#Take5 #137 Technofeudalism and Collective Foundations of Business and Education

This #Take5 is brought to you by Bhabani Shankar Nayak of London Metropolitan University. It is a thought-provoking piece that challenges both society’s and education’s reliance on—and relatively uncritical embrace of—privately owned, designed and controlled technology. We hope you enjoy this contribution. If you would also like to write a #Take5 that moves away from our usual case study format—perhaps to discuss, critique, or explore a broader educational issue—please do get in touch.This blog post is based on 22nd Teaching & Learning Conference of the London Metropolitan University, UK. It is also compilation of author’s earlier commentaries on the issues of technofeudalism and education. 

Introduction

Feudalism is an authoritarian system based on private monopoly over social, political, and economic resources and authority, which can be inherited, divided, mortgaged, bought, and sold (Brenner, 1990). It is a rent-seeking system in which feudal lords make no productive contribution but survive on rent extracted from others’ labour. Feudalism represents a form of property (Critchley, 2025) and a rent-seeking mode of production and reproduction within a class-based society, where property relations are defined by various forms of rent. 

The growth of science and technology was expected to eliminate various forms of feudal thought and practice. However, the 21st century continues to witness the persistence of medieval feudal tenets that dominate our everyday lives in the form of pervasive growth of digitalisation of lifeworlds. Consciously or subconsciously, people participate in these privately owned digital systems and platforms due to the systemic denial of publicly viable technological and digital alternatives for the working masses. Open Source technology and Open Educational Resources are easily available alternatives. However, the political elites and their crony capitalists  deliberately reinforce digitalisation led by private corporates produce and promote feudal structures that shape both our individual and collective consciousness, compelling actions driven by immediate needs while undermining the long-term emancipation of humanity and nature. The rise of technofeudalism has further entrenched these rent-seeking structures, eroding the collective foundations of socially necessary business and education. This is crucial to technofeudal form of primitive accumulation of digital capitalism (Yan, 2024). This primitive form of capitalist accumulation is central to the processes of commodification and dehumanisation of education, business and society.

Technofeudalism

Technofeudalism is primarily a rent-seeking system, much like medieval feudalism, in which modern Big Tech overlords and their digital platforms—such as Amazon, Google, Apple, and Meta—monetise everyday life through the extraction, commercialisation, commodification, and privatisation of  both private and public data and information (Nayak and Walton, 2024; Varoufakis, 2024). It organises the processes of production and reproduction around rent, relying on control rather than direct production for its survival. Like its medieval counterpart, technofeudalism does not produce goods itself but dominates economic, social, and political processes. The rent-seeking systems driven by digital platforms and characterised by technofeudalism represents an emerging form of capitalism that privatises, commodifies, and commercialises human life and consciousness. This process undermines the collective foundations of both business and education (Gilbert, 2024). All privately owned educational platforms and digital resources owned by the private companies and publishers seek profit at the cost of teaching and learning. 

Capitalist Business was never fair – and the Free market was never free

Historically, businesses were designed to fulfil social needs and desires, fostering interdependence and solidarity within society. Business served as a bridge between producers and consumers, addressing both social and economic scarcity while distributing prosperity. However, the rise of capitalism undermined the social nature of business under the guise of promoting a “free market”—a market that is neither truly free nor fair. In reality, it is a corporate-controlled system detached from the interests of both producers and consumers. Technofeudalism has institutionalised the processes and structures that enforce this separation, where social relationships within economic systems have been both automated and atomised (Durand, 2024).

In this way, technofeudalism exerts control over all aspects of business, creating a monopolistic system in which markets and economic activity are no longer shaped by social needs of individuals and communities or mutual exchange. Instead, they are dictated by digital platforms controlled by techno-feudal elites. These platforms operate as rent-seeking mechanisms, reducing both producers and consumers to invisible, passive agents within a system they do not control. This asocial model of business and its anti-social market culture has fuelled mass consumerism, eroding the diversity of consumption and production in support of homogenised, standardised models epitomised by the ideals and projects of McDonaldisation. The ideological frameworks of Taylorism provides the McDonaldisation of the educational environment where standardised educational praxis is central to the economies of scale within the teaching and learning environment led by the market forces.  Such trends have been normalised and naturalised through the shaping of educational curricula across schools, colleges, and universities to transform consciousness, and shape compliant culture and workforce. 

