Surveillance Capitalism in an Age of Neoliberal Rationality

The Surveillance Capitalism concept explains the capitalist accumulation logic of large digital companies in tracking internet users, extracting personal data and in changing behavior. This article aims to question the concept from a perspective that considers the participation of internet users in their own surveillance. The proposed new approach results from the conception of neoliberalism as the rationality of the contemporary capitalism that requires a new subjective order anchored in the production of a society formed by enterprise units involved constantly in the development of their human capital to compete in social relationships in all spheres of existence. Accordingly, it is believed that the online surveillance conducted by the large corporations and the expropriation of the human experience that results is only one part of the story. The other part is the perpetual search for individuals performance in relationships with others and with themselves.