Could Newsom’s “Choose Children” Budget Advance Digital Slavery in CA?
In the aftermath of the well-funded “Choose Children” campaign, we are left to ponder what Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2019 budget really means for California’s children. Will he use his position to do the will of the people, or instead sacrifice the state’s youth on the altar of technological surveillance and venture capital? I see alarming connections between elements of his budget, early childhood education and healthcare pilots underway in Silicon Valley, and predatory social impact investment initiatives tied to digital identity that have surfaced abroad with support from Bay Area venture philanthropists, global banking interests, and NGOs.
For years, hedge funders have been building infrastructure for a futures market in human capital, a global poverty-mining enterprise. California is among a handful of states that are in the vanguard of such developments in the United States. San Francisco, Newsom’s stomping grounds, is home to the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which opened at the Presidio in the fall of 2017. Increased calls for transforming the “social” sector to fit the requirements of this technologized age were made this week at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos. See this whitepaper, which outlines a planned three-year process to re-align the social sector, “Civil Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Preparation and Response.”
Newsom’s proposals reflect broader trends seen in many states where innovation, technology deployment, and adoption of an “evidence-based” approach to public services, including pre-k and digital learning, are being pitched as an answer to our current social ills. Money has been poured into branding digital enslavement as a fiscally prudent, even progressive option. I urge caution. Dig deeper; things are not what they appear.
Elements in his budget that are of particular concern include:
- The creation of a longitudinal database linking education at all levels with workforce outcomes and social service delivery
- $200 million for home visits and ACEs screenings
- $10 million to explore funding options for universal pre-school
- $500 million (one time) investment to expand childcare facilities and professional development among childcare workers
- $50 million to create an Office of Digital Innovation
Taken together these items could advance a repressive system of technological surveillance. Such a system would control not only lives of CONTINUE READING: Could Newsom’s “Choose Children” Budget Advance Digital Slavery in CA? – Wrench in the Gears
