Description
Book SynopsisA radical critique of a new phase of capitalism grounded in corporate power and its exploitation of technological creativity
Trade Review"In an era when technology is routinely treated as magical and liberatory, Luis Suarez-Villa has written the long overdue and necessary antidote to such flabby analysis and ludicrous self-congratulation. Technocapitalism is an outstanding book that should be read by all students, scholars and citizens who need to understand technology in the real world of capitalism and corporate power rather than the fairy tale world of the upper-middle class individuals doing their own thing in the sacred free marketplace. Our species faces extraordinarily serious issues in the coming generation, and an honest assessment of the political and economic forces around us is the necessary place to begin."
—Robert W. McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
"Suarez-Villa has created a highly original work, carefully crafted and well-written. This is a sweeping and grand theoretical analysis of the post post-industrial iteration of capitalism that he terms 'technocapitalism'. The synthesis of literatures is very impressive but the work goes well beyond synthesis to create new arguments and paradigms for understanding contemporary capitalism and its possible futures. The analysis is rooted in a strong humanism that embraces technological change whilst regretting the corporatist forces that shape its direction and manifestations. Technocapitalism represents an important contribution to the scholarly literature."
—Joel Bakan, author/filmmaker of The Corporation, Professor of Law, University of British Columbia
"Technocapitalism raises important critical perspectives about what Suarez-Villa finds to be the latest major stage of global capitalism. He gathers and analyzes several aspects of the social organization of technological change to provide a distinctive synthesis of literatures and arguments"
—Rick Wolff, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Visiting Professor at the New School University in New York
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Experimentalism
Society as Laboratory
Accumulation and Power
Experimentalism as System
Conclusion
Creativity as a Commodity
Creativity versus Commodification
Utility and Value
Reproduction and Commodification
Commodification as Process
Conclusion
Networks as Mediators
Network Extent
Hierarchies and Control
Power and Inequity
Change over Change
Conclusion
Decomposing the Corporation
Networks versus the Corporation
Decomposition and Power
Pathology of Decomposition
Conclusion
Experimentalist Organizations
Systematized Research Regimes
Collaboration and Power
Pathological Pursuits
Conclusion
Challenges
Downfall of Public Democracy
Hegemony of Corporatism
Empowering Creativity
Rediscovering the Social
Notes
Index
