Control
Digital ID and the Consolidation of Class Power
Morning Comrades.
To preface this essay, a few additional notes. I don’t enjoy writing about subjects that worry me a great deal without genuinely having an idea on how to solve them, it has an aftertaste of fear-mongering that inherently feels like a postulated reality the social media algorithms have created because that is what they appear to “push”, and the fact is, other than extreme violence, that in reality and at best has a 50/50 chance of success, I have no real solutions. Nevertheless, this is one of these topics that has been running circles in my head, specifically as it is so vast, dangerous and in full swing. Secondly, I am not a luddite, I have no problem whatsoever with innovation but a massive problem with ownership, specifically, who currently owns what and for what purpose. That is also important for the below.
The contemporary push toward digital identification systems is routinely framed in the language of efficiency, security, and modernisation. Governments and corporations alike present Digital ID as a neutral infrastructural upgrade, an inevitable step in the rational organisation of complex societies. Yet such a presentation obscures the deeper political-economic dynamics at work. No technological development emerges in a vacuum; every innovation is shaped by, and in turn reinforces, the dominant relations of production. The question, therefore, is not whether Digital ID is convenient or even functional, but for whom it is being constructed, and to what end. Beneath the rhetoric of seamless access and streamlined services lies a far more consequential transformation: the integration of the individual into a totalising system of surveillance, commodification, and control, one that reflects the needs of a ruling class confronting intensifying contradictions within capitalism itself.
It is necessary to begin with a simple but logical observation: Digital ID systems will not remain optional for long. What is initially introduced as a minor inconvenience, another login, another verification step, quickly becomes infrastructural necessity and the trajectory is predictable: Access to essential services becomes contingent upon participation; participation becomes compulsory; refusal becomes exclusion. The shift from “this is somewhat inconvenient” to “why can’t I access my money?” is not a speculative leap but an inherent tendency of systems designed to centralise and standardise identity within a digital framework. In a society where access to resources is mediated almost entirely through money, and where money itself is increasingly digitised, control over identity becomes control over existence. This is not merely administrative rationalisation but it is the consolidation of power over the material conditions of life.
The coordination of Digital ID initiatives across the Western world underscores the structural nature of this development. Despite national differences, there has been a remarkably consistent push toward integrated identity systems, often linked with financial infrastructure, health records, and mobility data and this convergence is not accidental. It reflects a shared response among capitalist states to a period of mounting instability: stagnating real wages, declining productivity growth, increasing debt burdens, and the erosion of social cohesion. While stock markets may project an image of prosperity, the underlying “real economy” tells a different story, as we all know, one of precarity, informalisation, and deepening inequality and for the ruling class, such conditions pose a fundamental threat. Historically, periods of economic crisis have been accompanied by social unrest; today, the tools available to manage that unrest have evolved.
Digital ID must be understood within this context: as part of a broader architecture of digital surveillance that enables unprecedented levels of monitoring, prediction, and intervention. The data generated by everyday life, transactions, movements, communications, relationships, is no longer incidental but central to capital accumulation. It is collected, stored, analysed, and sold, forming vast datasets that render human behaviour legible to algorithmic systems. These systems, developed and controlled by private corporations in close alignment with state interests, do not merely observe; they shape outcomes. Access to credit, employment, healthcare, and even social participation can be mediated through opaque algorithmic processes that classify and evaluate individuals according to criteria that remain largely unaccountable.
Crucially, the issue is not data collection in the abstract, but ownership. Under capitalism, data is property, and like all property, it is concentrated in the hands of a few. The individuals whose lives generate this data have no meaningful control over its use; they are, in effect, raw material for a new form of extraction. The analogy to livestock management, while stark, is not entirely misplaced. Behaviour is tracked, deviations are flagged, and incentives or penalties are applied to maintain system stability. What is presented as “personalisation” or “risk assessment” functions, in practice, as a mechanism of discipline.
The appeal to convenience plays a critical ideological role in this process. By emphasising the ease of digital transactions, the speed of verification, and the reduction of bureaucratic friction, proponents of Digital ID systems obscure the trade-offs involved. Convenience becomes the language through which control is normalised. Yet convenience, in this context, is not a neutral benefit; it is a means of securing consent for the gradual erosion of autonomy and the transition toward a cashless society exemplifies this dynamic. Cash, as a form of anonymous exchange, represents a degree of independence from institutional oversight. Its elimination, justified on grounds of efficiency and security, removes a crucial space of freedom, binding all economic activity to traceable, controllable systems.
The fundamental issue is clear: technology under capitalism is subordinated to the imperatives of profit and control. The same digital infrastructures that could, under different conditions, enhance collective well-being are instead deployed to reinforce existing hierarchies. The problem is not that the “box has been opened”, that technological development has reached a point where such systems are possible, but that the box is owned. As long as the means of digital production and the data they generate remain in private hands, the trajectory of these technologies will reflect the interests of those who own them. The challenge, therefore, is not to reject technology outright, but to contest the social relations that govern its use.
