Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley

Author:   Rob Larson
Publisher:   Haymarket Books
ISBN:  

9781642591798


Pages:   214
Publication Date:   20 February 2020
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

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Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley


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Overview

"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."

Full Product Details

Author:   Rob Larson
Publisher:   Haymarket Books
Imprint:   Haymarket Books
ISBN:  

9781642591798


ISBN 10:   1642591793
Pages:   214
Publication Date:   20 February 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

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Reviews

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


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 Tyrants is 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


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


Author Information

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.

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