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                Just published (April):
Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism. By Luis Suarez-Villa. Routledge, 
2023.
https://www.routledge.com/Technology-and-Oligopoly-Capitalism/Suarez-Villa/p/book/9781032386157
[To request inspection copy: 
https://www.routledge.com/textbooks/evaluation/9781003345893?utm_id= ]

Description:
Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism is a major contribution to our 
understanding of how technology oligopolies are shaping America’s 
social, economic, and political reality.

Technology oligopolies are the most powerful socioeconomic entities in 
America. From cradle to grave, the decisions they make affect the most 
intimate aspects of our lives, how we work, what we eat, our health, how 
we communicate, what we know and believe, whom we elect, and how we 
relate to one another and to nature. Their power over markets, trade, 
regulation, and most every aspect of our governance is more intrusive 
and farther-reaching than ever. They benefit from tax breaks, government 
guarantees, and bailouts that we must pay for and have no control over. 
Their accumulation of capital creates immense wealth for a minuscule 
elite, deepening disparities while politics and governance become ever 
more subservient to their power. They determine our skills and transform 
employment through the tools and services they create, as no other 
organizations can. They produce a vast array of goods and services with 
labor, marketing, and research that are more intrusively controlled than 
ever, as workplace rights and job security are curtailed or disappear. 
Our consumption of their products---and their capacity to promote 
wants---is deep and far reaching, while the waste they generate raises 
concerns about the survival of life on our planet. And their links to 
geopolitics and the martial domain are stronger than ever, as they 
influence how warfare is waged and who will be vanquished.

Technology and Oligopoly Capitalism’s critical, multidisciplinary 
perspective provides a systemic vision of how oligopolistic power shapes 
these forces and phenomena. An inclusive approach spans the spectrum of 
technology oligopolies and the ways in which they deploy their power. 
Numerous, previously unpublished ideas expand the repertory of 
established work on the topics covered, advancing explanatory 
quality---to elucidate how and why technology oligopolies operate as 
they do, the dysfunctions that accompany their power, and their effects 
on society and nature. This book has no peers in the literature, in its 
scope, the unprecedented amount and diversity of documentation, the 
breadth of concepts, and the vast number of examples it provides. Its 
premises deserve to be taken into account by every student, researcher, 
policymaker, bibliographer, and author interested in the socioeconomic 
and political dimensions of technology in America.

Contents:
1. Introduction

2. Power
    Pricing
       Co-Respectiveness
       Shareholder Returns
       Mergers and Acquisitions
       Entry Barrier Engineering
       Neo-Conglomerates
       Standards Setting
       Deregulation
    Innovation
       Development vs. Research
       Technological Barriers
       Intangibles
    International Projection
       Trade and the Dollar
       Cross-Shareholding
    Public Governance
       Anti-Regulatory Praxis
       Lobbying and Patronage
       Money in Politics
       Revolving Doors
       Judiciary System

3. Accumulation
    Value
       Commodity Value
    Product Markets
       Competition
       Capital and Labor
       Accumulation and Pricing
       Oligopolistic Accumulation
       Consolidation
       Speculative Finance
       New Technologies
    Input Markets
       Imposing Terms
       Dual Oligopoly: Inputs, Products
    Labor Markets
       Insecurity
       Contingency Labor
       Uselabor
       Dual Oligopoly: Labor, Products
    Compound Oligopoly
       Complexity and Lock-In

4. Transformation
    Elements
       Labor
       Capital
       Production
       Research and Product Development
    Commodification
       Commodity Fetishism
       Technological Fetishism
       Data Commodification
       Standardizing and Systematizing
    Reproduction
       Capital Resources
       Capacity for Work
       Labor Intangibles
    Capacity Utilization
       Excess Capacity
       Capacity-Price Engineering
    Typologies
       Extraction and Assemblage
       Integrative Production
       Inventive Appropriation

5. Dysfunction
    Employment
       Technocapitalist Control
       Compensation and Productivity
       Long-Term Deficit
    Consumer Exploitation
       Pricing Differential
       Add-Ons
    Data Exploitation
       Clouds
       Networks
    Wants Contrivance
       Overconsumption
       Addictions
       Typologies
    Waste
       Toxicity and Pollution
       E-Waste
       Agro-Tech
       Microbiome Disruption
       Eco-Planetary
       Techno-Fixes
       Efficiency Mirage
    The Commons
       Lauderdale Paradox
       Access and Benefit
       Appropriation

