The Case Against Naive Technocapitalist Optimism


- Technocapitalism exists as a highly competitive marketplace of intangibles.
- With public funding for scientific research on a steady decline private funding is increasingly needed for viability.
- Private funding can offer flexibility by bypassing public bureaucracy, and technocapitalist campaigns often emerge as efforts to reduce red tape.
- however, is that private funding has private goals, and that this may impact trustworthiness of private research.
-- Privately funded studies are demonstratively more likely to reach conclusions that favor sponsors’ interests.
- corporations themselves are also experiencing a reduction in internal science funding.
- the technocapitalist “disruptor” efforts favor low-risk research with high payoffs.
- Academic researchers who receive private funding are more likely to select projects that have a high potential for commercial use, despite an increased association with publication delays and confidentiality restrictions.
- a portion of the FDA’s review budget is furnished by the pharmaceuticals industry, and FDA scientists have self-reported that the agency’s regulatory processes appear vulnerable to industry pressures despite increased transparency efforts.

the goal for society should be to preserve the use value of science and technology instead of turning them into tradable commodities.
Under our current models of public and private power, this goal may be an impossibility.

we may be limited by ideologies like technocapitalism, which promises inevitable progress and epistemic certainty
while concentrating economic power, debasing public discourse, and failing to live up to its grand ideals.