Introduction: The Context of Digital Monopolies

Abstract

The Introduction opens with contextual factors surrounding digital monopolies and a set of research questions addressed in subsequent chapters. The key problem relates to the fact that there are few alternatives to companies providing web searching, social networking and online retailing in much of the Western world regardless of the nominally competitive character of their economies. The argument then moves to briefly introduce value form and social form approaches in comparison to other Marxian approaches such as cognitive capitalism and digital labour. Regardless of advances in computing technology the chapter closes by arguing that capitalism remains the same mode of production based on surplus value extraction.