“Techno-Feudalism”: Swan Song of Capitalism or Its Next Act?

Abstract

The rising current of thought of techno-feudalism in recent years is a reflection on and a critique of the economic and political ramifications of the development of digital capitalism by Western social critics. It chiefly delves into the "feudalization" of digital capitalism on the basis of four features: fragmentation of the economic formation, predatory forms of accumulation, renewed merging of the factors of production and retrogression of democratic politics, and holds that capitalism is retrogressing back to feudalism under the current technological revolution. We contend that techno-feudalism is merely a new development of the intellectual path of "quasi-feudalism" or "re-feudalization" discourse in the history of Western thought since the modern era, and its essence resides not in a replacement of capitalism by neo-feudalism, but rather manifests as a new modality of monopoly capitalism, ever more rentierist and parasitic in nature. The socio-economic roots of the transition to techno-feudalism remain embedded in financial capitalism. If there are no fundamental transformations and adjustments in the capitalist relations of production, the future of digital capitalism will not escape the logic of financial domination and technological monopoly—and the consequent emergence of new models of "feudalism".