Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley

(Hardback)

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Description

This is the first comprehensive book from a radical left perspective on the rising power of the Silicon Valley tech sector, and above all the five dominant empires of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon. An ocean of liberal ass-kissery dominates analysis of these giants, along with some right-wing scorn for their less-than-arch-conservative vetting of News Feed sources and Google Search algorithms. Every day we grow more dependent on our phones and apps to do our chores, our jobs, and our socializing. And every quarter the enormous corporate giants of Big Tech take over more sectors of the economy. With the growing reliance on this industry it's time crack the code of the economic dynamics that drive these companies to become near-monopolies very early, and the unique forms of "platform power" each once possesses. As Silicon Valley rises to become co-dominant with Wall Street in the halls of corporate power, this book playfully dissects the tech monopolies with humor and a plan to secure our privacy and expand our freedom--socializing the Big Tech platforms.

Reviews

"Larson argues that what we need here is the mass strike: widespread strike action, on an international scale, for social good. The tech infrastructure and services which have become central to our lives need to be brought under democratic control, by their workers and their users. Larson recognises that this will not be an easy fight, but there are immediate demands we can make which would be both beneficial in themselves and which would energise activists to fight for the more transformative changes we need." Counterfire "Larson demonstrates, devastatingly, that the supposedly libertarian and benevolent owners of Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook "the five biggest corporations in the world by market value," he notes used predatory practices to solidify their positions, running roughshod over competitors and their own employees alike....Bit Tyrantsis potentially as horrifying as any fiction."Winnipeg Free Press "Highly informed, lively and readable, this is a badly needed study of the giant high tech corporations that increasingly dominate the means of work and social interaction, amass and scrutinize the details of our lives, seek to shape attitudes and behavior, and like the great virtual monopolies of the past both rely on state power and heavily influence it. Beyond exposing the nature of this awesome and threatening system, Larson goes on to outline how it can, and should, be brought under popular control. A most valuable contribution to understanding and guide to action."Noam Chomsky "Learning to decode Big Tech is necessary, a basic act of citizenship in a world awash in technology. Reading Bit Tyrants is an important step in acquiring this skill." Counter Currents "Today's tech giants control technologies that have suffused our lives, and they have generated a self-glorifying mythology and hype to match. Rob Larson's Bit Tyrants helps puncture this ideological reality-distortion field, providing a guide to monopolistic giants like Amazon and Google, as they transform labor, politics, war and more. He does all this with a sarcastic wit that will bring a smile to anyone who has cursed the malign influence of these companies and their plutocratic rulers on 21st Century life...."Peter Frase, author of Four Futures

Author Bio

Rob Larson is Professor of Economics at Tacoma Community College and author of Bleakonomics and Capitalism vs. Freedom from Zero Books. He writes for a variety of venues including Jacobin, In These Times, Current Affairs and Dollars & Sense.