Full blown essay like answers are more than welcomed. What does the ‘ruling class’ gains from surveiling it’s own population. What do they fear the most? What there is to lose, what there is to gain?
Look up “surveillance capitalism”… It’s for directed marketing and algorithmic attention manipulation. It Chomsky’s idea of the “very lively debate within a narrow range of ideas” combined with Fouccalt’s idea of the Panopticon.
As Adorno said of the consumer culture industry: “Something is provided for all, so that none may escape”.
For politicians: Gesturing that you “do something” against the “rampant crime” happening everywhere, which makes you appear as if you care about citizens. On the other hand, actually doing something (e.g., preventative measures) is too expensive and doesn’t make you look cool as a politician. If you introduce the new surveillance ‘AI’ 2000 ™ by Future Corp., you represent safety, power, future, even if there is nothing meaningful behind it.
For Future Corp.: Sell a lot of shit to politicians and profit.
Money and power, commodities… that’s basically why they do it, at this point maybe also the ability to control who will survive a big humankind debacle.
My read on this is not as much of a cynical one. I believe the point of surveillance is simply to protect the institution of the state.
The goal of the state is ultimately the continued existence of that state. Otherwise there really is not that much purpose to the state. Surveillance is a tool to suppress actors (read: terrorists) who might want to undermine that institution.
In order to determine who benefits from the continued existence of the state, it mostly depends which state you are talking about.
A state like China exists almost solely to benefit those in power, and thus the surveillance state is used to suppress the citizenry. But a Western democracy, while it also to a certain extent protects money and power, also exists to to benefit the general population.Slightly less cynical take, to prevent terror attacks. Hear me out, I promise I’ll get cynical again. Terror attacks are bad for business and reduce citizens’ confidence in their leadership which is also bad for business and remaining in power.
So yeah basically money and power at the end of the day. That said, I do think there are many people in the surveillance apparatus that do so because they want to protect people, I just don’t find that the ends justify the means.
Agreed, I would add that the good-intentioned politicians only see the medium term benefits of avoiding terrorism and don’t consider enough that the system they are building may be used by future governments against democracy. It’s a kind of democracy cockiness to think that institutions will prevent power abuse and that democracy will always prevail.
the surveillance puts the people on the defensive, unable to express themselves freely for fear of retribution by the state.
You need to know what’s happening to stay in control. Also you can oppress people that way. Making sure they don’t ascend to your height and mess with the system.
Information is power.
If you want concrete examples, search “breaking enigma WW2” for a variety of sources on how valuable that information was to the war effort. (For a deeper dive, Cyberspies is a really good read that starts in that era and fleshes out into the modern tradeoffs between privacy and security pretty well.)
I don’t see one overarching, important point, but rather a bunch of little points that center around a desire for money, power, and control. It all boils down to money, power, and control.
How else would you know the colour panties Deborah is wearing today.
It’s not about surveiling but about feeling surveyed. If you feel like you’re being watched you’re much less likely to rise up and do something to fight the system because you think what you’re doing is seen.
And you’ve also got to remember that it’s not necessarily “the state” spying on you. It’s real people. In East Germany people weren’t afraid of surveillance cameras. They were afraid their neighbour, friend or family member was a spy. That creates an atmosphere of fear and animosity that is aimed at fellow citizens and not at the actually ruling population.
Many people, even those who are non-assuming, find themselves on lists. People like myself, who hold leftist views that challenge the status quo, are often targeted for our political affiliations and organizing efforts. We are just people seeking dignity, but as we’ve seen with the CIA’s infiltration of the Black Panthers, BLM (the Alphabet Boys podcast does a great job covering the infiltration of BLM and the dangerous meddling), and Antifa, as well as agents within my own political party, it’s clear that surveillance is less about combating terrorism and more about breaking apart political movements.
While counterterrorism efforts have been successful in quashing actual terrorism, they are more often used to crack down on leftist movements. As revolutionary fervor rises in the future, we will likely see surveillance and infiltration used even more indiscriminately.
So to answer the question, surveillance is a safety net that allows the greedy minority to sleep soundly at night.
It’s all about staying the ruling class. There’s always people unhappy with the state of things, the trick is catching them early before any revolutionary movement gains strength.
I’m not doing an essay but I’m leaving you with the most successful example of the “surveillance state” in history, and it didn’t even need any modern technology:
I like your example because so many others are convinced the question was about capitalism. It applies to any state seeking to protect itself and sometimes its citizens.
Similarly to what the other guy said, I believe it’s because the ruling class wants to keep their power no matter what. Any burgeoning movement that threatens their hegemony can be nipped in the bud before it blossoms, because ‘the eye sees all’, or at least it wishes to.
Most people don’t realize (or don’t care) just how one-sided our relationship with the government and corporations has gotten. The elites have a monopoly on violence, psychology, surveillance and means. If you were to start a movement that promises real change, you’d find it falling apart before it ever truly got started because you don’t have all the things I mentioned.
