Is expropriating big tech the next struggle for human emancipation? – ft. Ugo Mattei

Is the very idea of law starting to collapse? For centuries, law meant something precise: a system of objective rules, and an independent third party responsible for judging whether those rules were correctly applied. But today, this model is increasingly under pressure from the rise of technological monopolies. Think about the “terms and conditions” we all have to accept just to access the platforms that now structure our daily lives. These are not neutral legal rules. They represent a form of private normativity, imposed through de facto power relations marked by enormous asymmetries. This trend has recently been described with the term technofeudalism. According to professor Ugo Mattei, the concept helps us understand a broader historical shift: not only the privatization of the creation of rules, but also the privatization of their enforcement – in the hands of new technological lords. Mattei, however, warns us against a purely moral condemnation of technology itself. The problem is not technology as such. Its regressive character comes from its subordination to the private interests of a dominant class. Placed under the control of society as a whole, technological development could instead improve the quality of life for the global population. In practical terms, this would mean expropriating big tech capital and building a new common sense – one that insists technology must serve the people, not a narrow clique of oligarchs now eroding the legal foundations of our societies.