Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism

Description

Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism is a major contribution to our understanding of how technology oligopolies are shaping America’s social, economic, and political reality. Technology oligopolies are the most powerful socioeconomic entities in America. From cradle to grave, the decisions they make affect the most intimate aspects of our lives, how we work, what we eat, our health, how we... Read more

Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism is a major contribution to our understanding of how technology oligopolies are shaping America’s social, economic, and political reality.

Technology oligopolies are the most powerful socioeconomic entities in America. From cradle to grave, the decisions they make affect the most intimate aspects of our lives, how we work, what we eat, our health, how we communicate, what we know and believe, whom we elect, and how we relate to one another and to nature. Their power over markets, trade, regulation, and most every aspect of our governance is more intrusive and farther-reaching than ever. They benefit from tax breaks, government guarantees, and bailouts that we must pay for and have no control over. Their accumulation of capital creates immense wealth for a minuscule elite, deepening disparities while politics and governance become ever more subservient to their power. They determine our skills and transform employment through the tools and services they create, as no other organizations can. They produce a vast array of goods and services with labor, marketing, and research that are more intrusively controlled than ever, as workplace rights and job security are curtailed or disappear. Our consumption of their products—and their capacity to promote wants—is deep and far reaching, while the waste they generate raises concerns about the survival of life on our planet. And their links to geopolitics and the martial domain are stronger than ever, as they influence how warfare is waged and who will be vanquished.

Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism

’s critical, multidisciplinary perspective provides a systemic vision of how oligopolistic power shapes these forces and phenomena. An inclusive approach spans the spectrum of technology oligopolies and the ways in which they deploy their power. Numerous, previously unpublished ideas expand the repertory of established work on the topics covered, advancing explanatory quality—to elucidate how and why technology oligopolies operate as they do, the dysfunctions that accompany their power, and their effects on society and nature. This book has no peers in the literature, in its scope, the unprecedented amount and diversity of documentation, the breadth of concepts, and the vast number of examples it provides. Its premises deserve to be taken into account by every student, researcher, policymaker, and author interested in the socioeconomic and political dimensions of technology in America.

More information about the author can be found at Luis Suarez-Villa – UCI School of Social Ecology.

Read less

Pricing

Co-Respectiveness

Shareholder Returns

Mergers and Acquisitions

Entry Barrier Engineering

Neo-Conglomerates

Standards Setting

Deregulation

Innovation

Development vs. Research

Technological Barriers

Intangibles

International Projection

Trade and the Dollar

Cross-Shareholding

Public Governance

Anti-Regulatory Praxis

Lobbying and Patronage

Money in Politics

Revolving Doors

Judiciary System

3. Accumulation

Value

Commodity Value

Product Markets

Competition

Capital and Labor

Accumulation and Pricing

Oligopolistic Accumulation

Consolidation

Speculative Finance

New Technologies

Input Markets

Imposing Terms

Dual Oligopoly: Inputs, Products

Labor Markets

Insecurity

Contingency Labor

Uselabor

Dual Oligopoly: Labor, Products

Compound Oligopoly

Complexity and Lock-In

4. Transformation

Elements

Labor

Capital

Production

Research and Product Development

Commodification

Commodity Fetishism

Technological Fetishism

Data Commodification

Standardizing and Systematizing

Reproduction

Capital Resources

Capacity for Work

Labor Intangibles

Capacity Utilization

Excess Capacity

Capacity-Price Engineering

Typologies

Extraction and Assemblage

Integrative Production

Inventive Appropriation

5. Dysfunction

Employment

Technocapitalist Control

Compensation and Productivity

Long-Term Deficit

Consumer Exploitation

Pricing Differential

Add-Ons

Data Exploitation

Clouds

Networks

Wants Contrivance

Overconsumption

Addictions

Typologies

Waste

Toxicity and Pollution

E-Waste

Agro-Tech

Microbiome Disruption

Eco-Planetary

Techno-Fixes

Efficiency Mirage

The Commons

Lauderdale Paradox

Access and Benefit

Appropriation

6. Domination

Commodity Chains

Arbitrage

Labor Arbitrage

Value Arbitrage

Control Hierarchies

Biotechnology

Intellectual Property

Cybernetics

Financial

Socio-Political

Enforcement

Enforcement Platform

Multimodality

Taxpaying

Contractual Money

Taxpayer Exploitation

7. Techno-Oligarchy

Author(s)

Biography

Luis Suarez-Villa is Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology and of Planning, Policy, and Design at the University of California, Irvine. Among his previous books are Corporate Power, Oligopolies, and the Crisis of the State; Globalization and Technocapitalism; and Technocapitalism.

Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism

Description

Table of Contents

Author(s)

Biography

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Secure Shopping Payment Options