︎ A New Logic of Digital/Racial Capitalism: An Intersectional Approach

September 30, 2022

By ruining early promises of the Internet to increase access to knowledge and democracy, the annexation of digital technologies by capitalism intensifies economic, racial and gender inequality, on the one hand, and expands neocolonialism, on the other.  In this paper, I offer an intersectional analysis of digital capitalism, AI and systemic racism and argue that such analysis is indispensable for understanding and resisting a new logic of capital accumulation, which produces new forms of power, reshapes social relations and deepens racial and gender inequalities.  Although critical attention to racialized and digital dimensions of capital has occurred almost simultaneously (in the 80s and 90s, respectively) and intensified in the last decade, the intersectional analysis of both formations is insufficient. Yet, as Milner and Traub, among others, argue, since capitalism from its inception is inseparable from systemic racism, the re-integration of racism into digital is both an old and a new phenomenon, which “concentrates and consolidates power in ways that dramatically increase inequality along the lines of race, class, gender, and disability.” 

In order to sketch out the main contours of this formation, I draw on the “algorithmic racism” elaborated by critical race scholars, such as Noble, Benjamin, Milner and Traub, as well as on the constellation of related terms, such as data, platform, cognitive or surveillance capitalism.  Dependent on the computational technologies and artificial intelligence, digital racial capitalism in turn subordinates the use, design and investment in these technologies for the optimization of profits. It scales up the global expansion of capitalism and enables capitalization of affective experiences, tastes, behavior and bodies for profit. In the last resort, the capitalization of the new technological affordances reconfigures space/ time and social relations according to the efficient, unimpeded accumulation of capital. 

(Ewa Ziarek)