Education and Consciousness under Technofeudalism

Education stands on the twin pillars of essentialist and emancipatory consciousness. Education, in terms of skills, qualifications, grades, marks, and employability, reflects the essentialist criteria of consciousness, which are crucial for meeting the everyday requirements of human life and ensuring a dignified living. It plays a vital role in helping individuals recover from poverty, homelessness, hunger, and illiteracy. The emancipatory consciousness within education addresses these essential needs while also aspiring to higher goals. It aims to create a society free from all forms of exploitation, inequality, and discrimination, including those based on gender, race, caste, and other social divisions. By promoting critical thinking and promoting values of justice and equality, emancipatory education empowers individuals to challenge oppressive structures and work towards a more just and equitable world. This dual focus ensures that education not only equips people with the tools needed for personal survival and success but also nurtures a commitment to collective well-being and social transformation (Nayak and  Appleford, 2023). 

Ideological State Apparatus?

In the age of technofeudalism, educational curriculum driven by compliance culture of employability, educational institutions, curriculum developers, and teachers have largely failed to instil emancipatory ideals within their learning and teaching practices (Rush, 2000). The focus on the essentialist aspects of education, such as skills development for employability, has been prioritised to meet the demands of the burgeoning techno-feudal markets and their idle capitalist masters. These masters live off rent without producing any real social value or meaningful commodities for society. As a result, the educational system increasingly caters to the needs of a techno-feudal economy, emphasising practical skills for economic survival while neglecting the development of critical thinking and social consciousness. This shift has contributed to a society where educational attainment does not necessarily translate to enlightened or progressive thought, but rather to the perpetuation of existing power structures and inequalities based on reactionary and immoral ideals.

Technofeudalism and the rent-seeking nature of various political, social, and cultural institutions, systems, and processes has become pervasive. This has accelerated a culture where individuals, families, and religious denominations operate like rent-extracting machines in their most brutal form, devoid of accountability, responsibility, and human concern. In these processes, relationships between and among individuals and various interpersonal interactions have become transactional, dominated by self-pleasure and self-preservation at every step of human life. This phenomenon has been accelerated by digital media, social media, and traditional celebrity culture, where an individual’s success and failure are determined by the power of money.

Celebrity Culture

We in Learning Development and Widening Participation acknowledge the systemic injustices that exclude many from deep and wide engagement with education – and particularly with liberatory education. There is a new political power in the way many of today’s celebrities are positioned and valorised precisely as anti-educational: as school dropouts who should serve as role models for the disenfranchised. They serve as brand ambassadors of technofeudalism and its ideals in everyday consumerism, defined by both tangible and intangible commodity consumption. These celebrities, as purveyors of techno-feudal dreams, often celebrate low grades or failure in their school or college examinations as if they were achievements. In doing so,  their celebrity status is leveraged to maintain educational inequality, to undermine education and human consciousness grounded in science, reason, rationality, and secularism. This celebration of ignorance for some perpetuates a cycle where education and critical thinking are devalued, further entrenching the power of techno-feudal systems. Therefore, it is important to reclaim collective foundations of knowledge production and dissemination led by publicly managed educational systems and processes.

Is there hope?

