Deconstructing Digital Capitalism and the Smart Society

Today’s critics of big online platforms tend to consider privacy breaches, monopolistic practices, and the deployment of surveillance technologies as the main problems. Internet reformers suggest the answers to these issues reside in more—and better—regulations. While the questions of privacy, data, and size are indeed important, they are secondary however to a deeper set of concerns about platform ownership and control, and who benefits from the current status quo.
This book examines these issues and offers an historical overview and in-depth analysis of digital capitalism and its prevailing practices as it has become increasingly intertwined with various forms of online surveillance, behavior modification, and the delegation of managerial functions to algorithmic and automated systems in platform economies. The approach taken extends to the wider array of data-driven, internet-connected and automated systems that involve digital devices and technologies centered on three “smart” spaces: the smart self, the smart home, and the smart city.
Antitrust and other regulatory measures by the European Union and the United States that are aimed at restraining platform capitalism are also discussed. The focus in particular is on recent developments regarding artificial intelligence and their potentially harmful implications. This is followed by a critical look at proposals for more far-reaching institutional reforms revolving around the creation of forms of “platform socialism” that build partly on existing practices of platform cooperativism. The book concludes with a diagnosis of the global situation among the competing “digital empires” (the United States, the European Union, and China), and considers whether or not, under the present conditions, any form of democratic platform socialism could materialize on a wider scale in the near future.

Mel van Elteren is an emeritus associate professor of social sciences at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He has published several books and many articles in the areas of sociology, social psychology, social history and cultural studies, with special interest in American society, politics, labor and culture in a global context.

Mel van Elteren
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 293
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2025
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9609-6
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5548-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi

Introduction 1

 1. Contemporary Capitalism and the Rise of Data Colonialism 7

 2. The Internet: From a ­Government-Owned Network to a Privatized One 25

 3. Moving Towards Surveillance Advertising Led by Google 37

 4. Identifying the Distinctive Features of Various Types of Online Platforms 59

 5. The Wider Array of Smart Tech Devices and Systems 79

 6. The Smart Self and Algorithmic Management Expanded and Intensified 96

 7. Smart Homes and Smart Cities: Hype About Benefits Versus Drawbacks for Users 112

 8. Smart Technologies, City Surveillance and Predictive Policing 127

 9. Moves to Rein in Capitalism Interlocked with Data Colonialism 150

10. Taking Up the Challenges of Regulating Artificial Intelligence 170

11. Proposals to Deprivatize the Internet and Foster Platform Socialism 188

12. Competing Digital Empires and the Future of Platform Capitalism Globally 207

Chapter Notes 223

Bibliography 255

Index 275