Byung-Chul Han

Han: The digital society of today is not a classless society. Take for example Acxiom, the data company: it divides people into categories. The last category is “waste”. Acxiom trades data from about 300 million US citizens, which is almost all of them. By now, the company knows more about US citizens than the FBI, probably even more than the NSA. At Acxiom, people are divided into seventy categories, and they are offered in a catalogue like retail goods, and you can buy one for every kind of need. Consumers with a high market value are in the “Shooting Stars” category,,,This is how Big Data is generating a new digital class society.

ZEIT Wissen: And who is in the “waste” class?

Han: Those with a poor score value. They can’t get credit, for example. And so, alongside the Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s ideal prison, we have a “ban-opticon”, as sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called it. The Panopticon monitors the enclosed inmates of the system, while the ban-opticon is a measure that identifies people as undesirable and excludes people who are outside of or hostile to the system. The classic Panopticon is used for discipline, the ban-opticon however ensures the system’s security and efficiency. It is interesting that the NSA and Acxiom are working together, that is, the secret service and the market.

ZEIT Wissen: Is it possible that the “waste” class reaches critical mass eventually, so that it can no longer be controlled?

Han: No. They hide, they are ashamed, they are on unemployment benefit, for example. They are constantly being made to feel afraid. It’s crazy how much fear job seekers live with here. They are imprisoned in this ban-opticon, so that they can’t break out of their fear prison. I know many job seekers, they are treated like waste. In one of the richest countries in the world, in Germany, people are treated like scum. Their dignity is taken away. Of course these people don’t protest, because they are ashamed. They accuse themselves, instead of making society responsible, or accusing it. No political act can be expected from this class.