6. Domination
    Commodity Chains
    Arbitrage
       Labor Arbitrage
       Value Arbitrage
    Control Hierarchies
       Biotechnology
       Intellectual Property
       Cybernetics
       Financial
       Socio-Political
    Enforcement
       Enforcement Platform
       Multimodality
    Taxpaying
       Contractual Money
       Taxpayer Exploitation

7. Techno-Oligarchy

Chapter abstracts:
2. Power.
Considers the sources of power of technology oligopoly capitalism.  A 
broad scope on how power is amassed and imposed is unique in treatments 
of technology.  Control over market pricing is critically addressed, to 
show the importance of co-respectiveness, purported optimization of 
returns, mergers, acquisitions, entry barrier engineering, standards 
setting, and deregulation for oligopolistic power.  Conceptualization of 
technology neo-conglomerates provides insights on how oligopolies expand 
their power as they deepen control over market pricing.  Innovation is 
examined---to consider how invention and research have been turned into 
marketing accessories.  The vital relevance of intangible resources, 
their social reproduction, and the obstacles posed by technology 
oligopolies are examined.  International trade, monetary issues, and 
risky financial cross-shareholding are discussed critically.  The 
influence of technology oligopolies on public governance considers 
strategies, how they promote anti-regulatory efforts, the spread of 
lobbying, patronage, and political contributions.  The judiciary 
system’s role is addressed by considering landmark decisions and 
precedent as major sources of power.  Treatment of strategies and 
actions---including those unique to technology oligopolies---and a vast 
amount of documentation make this chapter essential for researchers, 
students, policy-makers, and bibliographers.  The contents of this 
chapter have no peer in the literature on technology, and are vitally 
important for specialists considering antitrust action.

3. Accumulation.
Analyzes the accumulative dynamic of technology oligopoly capitalism, 
its elements and market scenarios.  Unique in its conceptualization of 
how the accumulative dynamic operates, and the importance of surpluses 
in the productive cycle.  The relationship of oligopolistic capital 
accumulation to classical works provides much needed historical 
perspective on the importance of labor and capital in accumulation.  
Consideration of strategies that expand accumulation by capturing market 
segments---and the role of acquisitions, entry barriers, finance, data 
appropriation, clouds and platforms---document their importance for 
oligopolistic control over the productive cycle.  Conceptualization and 
discussion of dual and compound oligopoly---and their relationship with 
aspects uniquely found in technology oligopolies---have no peers in the 
literature.  Definition and elaboration of the concept of uselabor 
provides insights on a phenomenon unique to social media and search 
oligopolies.  Emergence of uselabor and its relationship with the 
commercialization of the web, data appropriation, and capital 
accumulation is considered in detail.  A vast amount of documentation 
makes this chapter a vital reference work for technology studies.  The 
contents of this chapter should be considered essential reading and 
reference for researchers, students, policy-makers, bibliographers, and 
those interested in knowing how technology oligopolies became as 
important as they are.

4. Transformation.
Examines the deep structure of how commodities are transformed through 
production, research and product development.  Unique in its breadth, 
details, and documentation.  Distinctive systemic elements and phenomena 
of productive transformation are considered critically.  The 
relationship of transformation to classical works and their views on 
labor provides historical perspective, relating it to critical aspects 
of value and creativity.  In-depth treatment of the phenomena of 
commodification and reproduction is unprecedented in the literature, 
providing unique insights on the technology domain.  Definition and 
elaboration of the concepts of technological fetishism and of 
capacity-price engineering explain distinctive operational features of 
oligopolistic control.  Use of the concept of systematized research 
regimes to explain how research and product development operate provides 
necessary perspectives on the value of labor intangibles.  Further 
development of the concept of uselabor explains how production operates 
in social media oligopolies, and its implications for fairness and 
justice.  A typological analysis then provides a synthesis of how the 
multiple facets of transformation operate in concert.  The vast amount 
of documentation makes this chapter a major reference work.  This 
chapter has no peers in the literature, and should be of vital interest 
to bibliographers, researchers, policy analysts, students, and authors 
interested in how technology oligopolies produce, create and exploit.

