In Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic, the dialectic is resolved when the Master realizes his dependence on the Slave, who produces the goods that maintain the Master’s life —mutual recognition becomes necessary. But what if the Master no longer thinks he needs the Slave, what is the likely fate of those enslaved by the Master’s needs and desire for infinite growth? Exactly.

I wish I was a political economist because that is what it would take to really make this point stick. Any political economists out there who want to collab? That said, here is a speculative argument on why the transition from a consumer economy to a creator economy:

In a consumer capitalist economy, those at the top of the pyramid need for the many to buy and consume their products, in order for them to make money on both ends - on the theft of value that wage labor represents, and on the selling you of products that you consume, so as to recover most all of the wages they pay out for your labor. This treadmill is about the minimal maintenance of life, so as to extract and accumulate as much wealth and resources as possible from the many by the few.

In the late-stage era of surveillance capitalism, moneyed interests learned to use the data they collected through our use of their platforms in order to sell you products and ideas more effectively, to target you better and to mold consumers’ desires. This extended, eventually, to manipulating public sentiment for political purposes as well - i.e., the Cambridge Analytica situ. With me so far?

Today, we are being told the economy is doing really great, and the stock market had its best day ever a couple days ago, yes? At the same time, unemployment in the US could be as high as 24% and we know, from people speaking about their experiences, that the majority of US Americans are struggling with the rising costs of basic goods. I believe that the ruling economic class, those who make money from investments and not from selling their labor, and I am speaking about billionaires not merely the very well to do, have figured out that they don’t need us to consume their products, or to work for them to produce goods, in order for their money and influence to continue to grow.

The pandemic, which could have and probably should have broken the economy, did not do that. A switch was flipped where they realized they don’t really need us, at least not as many of us as there are. In fact, we are a burden to maintain. But they do need more and more data to continue to train AI models that they believe, because they are deluded and their lifeworlds are not grounded in material reality, will liberate them from a humanity (the hoi polloi) that they despise.

They don’t need us to consume in order to keep their side of the economy growing, but they do need more and more data to make their vision of the future come true. And here is where speculation comes in: We are likely being squeezed out of our jobs and livelihoods, and compelled by fantasies of freedom and independence, of entrepreneurship in working for yourself, into becoming creators in a “new” creator economy. The deal is you turn your life into consumable data. A few, enough, succeed to make it seem like a viable (perhaps the only viable) route to survival in the future economy. But for every one that succeeds, many more will have turned themselves into data streams. The new pipelines are those carrying our life’s data streams to the main net server.

From here, my vision of the future becomes quite dark - many of us may die and few will be left as escape velocity approaches. But I shake that off and remember that this is their vision and that it is neither inevitable nor even likely. I am learning to metabolize and move through it. We are already figuring out that no one will come to save us but we ourselves, when it is our turn at being bombed, or our turn to be caught in the ravages of a climate crisis disaster. I hope that we will renew the knowledges of those that came before us, knowledge for survival and mutual aid, for going forward together, and for communal forms of life.

I have hope that we will be able to dig into the reserves of human ingenuity and creativity to renew ourselves and maybe even evolve as humans, to come to see ourselves not as a special species put on earth to lord over other animals and nature, but as small contributors to an economy that is much larger than us. I hope a time will come where creative, imaginative people will be supported and respected again, so that we can imagine a better way to be.

Rousseau wrote that we are born free but everywhere you look we are in chains. We did that, we did that to ourselves, and we can also make different choices. It feels like a world-historical decision is upon us.

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Well, that was dramatic. That is not how I wanted to end this, actually. The point of connecting the dots between their need from more data and the rise of the content creator economy is to discern where lies our power in all this. Please note that, for the most part, it does not matter what the content is, so long as it is being engaged with. I feel like there is opportunity in this, and new risks as well. If it is content they want, hows about we give it to them my frens. We will need to hone some new skills.

To be continued…