In such a context, it is crucial to revive the radical promises of education that can cultivate higher consciousness and skills for the progressive transformation of individuals and society based on solidarity, peace, and prosperity. Education must go beyond the mere acquisition of certificates and qualifications, striving instead to develop individuals who are not only skilled but also deeply aware of social justice and committed to positive change. To achieve this, educational institutions, curriculum developers, and teachers need to integrate emancipatory ideals into their teaching practices. This means promoting critical thinking, encouraging empathy, and promoting values of equality and justice. Education should aim to empower students to challenge oppressive structures and work towards creating a more equitable and inclusive society. Moreover, the curriculum should include diverse and decolonial perspectives and histories, teaching students to appreciate and respect differences while working together for common goals. Collaborative projects, community engagement, and service learning can be effective in instilling these values. By connecting theoretical knowledge with practical action, students can see the impact of their learning on real-world issues.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a holistic educational experience that prepares individuals not just for economic survival but for active and meaningful participation in society. This approach can help rebuild a sense of collective responsibility and foster a culture of solidarity, peace, and prosperity. By reviving the radical promises of education, people can work towards a future where learning is a powerful tool for social transformation and the betterment of all.

Technofeudalism and Collective Foundations of Education

Will Artificial Intelligence (AI)-led robots take over classrooms and replace teachers? Will AI-driven technology undermine human connections in teaching? Will AI disrupt traditional classroom-based teaching and learning? As concerns about a so-called dystopian future for teachers and education grows, these fundamental questions reflect the fear surrounding AI-driven digitalisation of classrooms, educational processes, systems, teaching and learning environments. Adding to the debate, Microsoft co-founder and tech mogul Bill Gates has asserted that AI will replace teachers within the next ten years. While this may sound bizarre, it reflects yet another organised attack on education—one that seems to follow a strategic pattern of predictive propaganda. Education has long served to ‘colonise’ the minds (Freire, 1970) – to reproduce unequal societies and power structures – this is not a new phenomenon. However, it has perhaps never been so powerfully homogenic and homogenising – and through and with the power of tech. It is essential to expose the underlying strategies employed by tech moguls that aim to further dismantle the collective foundations of education and learning.

The power of the human and the humane

Teaching and learning in a classroom setting are far from monotonous activities confined to a rigid curriculum. The dynamic interaction between teacher and students constantly reshapes the nature of the educational experience. As a result, two classes taught by the same teacher on the same topic can be vastly different from each other. Classrooms serve as spaces where both teachers and students learn from one another, building a collective foundation of knowledge. They are not merely places for the transmission of information; they create and promote critical thinking, questioning, argumentation, articulation, observation, interaction, and the exchange of ideas. Through this collaborative process, knowledge is both processed and produced—whether in its essentialist form or as a tool for emancipation. Classrooms not only shape minds but also develop skillful hands. Such an experiential or hands-on learning is good for employability and generating critical and collective consciousness for global citizenship. No technology can truly replicate the dynamic, human-centered nature of the classroom experience.

However, the narrative promoted by tech moguls—that AI will replace teachers—is a form of propaganda designed to further the privatisation of education, consolidating control in the hands of powerful online platform companies like Microsoft. Such a strategy is designed to generate further revenue for the rent seeking techno feudal platform capitalism. So, the greatest threat to education and educators today is not AI itself, but the techno-moguls who wield it as a tool to serve their interests. Technofeudalism can only thrive by dismantling the collective foundations of teaching and learning—foundations rooted in human connection and consciousness, shared experience and knowledge, and the dynamic nature of the classroom.

New technologies can help in processes of teaching and learning. They can enhance the classroom dynamism and democratise teaching and learning processes. Technology facilitates active owned learning when harnessed in the democratisation of classrooms and in the process of cocreation and dissemination of knowledge. Technology is an inseparable part of the classroom teaching and learning today. Technology plays a crucial role from attendance monitoring, classroom organisation to evaluation and feedforward processes in teaching and learning activities. The AI led digitalisation of classroom has transformed the way teaching and learning takes place.  It redefines teaching and learning environment where roles of educators have been already transformed. But care is needed.

What would Dewey do?

Technology-driven transformations of classroom teaching and learning environments have the potential to accelerate deeper and faster learning, while also enhancing the creative capabilities of both teachers and students. Therefore, the accessibility, availability, and democratization of technology and its platforms are crucial for the educational empowerment of both students and teachers. Such democratisation is also essential for the broader emancipation of society from the persistent challenges of gender, class, sexual, racial, and caste-based inequalities and exploitative systems. However, the techno-feudal environment perpetuated by the owners of technology and platform companies promotes an undemocratic, rent-seeking culture rooted in the digital divide—where access to and availability of technology depend largely on one’s ability to pay. This environment not only promotes discrimination but also reinforces entrenched class divisions in a digital form, deepening existing inequalities under the guise of technological progress.

