"The notion of “identity” under capitalism has always been bound up with surveillance and discipline."
This is the classic surface level grasp where the author uses words like capitalism where they really mean corporatism -- I hope the author isn't against the free and mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services between two willing parties
Secondly just replace the word in this quote ^ with communism...or any large state apparatus for that matter, and it still could work.
The problem is that the author is referring to a body of arguments that most people aren't familiar with, and wouldn't agree with if they were. Within certain leftist circles these are well known, and it's standard to assume the usefulness of ideas from French poststructuralist writers from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as Frankfurt School writers from 1920s and 1930s. These are sometimes called "critical theory".
"Surveillance and discipline" comes from Foucault's book "Surveiller et punir," which was translated into English as "Discipline and Punish". It argues that the logic of surveillance from prisons has worked its way into a bunch of institutions in modern society.
Articles in this style feel to me like a word salad of leftist shibboleths that never really amount to an actual argument: capitalism, resistance, settler-colonialism, domination, class rule.
The article had clear arguments. No continental philosophy reading is required to understand By embedding digital checkpoints into daily life, whether entering a building, logging into a service, or accessing healthcare, surveillance becomes routine.
My point is not that you need continental philosophy to understand the article. It's that the author assumes the truth of the philosophy. It's not argument. It's just repetition.
