Granted, none of these companies is setting out to commit genocide. But while physical violence is the feature we most often associate with colonialism, economic violence can also have disastrous and lasting effects on a society. Undeniably, extermination was a key component in the process of extraction and appropriation during historical colonialism. But as the system “evolved” to one characterized by the organized economy of industrial capitalism, the need for applying physical violence was reduced. Systemic violence is a costly strategy, to be applied only when there is a demonstrable “return on investment,” (when the costs of the large-scale brutalization of native populations still translates into profits for the empire). But a point can be reached when these costs become too high, economically but also ethically, since empires can present themselves as righteous while engaging in genocide only for so long. At such moments, direct systemic violence is gradually replaced with indirect and interpersonal forms of localized cruelty (as between masters and slaves) and eventually eliminated and replaced with entirely different social relations, such as labor or data relations.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 339