From Market Totalitarianism to Digital Totalitarianism

Algorithms and artificial intelligence, which are increasingly permeating all aspects of social relations, are often presented as cutting-edge technological developments that bring multiple benefits. However, their use by big data monopolies constitutes, according to various research, a kind of digital totalitarianism that has colonized all aspects of human life. In this regard we would like to situate the discussion on the political problems of the new technologies in the sphere of the economy, that is, to investigate in what economic context some kind of totalitarian digital power is possible and makes sense. Far from those analyses that conceive technology as an isolated and self-referential phenomenon, simply technical and instrumental, the aim of this article is to discuss the connection between economy and technology, that is, between a previous market totalitarianism and a new digital totalitarianism in the making.