What Can the Left Do Against Technocapitalism?

19 hours ago

Technofeudalism has accelerated the neoliberal policies of the last 50 years: our jobs are at risk of becoming even more precarious due to the platform economy, and that’s if they even survive the onslaught of artificial intelligence (AI). Social media, once seen as tools at the service of freedom, are now perceived as a threat to democracy. And the owners of large technology companies, such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, support the populist authoritarianism of Donald Trump and the European far right.

This process has been developing for a couple of decades but still caught many by surprise, especially those on the left. This is understandable: the right sees social networks as tools and oligarchs as allies, while the left has shifted from enthusiasm for the democratizing potential of these platforms to disappointment, mainly due to their algorithmic manipulation.

What can be done in this situation? The left’s response (and not only the left’s) to the rise of technopopulism involves three interconnected elements: defending democracy against the power of large corporations, protecting workers from precarity, and committing to technological sovereignty to avoid dependence on the United States.

1. Democracy and Algorithms

As essayist McKenzie Wark told EL PAÍS via video call, “this isn’t your grandparents’ capitalism.” In Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? (2019), Wark explains that control of the means of production has been replaced by control of technology and the laws regulating information. In this form of capitalism, we work for social media by providing content, but its owners decide what we see and when. Their model resembles the “surveillance capitalism” described by Shoshana Zuboff, a philosopher and Harvard Business School professor emerita. Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google collect vast amounts of data from billions of users to sell personalized advertising while predicting and influencing behavior.

Consequently, decisions about our freedom of information and expression rest with non-transparent private companies. This affects public debates, which become subject to platform owners’ political or economic interests. Since Elon Musk acquired X in 2022, its algorithm has promoted far-right messages.

One defense is regulating social media to prevent undue influence on democracies. Some countries, like the UK, have banned social media access for those under 16. Since 2022, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms to increase algorithm transparency and protect minors from inappropriate content and targeted ads. For example, on February 6, the European Commission demanded TikTok limit infinite scrolling, citing addiction risks for minors. Recently, the Spanish government asked the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate Meta, X, and TikTok for AI-facilitated creation and distribution of child pornography.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s administration has proposed a law expanding these initiatives, introducing legal liability for platform executives publishing illegal content. This provoked angry responses from Elon Musk—who called Sánchez a fascist and “Dirty Sánchez” on X—and Pavel Durov, who attacked the government via Telegram messages to all users.

Lawyer Paloma Llaneza doubts the effectiveness of these measures, noting many countries have outdated legislation incapable of impacting companies headquartered abroad. She argues that “the most effective measures are small and technical—not big announcements designed to grab headlines.” Examples include European tax reforms requiring companies to pay taxes where they offer services, not just where headquartered. Llaneza also supports holding platform owners accountable, citing Telegram’s cooperation with investigations following Durov’s 2024 arrest in France on charges including money laundering and complicity in child pornography distribution.

However, this does not solve the core problem: much of public life occurs on social media, where users must follow corporate rules. Should we abandon these apps and forgo public debate? Decentralized platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky have emerged, offering no recommendation algorithms and giving users more control over content. Many on the left call for public entities—universities, libraries, research centers—to invest in or collaborate with decentralized social networks based on free and open-source software, while also developing independent operating systems or browsers to reduce dependence on American companies.

Another question is whether we should have allowed these platforms to replace traditional public forums for debate and activism. Economist and trade unionist Bruno Estrada explains that part of the left abandoned associations and groups where citizens organized to “fight collectively for the resolution of their problems.” Instead, they believed direct contact and activism could be replaced by social media—an example of blind faith in a techno-utopia that was a mirage. This shift has impoverished and limited public debate and collective reflection. However, some movements, such as feminist and labor movements, have maintained activism outside social media.

2. The Future of Work

Philosopher César Rendueles told EL PAÍS by phone that technology has accelerated a process of liberal globalization and commodification predating both X and Meta. Platform capitalism affects not only public debate but society as a whole, including employment. Companies like Uber and Airbnb promote the “sharing economy,” connecting workers with clients. But these companies don’t truly “share”; their workers engage in freelance versions of previously regulated sectors, increasing precarity and vulnerability, as essayist Douglas Rushkoff writes in Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus (2016).

