we have left, because, you know, after that, there is space where we cannot possibly go. So we need to expand. We're too many. The resources are not sufficient. So let's use the low Earth orbit to increase our resources.

But that, again, cannot be done by letting these people take titans to become the space barons. It cannot be done by the same individual or by the same company. We cannot make this mistake again here. We need society, because for sure, the low Earth orbits belongs to the inhabitants of the planet of Earth, right? It cannot be owned by a group of individuals.

Ross Reynolds
I was so positive at the beginning of that chapter. At the end you go, the Tek Titans are just going to take over low Earth orbit also. But if you look at space travel now, private companies are sending people into space more than NASA is. So is there any way to kind of get beyond that, to get the advantages of lower Earth orbit, which you just outlined to everyone, and not be monopolized? I mean, I say in the book, you know, that there is no way that this positive vision that I have of the Earth orbit can be achieved without, you know, the state.

Loretta Napoleoni
I mean, the state has to guide the colonization of the Earth orbit, and he has to guide it financially because, you know, the effort is absolutely massive. Unless, of course, you have those two or three companies, which are the companies owned by Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, who have that kind of money to do it, and then we'll be in an oligopolistic position again. So this is an effort has to be done by the state, as the Chinese are doing. I mean, keep going back to the Chinese. I think in terms of technology, how they have approached technology, the Chinese have done much more than we have.

Ross Reynolds
It's interesting you're so bullish on China, because lately I've been reading a lot about the real estate issues in China, about the aging chinese population and the many challenges that China faces. But it sounds like you think they'll overcome those. Yeah, well, this is the usual story, because we also had the subprime crisis. Shall we discuss that? So the problem, we also have an aging population.

Loretta Napoleoni
I mean, the problem that we have are the same problem that China is having, because China is now not anymore. Developing country is an industrialized country. So it's facing the same problem. So we shouldn't really look at China and say, oh, look what's happening in China. It's happening here also.

They have a different approach. So, and I think that their approach is working better than our approach. In the book, I talk specifically of how the Silicon Valley took advantage of the supreme crisis. And that's a very interesting story because, I mean, the reason why we have the tech titans being so incredibly powerful, the reason why we have an oligopolistic situation in technology is because all the money of the bailout, which is a bailout because of the supplying crisis in the construction sector, right. All those money actually migrated to Silicon Valley.

So here we are. We had ifinance making money with the subprime. Then all of a sudden that industry crashes, collapses. So high finance had to find another high return industry. And it so happened that Silicon Valley was right there.

They were looking for money. They great expectation about the future because of technology. So the money migrated and those money made it possible for all of these companies, you know, so we're talking about Microsoft, we're talking about Amazon, we're talking of meta, which was Facebook, we talk about Google. So all of these companies that then climbed to the top of the standard and poor, you know, arrived there because of those money. So that is how we solved our crisis.

Ross Reynolds
Thank you so much for your attention. And Loretta, thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Todd Bishop
Economist and journalist Loretta Napoleoni is the author of techno the rise of the new robber Barons and the fight for the Common Good. She spoke with Ross Reynolds at an event presented by town Hall Seattle on April 18, 2024. Our thanks to Town Hall Seattle for presenting this event and providing today's audio. Thanks for listening. I'm Geekwire co founder Todd Bishop.

We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Geekwire podcast.