Tech moguls like Mr. Bill Gates rarely speak about the democratisation of technology or ensuring universal access to digital education and skills for all irrespective of different backgrounds of the learners. Instead, the focus is often on replacing teachers with technology. This is deeply concerning, as teachers do far more than deliver content—they nurture creative thinking and critical awareness, enabling students to reflect on everyday realities while also acquiring skills for employability. Corporate figures like Mr. Gates advocate for individualised digital learning models that risk undermining the foundations of collective, classroom-based education. In doing so, they threaten to erode the very practices that promote radical, emancipatory consciousness—practices grounded in critical thinking, dialogue, and shared learning experiences in classrooms and campuses.

Conclusion

The digital individualisation of the learning environment stands in direct opposition to the collective foundations of knowledge, teaching, and learning—foundations that cultivate a shared emancipatory consciousness essential for driving social, political, economic, and cultural transformation along a progressive path. People like Mr. Bill Gates promote the individualisation of the digital learning environment, a model that prioritises profit while promoting a culture of compliance concomitant with the requirements of platform based digital techno capitalism. This approach undermines students’ ability to think critically and question the power structures that sustain everyday inequality and exploitation. Therefore, it is essential to protect the collective foundations of classroom teaching and learning, while also democratising digitalisation and ensuring collective control over technologically advanced learning platforms. Education can empower both students and teachers, and work toward a 21^st-century education that is scientific, secular, technological, and universal—free from all forms of discrimination, social and digital alienation.

Technofeudalism seeks to domesticate education, cultivating a culture of compliance and a consciousness that suppresses the radical, collective and creative capacities of the workforce to question power or imagine transformative change. Its goal is to undermine efforts toward building a more egalitarian, inclusive, and progressive society. Therefore, the democratisation of technology, digitalisation and its collective ownership—is essential for developing an educational curriculum that is both essentialist and emancipatory. Such a curriculum can ensure the growth of socially necessary forms of business, education, and digitalisation.

A call to action

The mass movement to reclaim the radical promises of education and technology is not solely the responsibility of learners and practitioners. It is a collective struggle to restore the social foundations of knowledge, technology, and business through public ownership, democratic control, and equitable distribution. Only a movement grounded in secular, scientific, and inclusive ideals can truly democratise and decentralise education and technology for all. Such a movement is essential for building a progressive and egalitarian future—one in which education not only meets social, political, and economic needs but also emancipates human beings from the various reactionary constraints imposed by capitalism in its many forms.

References

• Brenner, R. (1990). Feudalism. In: Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., Newman, P. (eds) Marxian Economics. The New Palgrave. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 
• Critchley, J. S. (2025). Feudalism. Taylor & Francis.
• Durand, C. (2024). How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism: The Making of the Digital Economy. Verso Books, London.
• Freire, P. (1970). Cultural action and conscientization. Harvard educational review, 40(3), 452-477.
• Gilbert, J. (2024). Techno-feudalism or platform capitalism? Conceptualising the digital society. European Journal of Social Theory, 27(4), 561-578.
• Nayak, B.S., & Walton, N. (2024). Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence: Critical Reflections on Big Data, Economic Development and Data Society. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Nayak, B. S., & Appleford, K. (2023). Beyond the Pandemic Pedagogy of Managerialism, Palgrave, London.
• Rush, K. G. (2000). On schooling for political compliance: Career and technology studies and the hegemonic power of administrative technology in late capitalism, Dissertation, University of Alberta, Canada.
• Varoufakis, Y. (2024). Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism. Melville House.
• Yan, J. (2024). Techno-Feudalism as Primitive Accumulation: A Marxist Perspective on Digital Capitalism. Critical Sociology.