Cecilia Rikap explains how today’s big tech hegemons build intellectual monopolies and use their power for corporate planning beyond ownership.
This episode was recorded during a live event with Cecilia Rikap, hosted by the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation Berlin. Many thanks to everybody involved!
For information on the event, see: https://www.rosalux.de/en/event/es_detail/2MGCX
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If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help:
Democratic planning – an information website
https://www.democratic-planning.com/
Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1.
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1
Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk]
https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction
International Network for Democratic Economic Planning
Democratic Planning Research Platform:
https://www.planningresearch.net/
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Shownotes
Cecilia Rikap at University College London (UCL):
https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/94616-cecilia-rikap
Cecilias upcoming book:
Rikap, C. (2025). The Rulers. Corporate Power in the Age of AI and the Cloud. Verso Books.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790833/the-rulers-by-cecilia-rikap/
Rikap, C., & Lundvall, B.-Å. (2021). The Digital Innovation Race: Conceptualizing the Emerging New World Order. Springer Nature.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89443-6#overview
Rikap, C. (2021). Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered. Routledge.
Rikap C., Durand, C., Paraná, E., Gerbaudo, P. and Marx P. (2024). Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: A Roadmap to build a Digital Stack for People and the Planet.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2024/dec/reclaiming-digital-sovereignty
Bensussan, H., Durand, C., Rikap, C. (2023) 100 years of Corporate Planning. From Industrial Capitalism to Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism through the lenses of the Harvard Business Review (1922-2021).
https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:171107
Rikap, C. (2023) Mapping the Cloud. Big Tech taking the Sky by Storm. CITYPERC Working Paper, No. 2023-05.
https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/280831
Rikap, C. (2024) From Planning AI to Planning the Green Transition. Intellectual Monopolization amid the ecological breakdown.
https://youtu.be/cckqeiwXuHA?si=N3lRKBiN-KVQaXyA
Rikap, C. (2022) Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism. Knowledge Predation and Corporate Planning in the 21st Century.
https://www.youtube.com/live/VMU1IHm8838?si=jiOLSryWIyM9NvYL
Rikap, C. (2022) Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism. How Big Tech Companies became the World’s largest Planners.
https://youtu.be/4va-JedZGQA?si=0p_Lm-CJ-mbK6GoN
on the concept of Value Chains:
https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/education/graduate-study/pgcerts/value-chain-defs
on “demand sensing”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_sensing
on the concept of „the stack” and its relation to states:
Bratton, B. H. (2016). The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. MIT Press.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262029575/the-stack/
on Doge and its cutting of jobs at US government agencies:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23vkd57471o
on Lina Kahn, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under Biden and her policy efforts (including antitrust laws against Big Tech):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Khan
on the different political strands coming together in the current Trump Administration, including the influence of Curtis Yarvin:
https://youtu.be/YIPWekMahXc?si=mcY_ntC1-etzulF5
on Yann leCun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun
Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics
S03E24 | Grace Blakeley on Capitalist Planning and its Alternatives
S02E44 | Evgeny Morozov on Discovery Beyond Competition
S01E45 | Benjamin Bratton on Synthetic Catallaxies, Platforms or Platforms & Red Futurism (Part 2/2)
S01E44 | Benjamin Bratton on Synthetic Catallaxies, Platforms or Platforms & Red Futurism (Part 1/2)
S01E42 | Moira Weigel on Palantir, Tech-Nationalism & Aggression in the Life-World
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Episode Keywords
#CeciliaRikap, #JanGroos, #Interview, #FutureHistories, #futurehistoriesinternational, #FutureHistoriesInternational, #BigTech, #CapitalistPlanning, #Monopolies, #PlatformCapitalism, #ProgressivePolitics, #EconomicPlanning, #TechnoPolitics, #Capitalism, #BigData, #TheStack, #Platform, #DataPolitics, #TechNationalism, #Techno-Nationalism, #PeterThiel, #SiliconValley, #Palantir, #CurtisYarvin, #IntellectualMonopolies, #KnowledgeCapitalism, #TechSovereignty, #DataColonialism, #AiAndCapitalism, #TechnoFeudalism, #IntellectualPropertyRegimes