SoLiXG:Digital Capitalism
Digital Capitalism/Techno Capitalism
Capitalism is a mode of economic organization in which the manufacture of commodities for the market is the primary way of organizing social production. It is characterized by a generalized dependency on markets, whereby all economic agents are subordinated to its compulsions. The direct producers, who are separated from their means of subsistence through the existence of private property in the means of production, have to sell their labour power as a commodity via the labour market. As an economic system capitalism allocates labour and resources according to profitability. The profit motive of private capital owners is therefore the dominating reason for investment. Digital or Techno Capitalism is used in various ways in the scholarly literature. Some define it as an epoch in the history of capitalism in which digital technologies have become essential to the processes of production, circulation and accumulation of capital. Others understand it as a specific aspect or branch of the current form of capitalism. Digital Capitalism in this interpretation is not an epoch but a generic term for a conglomeration of processes in which digital infrastructures and technologies mediate the accumulation process. A third way is to define Digital Capitalism as a certain and relatively novel strategy of accumulation, whereby specific property regimes, data collected through online platforms, cryptocurrencies or digital payment systems work in ways which allow tech companies to extract profits by monopolizing and renting out access to digital infrastructure and selling the data collected thereby. A definition based on a synthesis of these three ways of understanding Digital Capitalism could grasp it as a nascent epoch in the history of capitalism, in which the production and circulation of commodities as well as the strategies of accumulation of capitalists is more and more mediated by digital technologies. The ascent and formation of digital capitalism is at the same time very different and uneven across regions and nations. Therefore it makes sense, as some scholars do, to speak of “varieties of digital capitalism”.
Anna: Would get rid of /Techno Capitalism in the title, and later in the text say something like: Digital Capitalism (also sometimes called Techno Capitalism). I think Digital Capitalism is the prevalent term, of course there are Techno Capitalism, Platform Capitalism, Technoscientific Capitialism, ...