Marietje Schaake‘s book would be an excellent primer for someone just elected to public office…if Kamala Harris had won the US election. As it is, it feels a bit quaint even though it’s brand new. It was written with the assumption that there is a will and opportunity to rein in the expanding power and influence of technology companies. But with Musk as key advisor to the president, Zuckerberg’s latest craven attempts to curry favour, and all the tech companies lining up to write huge cheques to the incoming administration, the book preaches to a powerless choir.
The author makes a well-reasoned, detailed and impeccably-researched case for further regulation and restrictions on tech companies, for governments to expand state capacity rather than trusting key functions to the private sector, and for a coordinated approach to setting boundaries. I didn’t learn a ton in his book, since I follow this stuff obsessively, but she frames ideas in a practical, non U.S.-centric way that’s appealing and distinct.
In an ever-so-slightly different universe, this would be an essential read for progressives, in the same way that Tim Wu’s books or Zuboff’s Surveillance Capitalism is. Maybe time will make it into that book. Maybe I’m just feeling exceedingly cynical — as I’m writing this the weekend before the inauguration, and reading about a crypto scam pulled on the public by the incoming President himself.
Whatever the case, this book made me a little sad for what should be, rather than what is.
