Surveillance Capitalism So, famously, industrial capitalism claimed nature. Innocent rivers, and meadows, and forests, and so forth, for the market dynamic to be reborn as real estate, as land that could be sold and purchased. Industrial capitalism claimed work for the market dynamic to be reborn as labor that could be sold and purchased. Now, here comes surveillance capitalism, following this pattern, but with a dark and startling twist. What surveillance capitalism claims is private, human experience.