Higher Education Inquirer : News that Salesforce is buying Moonhun, AI Hiring company (Glen McGhee)

From the perspective of Maurizio Lazzarato’s concept of multi-dimensional financialization, Salesforce’s acquisition of Moonhub—a startup building AI tools for hiring—carries significance far beyond a simple business or technological transaction. Lazzarato’s framework invites us to see this move as a deepening of the financialized, machinic logic that now organizes work, subjectivity, and power relations under neoliberal capitalism.

Machinic Subjugation and Algorithmic Management

Lazzarato distinguishes between social subjection (the classic forms of subject formation, like interpellation) and machinic subjugation, in which humans and machines are integrated into assemblages that operate beyond conscious control4. The acquisition of Moonhub by Salesforce—an enterprise software giant—accelerates the deployment of AI-driven systems that automate and mediate hiring, evaluation, and onboarding. These systems function as machinic assemblages: they process data, sort candidates, and make decisions, often without transparent human oversight.

In Lazzarato’s terms, this is not just about efficiency or new tools; it is about the extension of machinic subjugation into the labor market. Workers, job seekers, and even HR professionals become nodes in a human–machine network, subject to algorithmic evaluation and control. This process depersonalizes and depoliticizes hiring decisions, shifting agency from individuals or collectives to automated systems4 5.

Financialization of Work and Subjectivity

For Lazzarato, financialization is not merely the expansion of the financial sector or the growth of debt, but a regime that reorganizes all social relations—including labor—according to the logics of risk, speculation, and investment. The integration of AI into hiring, as exemplified by Moonhub, reflects this logic:

Labor as Human Capital: Workers are increasingly treated as assets to be evaluated, optimized, and traded, much like financial instruments.
Risk and Profiling: AI tools profile candidates, assessing their “fit” and potential risk for employers, mirroring the credit-scoring and risk-assessment practices of finance.
Continuous Evaluation: The boundary between work and non-work blurs, as data about individuals is continuously collected and analyzed to inform employment decisions, extending the logic of surveillance and control5.

Subjectivation and the Erosion of Agency

A core concern in Lazzarato’s work is how new technologies of power erode the conditions for autonomous subjectivation. AI-driven hiring systems, like those developed by Moonhub, further restrict the space for workers to constitute themselves as subjects outside the logic of data-driven profiling and risk management. As Phoebe Moore notes, these systems create “structurally and objectively unequal conditions within subjective, and unequal, social relations,” threatening the “right to the subject”—the capacity for individuals to form themselves outside algorithmic governance5.

Consolidation of Corporate Power and Social Ontology

Salesforce’s absorption of Moonhub is also a consolidation of infrastructural power in the hands of a few tech-finance giants. For Lazzarato, this is part of the broader process by which financialized corporations not only dominate markets but also shape the very ontology of work, value, and social relations. The acquisition means that the logic of machinic subjugation, financialization, and algorithmic management becomes further entrenched as the default mode of organizing labor across sectors.

Summary Table: Lazzarato’s Lens on Salesforce–Moonhub

Dimension	Conventional View	Lazzarato’s Multi-Dimensional View
Technology	Efficiency, automation in hiring	Machinic subjugation, depersonalized control
Labor	Improved matching, productivity	Financialized subjectivity, continuous profiling
Power	Market competition	Corporate consolidation, infrastructural power
Subjectivity	Empowered job seekers	Erosion of agency, right to the subject at risk
Social Relations	Neutral innovation	Reorganization of power, intensified inequalities

From Lazzarato’s perspective, Salesforce’s acquisition of Moonhub is emblematic of how financialization and machinic subjugation are reshaping the labor market and subjectivity itself. It marks a further step in the transformation of work into a domain governed by algorithms, risk management, and continuous evaluation, where human agency and collective resistance are increasingly circumscribed by the imperatives of digital, financialized capitalism4 5.

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Wednesday, June 4, 2025

News that Salesforce is buying Moonhun, AI Hiring company (Glen McGhee)

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