The birth of “cyberalism”. A critique genealogy of Silicon Valley governmentality

Abstract

This paper discusses the emergence of a new political governmentality, “cyberalism” or, in other words, “cyberliberalism”, associated with the hegemony of practices that fetishize and idealize technological development and, at the same time, develop new ways of domination and desiring subjection of the subjects. For this, we will study its origin both in its social practices and in its explicit discourses, from the Californian counterculture of the last century to the current economic hegemony of Silicon Valley. Later, we will argue why there is a discontinuity between cyberal governmentality and neoliberal governmentality, as well as a difference between that concept and the notions of technoliberalism and algorithmic governmentality. Thus, a theoretical framework will emerge, in a kind of critical genealogy of value, that sheds light on contemporary technological dynamics (related to artificial intelligence, algorithms, big data, etc.) where the political issue of algorithmic control of subjectivities is connects with the economic issue of valorization of capitalist value.