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Technocapitalism
A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and Corporatism

Luis Suarez-Villa (Author)

9781439900437

Paperback / softback, published 3 August 2012

230 pages
21 x 14 x 1.5 cm, 0.262 kg

"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

A radical critique of a new phase of capitalism grounded in corporate power and its exploitation of technological creativity

Introduction

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

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