How silicon valley unleashed techno-feudalism : the making of the digital economy / Cédric Durand ; translated by David Broder.

By:

Durand, Cédric [author]

Contributor(s):

Broder, David [translator]

Material type: Text

TextLanguage: English Original language: French Publication details: London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2024.Edition: English-language editionDescription: ix, 230 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmISBN:

9781804294383

Uniform titles:

Technoféodalisme. English

Subject(s):

LOC classification:

HC79.I55 D87413 2024

Contents:

1. The Poverty of the Californian Ideology — 2. On Digital Domination — 3. The Rentier Class of the Intangible World — 4. The ‘Techno-Feudal’ Hypothesis — Conclusion : Fortunes and Misfortunes of Socialisation.

Summary: The rise of the IT industry in the nineties promised a new era of freedom and prosperity. It didn’t deliver. Certainly, algorithms are everywhere, but capitalism is no more civilised than ever. In fact, in the hands of private corporations, the digitalisation of the world drives us towards a darker future. The return of monopolies, the dominance of a few platforms, the blurred distinction between the economic and the political all epitomise a systemic mutation. Information and data networks push the digital economy in the direction of the feudal logic of rent, dispossession, and personal domination. How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism offers a fresh genealogy of the Silicon Valley consensus and its contradictions. It disentangles the principles of an emerging systemwide rationale. Large firms compete in cyberspace to gain control over data, and ordinary people are increasingly at the mercy of tech giants. In this new economic order, capital is moving away from production to focus on predation.

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 4 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	TBS Barcelona	HC79.I55 DUR (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		B07584

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The rise of the IT industry in the nineties promised a new era of freedom and prosperity. It didn’t deliver. Certainly, algorithms are everywhere, but capitalism is no more civilised than ever. In fact, in the hands of private corporations, the digitalisation of the world drives us towards a darker future. The return of monopolies, the dominance of a few platforms, the blurred distinction between the economic and the political all epitomise a systemic mutation. Information and data networks push the digital economy in the direction of the feudal logic of rent, dispossession, and personal domination. How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism offers a fresh genealogy of the Silicon Valley consensus and its contradictions. It disentangles the principles of an emerging systemwide rationale. Large firms compete in cyberspace to gain control over data, and ordinary people are increasingly at the mercy of tech giants. In this new economic order, capital is moving away from production to focus on predation.

In English, translated from the French.