This is such a terrific read! Many sweeping generalizations that can be nit-picked upon but spot on with the broad conclusions, imo.
On 13 March 2015 at 09:52, Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> wrote: > Yet another illustration of why "amateurs study cryptography, > professionals study economics." Cory on the economics of planetary > surveillance. > > Udhay > > > http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/10/nsa-gchq-technology-create-social-mobility-spy-on-citizens > > Technology should be used to create social mobility – not to spy on > citizens > > NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance is more about disrupting political > opposition than catching terrorists > > Why spy? That’s the several-million pound question, in the wake of the > Snowden revelations. Why would the US continue to wiretap its entire > population, given that the only “terrorism” they caught with it was a > single attempt to send a small amount of money to Al Shabab? > > One obvious answer is: because they can. Spying is cheap, and cheaper > every day. Many people have compared NSA/GCHQ mass spying to the > surveillance programme of East Germany’s notorious Stasi, but the > differences between theNSA and the Stasi are more interesting than the > similarities. > > The most important difference is size. The Stasi employed one snitch > for every 50 or 60 people it watched. We can’t be sure of the size of > the entire Five Eyes global surveillance workforce, but there are only > about 1.4 million Americans with Top Secret clearance, and many of > them don’t work at or for the NSA, which means that the number is > smaller than that (the other Five Eyes states have much smaller > workforces than the US). This million-ish person workforce keeps six > or seven billion people under surveillance – a ratio approaching > 1:10,000. What’s more, the US has only (“only”!) quadrupled its > surveillance budget since the end of the Cold War: tooling up to give > the spies their toys wasn’t all that expensive, compared to the number > of lives that gear lets them pry into. > > IT has been responsible for a 2-3 order of magnitude productivity gain > in surveillance efficiency. The Stasi used an army to surveil a > nation; the NSA uses a battalion to surveil a planet. > > Spying, especially domestic spying, is an aspect of what the Santa Fe > Institute economist Samuel Bowles calls guard labour: work that is > done to stabilise property relationships, especially the property > belonging to the rich. > > The amount a state needs to expend on guard labour is a function of > how much legitimacy the state holds in its population’s reckoning. A > state whose population mainly views the system as fair needs to do > less coercion to attain stability. People who believe that they are > well-served by the status quo will not work to upset it. States whose > populations view the system as illegitimate need to spend more on > guard labour. > > It’s easy to see this at work: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, China and North > Korea spend disproportionate sums on guard labour. Highly > redistributive Nordic states with strong labour laws, steeply > progressive taxation and tenant protection spend less on guard labour. > They attain social stability through the carrot of social programmes, > not the stick of guard labour. > > In Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty uses the wealth > disparity on the eve of the French Revolution as a touchstone for the > moment at which the perception of the state’s illegitimacy goes to > infinity, when even emptying the treasury for guard labour will not > keep the guillotine at bay. Piketty is trying to convince global > elites (or at least the policymakers beholden to them) that it’s > cheaper to submit to a redistributive 1% annual global wealth tax than > it is to buy the guards to sustain our present wealth disparity. > > There’s an implied max/min problem here: the intersection of a curve > representing the amount of wealth you need to spend on guards to > maintain stability in the presence of a widening rich/poor gap and the > amount you can save on guards by creating social mobility through > education, health, and social welfare is the point at which you should > stop paying for cops and start paying for hospitals and schools. > > This implies that productivity gains in guard labour will make wider > wealth gaps sustainable. When coercion gets cheaper, the point at > which it makes “economic sense” to allow social mobility moves further > along the curve. The evidence for this is in the thing mass > surveillance does best, which is not catching terrorists, but > disrupting legitimate political opposition, from Occupy to the > RCMP’sclassification of “anti-petroleum” activists as a threat to > national security. > > Technology also brings productivity gains to social programmes. Basic > sanitation, green revolution crops, cheap material production, and > access to vaccines and mobile internet devices allow states to lift > the desperately poor into a more sustainable existence for less than > ever, affording stability to wealth gaps that might have invoked the > guillotine in previous centuries. The mobile phone is important to > this story, since it’s both a means of raising quality of life – > through access to information and markets – and keeping its users > under close, cheap surveillance. > > The neoliberal answer to this is: so what? If the rich can be richer > than ever without the poor having to starve, doesn’t that mean that > the system is working? Boris Johnson’s big cornflakes have been sorted > to the top of the packet, and have produced so much efficiency that > everyone is better off for it, just as market theory predicts. > > Even if you think that hereditary dynasties and extreme wealth for the > few and hereditary, extreme poverty for the many is morally fine, the > reality is that extreme wealth concentration distorts policy. We want > policy to reflect the best available evidence, but when legislators > are drawn from, and beholden to, a tiny ruling elite, they can only > make evidence-based policy to the extent that the evidence doesn’t > inconvenience rich people. > > It’s obvious that excluding 52% of the population from public life is > bad for the economy in Saudi Arabia. It’s obvious that Canada, a > country characterised by huge wilderness and resource-extraction, is > in terrible danger from climate change and that it’s madness for its > oil-backed Tory government to dismantle its world-class climate and > environment science infrastructure, literally setting fire to the > archives. > > It’s obvious that the finance sector is corrupt to the highest levels, > and that the City is the heart of a vast criminal enterprise. It’s > obvious that homeopathy is bunk, even if Prince Charles likes it. > > And so on. A state that is beholden to a small number of people is > also beholden to that elite’s sacred cows. It is incompatible with > evidence-based policy. > > Why spy? Because it’s cheaper than playing fair. Our networks have > given the edge to the elites, and unless we seize the means of > information, we are headed for a long age of IT-powered feudalism, > where property is the exclusive domain of the super-rich, where your > surveillance-supercharged Internet of Things treats you as a > tenant-farmer of your life, subject to a licence agreement instead of > a constitution. > > ________________________________ > > > -- > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) > > -- Narendra Shenoy http://narendrashenoy.blogspot.com
