Delivered at Melbourne Town Hall, March 6 2024

On The Rise of Technofeudalism

“Capital triumphed to such an extent that it became unleashed from all shackles, from all constraints.

Its triumph became so galloping, so fast, so unstoppable that like a stupid virus, it mutated to a more toxic version, so toxic, like Ebola.

Capital mutated into a new form of capital which is called cloud capital, which has killed capitalism.”

On The Role of Cloud Capital

“Cloud capital is a networked machinery. The purpose of which is for us to train it, to train us, to train it, to train us, to train it, to train us, to train it, to train us, to ad infinitum, to know us, to give us good advice, win over our mind and heart through good advice, and then input desires into our bosom, which then the same algorithm satisfies directly by selling it to us, bypassing every market, and in the process collecting 40% of the price from the capitalist, the vassal capitalist who also dwells in this digital fiefdom called amazon.com.

[Jeff] Bezos doesn’t give a damn about what you buy. He doesn’t make anything. He simply controls the digital system. He’s a technofeudal Lord on which all transactions take place through matching buyers and sellers by his algorithm that prevent you from talking to anyone, including the person you’re buying from and collecting a ground rent, which I call the cloud rent.”

On the Impact on Australian Democracy

“The work that you do at the Australia Institute and similar NGOs is crucial because let’s face it, our democratic system is no longer.

Our two party system, whether we are in Australia or the United States or the United Kingdom or Germany or Greece, wherever we are, it has been completely usurped and co-opted by vested interests that are pushing humanity very, very quickly… quick-marching humanity to climate catastrophe and to social decay, which in the end only benefits the, I will call them simply neofascists because I have no time for concocting different ways of describing them. Whether it’s Trump, Le Pen, Advance Australia or whatever.”

On Australia’s Involvement in the New Cold War

“Why is there a new Cold War between the United States and China, where Australia is dragged into, on a perilous path towards Australia’s financial and economic ruin, not to mention the possibility of thermal nuclear warfare?

The answer is because there are only two countries in the world that have cloud capital, America and China, and the United States establishment recognised correctly that Chinese cloud capital is in clear and present danger to its hegemony.

If increasingly, and especially after the war in Ukraine, capital flows migrate as they have been migrating to the Chinese digital payment system, even from Europe, that is more dangerous for American hegemony than nuclear weapons. And that is my explanation of why we have the intensification of the Cold War between America and China.”

On the Question of Digital Identity

“So think about it, how do you identify yourself with the internet? If you want to hail a taxi, you need to download one of these apps, Uber, let’s say, or Lyft or some other app.

Okay? Now, how does the app know that you are who you say you are? You have to put in your credit card details. So essentially you are begging your banker, your financier to vouch for who you are. You do not own your digital identity.”