Digital Capitalism and its Inequalities

Digital Capitalism and its Inequalities

Foto von Rodion Kutsaiev via Unsplash

Prof. Mark Graham
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/study/courses/digital-capitalism-and-its-inequalities-2/, 2022
Grado: perito
Perspective: Otros
Topic: Crítica del capitalismo, Globalización y relaciones económicas internacionales, Desigualdad y clase, Innovación y tecnología, Trabajo y cuidado, Relaciones Norte-Sur y desarrollo, Race & Gender
Format: Programa de estudios
Enlace: https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/study/courses/digital-capitalism-and-its-inequalities-2/

Background

The Internet is the central nervous system of contemporary capitalism: connecting world cities, remote villages, and everything in between into a global network. This course is designed for an exploration of how connectivity impacts economic development, economic relationships, and economic inequalities. It will draw on resources from Geography, Development Studies, Sociology, Economics, Internet Studies, Media Studies and Anthropology in order to examine the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used to understand inequalities within digital capitalism. It will encourage students to reflect on what the digital has done, is doing, and will do to capitalism and all of those who live within it.

Course Objectives

This course will expose students to some of the key debates that link digital transformations to economic, social, and political inequalities. Students will be familiarised with a variety of theoretical movements in development studies and internet studies: exploring thinking that frames the internet as a leveller that can bridge divides vs. exploring the internet as an infrastructure that amplifies existing inequalities. The course ultimately aims to encourage students to ask questions about digital technologies and power: who do they empower?; who do they disempower?; Can we imagine a capitalism without the digital? Can we imagine the digital without capitalism?

Seven topics will be covered:

(1) Uneven development

(2) Development in a Connected Society

(3) Changing Connectivities and Digital Production Networks

(4) Programmed Inequality;

(5) Datafication: Data Colonialism and Data Justice

(6) AI, Automation, and a Planetary Labour Market

(7) Taming Digital Capitalism

Learning Outcomes

Upon course completion students will: Have a familiarity with key debates relating to digital capitalism and inequalities. Be able to formulate well-grounded research questions on topics related to roles played digital technologies at economic margins. Be able to link theory and practice on topics relating to uneven development, connectivity, digital production networks, race and the digital, digital labour, data justice, and post capitalist alternatives.

Go to: Digital Capitalism and its Inequalities

This material has been suggested and edited by:

Frederik Holtel
Tags: artificial intelligence | data | development theory | digital planning | digitalisation | inequality | internet | networks
This journal article by Radhika Desai, Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, was originally published in 2010 and republished in an revised format in 2020. The article is a comprehensive treatment of Marx's theory of crisis, focusing on the role of consumption demand in capitalism and in the emergence of crises.
2020
Level: perito
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Radhika Desai
Research in Political Economy
An essay of the writing workshop on Nigeria’s Readiness for and the Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
2020
Level: adelantado
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Economic Impact and Possible Disruptions
Emmanuel Obijole
Exploring Economics
Die ökonomische Theorie hat mit Moral wenig oder gar nichts zu tun. In den gängigen Lehrbüchern der Mikroökonomie findet sich in den Stichwortverzeichnissen kein Eintrag zu Moral oder Ethik. Die Studierenden lernen über die Wirtschaft nachzudenken, aber sie lernen dabei nicht, systematisch über ethische Fragen zu reflektieren. Nach der neoklassischen Lehre, wie sie in den Lehrbüchern präsentiert wird, weist wirtschaftliches Handeln nicht grundsätzlich moralische Aspekte auf.
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Ökonomie und Moral: Eine kurze Theoriegeschichte
Walter Otto Ötsch
Institute für Ökonomie und Philosophie Cusanus Hochschule
This paper surveys the development of the concept of socialism from the French Revolution to the socialist calculation debate. Karl Marx’s politics of revolutionary socialism led by an empowered proletariat nurtured by capital accumulation envisions socialism as a “top-down” system resting on political institutions, despite Marx’s keen appreciation of the long-period analysis of the organization of social production in the classical political economists. Collectivist thinking in the work of Enrico Barone and Wilfredo Pareto paved the way for the discussion of socialism purely in terms of the allocation of resources. The Soviet experiment abandoned the mixed economy model of the New Economic Policy for a political-bureaucratic administration of production only loosely connected to theoretical concepts of socialism. The socialist calculation debate reductively recast the problem of socialism as a problem of allocation of resources, leading to general equilibrium theory. Friedrich Hayek responded to the socialist calculation debate by shifting the ground of discussion from class relations to information revelation
2017
Level: debutante
Socialist alternatives to capitalism I: Marx to Hayek
Duncan Foley
New School for Social Research, Department of Economics
This paper attempts to clarify how the European economic crisis from 2007 onwards can be understood from the perspective of a Marxian monetary theory of value that emphasizes intrinsic, structural flaws regarding capitalist reproduction. Chapter two provides an empirical description of the European economic crisis, which to some extent already reflects the structural theoretical framework presented in chapter three. Regarding the theoretical framework Michael Heinrich's interpretation of 'the' Marxian monetary theory of value will be presented. Heinrich identifies connections between production and realization, between profit and interest rate as well as between industrial and fictitious capital, which represent contradictory tendencies for which capitalism does not have simple balancing processes. In the context of a discussion of 'structural logical aspects' of Marx's Critique of the Political Economy, explanatory deficits of Heinrich's approach are analyzed. In the following, it is argued that Fred Moseley's view of these 'structural logical aspects' allows empirical 'applications' of Marxian monetary theories of value. It is concluded that a Marxian monetary theory of value, with the characteristics of expansive capital accumulation and its limitations, facilitates a structural analysis of the European economic crisis from 2007 onwards. In this line of argument, expansive production patterns are expressed, among other things, in global restructuring processes, while consumption limitations are mitigated by expansive financial markets and shifts in ex-port destinations.
2019
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The European economic crisis from 2007 onwards in the context of a global crisis of over-production of capital - a Marxian monetary theory of value interpretation
Sascha Gander
Institute for International Political Economy Berlin
It is fiercely debated when exactly the growth set off and what the drivers of Indian growth were. Scott Alexander summarises some of the recent literature on this question, demonstrating that not only the liberalisation policies of the 90s might be the driver of the take-off, but potentially public investments, political developments or cultural shifts.
2019
Level: debutante
Indian Economic Reform: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Scott Alexander
Slate Star Codex

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