5. Dysfunction.
Analyzes major systemic dysfunctions of technology oligopolies and their 
effects on economic wellbeing, health and nature.  Influence of new 
technologies on employment and their dysfunctional effects regarding 
productivity, the long-term job deficit, and workplace control.  
Conceptualization of consumer exploitation has no peers in the 
technology literature.  Role of the pricing differential as a 
dysfunctional feature of consumption is documented with numerous 
examples.  Unique in its conceptualization of data exploitation in 
technology oligopolies, the role of networks and data clouds.  
Conceptualization of wants contrivance, its effects and typologies, 
provides much needed perspective.  Analyses of the micro- and 
macro-panorama of waste and their effects on the environment, health and 
nature have no peer in the literature.  Examination of proposed 
techno-fixes to eco-planetary dysfunction emphasizes the urgency of 
addressing carbon emissions, climate change and the destruction of life. 
  Consideration of the commons addresses dysfunctional aspects of access, 
benefit and expropriation---addressing the contradiction between private 
wealth and collective benefit.  Extensive documentation makes this 
chapter a major reference work for bibliographers, students, 
researchers, policy analysts, and authors interested in technology.  The 
contents of this chapter have no peer in the technology literature, and 
should be considered required reading for courses on technology and 
society, policy analysis, and social economics.

6. Domination.
Provides macro-systemic perspectives on the vital importance of global 
domination for technology oligopoly capitalism.  Unique in how it 
relates technology oligopoly capitalism to the martial domain, and to 
global domination over new technologies.  The symbiotic relationship 
between technology oligopolies and the martial domain is explored 
through several binding elements---geopolitics, commodity chains, labor 
and value arbitrage, and the setting of hierarchic global controls over 
the most advanced technologies.  Technology-enabled, “soft” approaches 
to domination---and the role of technology oligopolies---are explored 
and documented.  Ways of enforcing domination are analyzed, considering 
the role of technology oligopolies, their symbiosis with the military 
apparatus, and their global impacts.  Multimodality in warfare---and its 
relationship with technology oligopolies---is explored and documented.  
The concept of taxpayer exploitation---and its relationship with the 
creation and use of new technologies by the martial domain---is 
presented and extensively documented.  Numerous contemporary examples 
are provided throughout, along with a vast bibliography that reaches 
across the technology spectrum.  The contents of this chapter have no 
peers in the literature, in their scope and multidisciplinary 
perspectives.  The vast amount of documentation provided makes it 
essential reading for any researcher, student, author or bibliographer 
wishing to explore how technology oligopolies condition our contemporary 
global reality.

7. Techno-Oligarchy.
The existential impasse of technology oligopoly capitalism, and the 
relations of power imposed by a minuscule, but very wealthy and powerful 
elite, are core concerns of this chapter.  Unique in its 
conceptualization of a totalistic supra-structure that operates as an 
alter state---to perpetuate the power of a minuscule elite.  Its 
systemic inducement of social alienation---a pervasive feature of 
contemporary life---is examined.  Alienation from nature, from invention 
and innovation, from governance, the martial domain, and from socially 
responsible taxation are considered---to link up with contents of 
previous chapters.  This approach broadens the concept of social 
alienation, by relating it to macro-scale aspects of technology 
oligopoly capitalism that are unique in the technology literature.  Ways 
to move forward are addressed, to help chart a trajectory that can 
provide constructive alternatives.  The concept of totalistic control 
structure may motivate researchers and students to look into the macro 
dimensions of social systems, and the impacts of technology.  Important 
for conceptualizations of social structure, and the evolution of the 
relations of power in society.  The contents of this chapter should be 
considered essential reading for researchers, authors and students who 
wish to understand the power of oligarchic elites over technology, and 
the imposition of totalistic supra-structures.

Notes.
Provide the most extensive documentation of any work in the technology 
literature (existing or past).  Unique as a reference resource for 
bibliographers, librarians, students, researchers and policy-makers.  
References can become the core of a digital library on technology---due 
to their breadth, their extent, and the level of detail.  Such a library 
would be a major reference resource for the twenty-first century.
________

Luis Suarez-Villa is Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology and of 
Planning, Policy, and Design at the University of California (Irvine). 
Among his previous books are Corporate Power, Oligopolies, and the 
Crisis of the State; Globalization and Technocapitalism; and 
Technocapitalism: A Critical Perspective on Technological Innovation and 
Corporatism.
_________
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