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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
The best way to stop people from thinking about the government is to make them constantly paranoid that their every move is being scrutinized; especially when it’s citizens watching other citizens.
Was that a casual chat with your neighbour, or were they trying to find out where you were last night, so they can report on you?
Will that offhand wise-crack about the government that you made to your coworker be reported?
That DVD you bought from the local market- could it be considered anti government in any way? What if the stall holder that you bought it from was a state security plant?
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.
Surveillance isn’t new. The ruling powers have surveilled as much as they can throughout history, although prior to the advent of mechanic computers to tabulate census data (which insurance companies started doing first iirc, to make more money by charging appropriate premiums and charging personalised rates) it was hard to do it on any scale in a remotely timely manner.
It was done to “aid in ruling”, to know the mood of the people and to nip seccession and unrest in the bud. You didn’t want a Catholic/Puritan/Rival claimant group to be able to establish itself and pose of threat, not to speak of foreign intrigue.
Now a days, with the second (now possibly even third telecommunications revolution) surveillance on a individual is possible to a level of granularity in effectively real time never before deemed possible.
We have yet to really see what this means as the powers in every country have held back on the use of these new powers in order to not alienate or scare the populace. Yes, even in the PRC they hold back allowing people to send critical messages in private - reserving the data based crack down on people who dare to publicly share such thoughts or work on organising.
But despite that, for all the nations with control over their data networks, the goal is the same: preservation of the power structure. Systems are self preserving, and stopping the people without a say or power over the system making large alterations is the primary goal. Be it couched in terms of “anti-terrorism”, anti-subversion", “treachery”, “public safety”, “morality” or the like.
the surveillance puts the people on the defensive, unable to express themselves freely for fear of retribution by the state.
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.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.
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”.