Regulation is possible here and is a key battleground for the left to regain traditional working-class voters. In many Western countries, stagnation and housing crises have persisted for decades. Estrada recalls that the left’s past successes resembled Swedish social democracy’s 20th-century advances in public healthcare, education, and labor rights. Yet recent economic crises have generated uncertainty and frustration among young workers, especially as parts of the center-left have aligned with neoliberal economic policies.

It is unsurprising that some workers see the platform economy as an individualistic solution amid bleak prospects. Philosopher Stéphanie Roza explained via video call that capitalism promotes the idea that self-employment means freedom and owning a small business, masking precariousness. This is especially true for many workers who are immigrants or children of immigrants, as documented in her forthcoming book, Marx versus Big Tech (2026).

The situation worsens with AI’s potential to eliminate jobs in sectors like translation and programming, without creating sufficient new jobs beyond precarious micro-tasks such as data labeling or bug fixing. These low-paid jobs are often located in poorer countries, highlighting the shortcomings of AI, which often relies on manual, precarious labor. For example, Mauricio Peña, chief safety officer at Waymo (an Alphabet subsidiary), admitted that supposedly self-driving taxis require assistance from workers in the Philippines.

Assessing AI’s true impact is difficult; some analysts speak of stagnation or a bubble. If worst-case scenarios materialize, thinkers like Rutger Bregman and entrepreneurs like Bill Gates propose taxing AI companies and those replacing employees with machines to fund universal basic income or reduced working hours.

Rendueles supports decisive fiscal interventions but stresses they must be part of reclaiming citizen sovereignty. The goal is for “national parliaments to regain control of their economies, public spaces, and technology.” Ethics professor Adela Cortina expresses a similar view in her 2024 book, ¿Ética o ideología de la inteligencia artificial? (Artificial Intelligence: Ethics or Ideology?), arguing that regulation and voter and consumer choices can influence technology’s future. Ultimately, humans should decide what humans create.

3. Technological Sovereignty

Regulating AI and technology raises concerns about stifling innovation. American companies operate with fewer restrictions, while Chinese companies benefit from government support and tight state control over data and content in an authoritarian capitalist system that some praise for efficiency but which conflicts with democratic freedoms. Regulation mainly affects European companies, putting them at a disadvantage. Among the world’s 20 largest tech companies, only two are from the EU (ASML and SAP). While not catastrophic, this fuels jokes about Europe being a global power only in bureaucracy.

The discrediting of legislation and state intervention has been worsened by public service cuts, especially after the 2008 Great Recession. Many workers and aspiring entrepreneurs have been led to view the public sector as a hindrance. However, economist Mariana Mazzucato writes in The Entrepreneurial State (2013) that many advances—including the internet, smartphones, jets, and medicines—became profitable because of early public investment. Companies also benefit from public infrastructure, contracts, and subsidies. Even critics like Elon Musk have benefited from grants and contracts, such as those signed by Tesla and SpaceX.

Mazzucato proposes an alternative to American technofeudalism and China’s digital dictatorship: the state should invest in nascent ideas when private companies hesitate, in exchange for economic returns. In other words, regulation should be paired with public initiatives that are ultimately compensated.

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson offer a more traditional view in their 2025 book Abundance, supporting the state’s role but advocating for simplified bureaucracy to foster infrastructure and scientific research. The challenge is to remove innovation obstacles without sacrificing workers’ and consumers’ rights.

The left faces a difficult task amid war, climate crisis, and technofeudalism’s rise. But as Rendueles notes, this may be a good moment for the left to defend its political, technological, energy, and economic projects. Within the European Union, this seems inevitable, as the alternative risks becoming a vassal of a hostile and undemocratic American empire.

If successful, the outcome may be paradoxical yet reassuring: Donald Trump could become the main ally not only of the left but of an independent and strengthened Europe.

Source Technology