{"product_id":"platform-socialism-how-to-reclaim-our-digital-future-from-big-tech-by-james-muldoon","title":"'Platform Socialism: How to Reclaim Our Digital Future from Big Tech' by James Muldoon","description":"\u003cp\u003eJames Muldoon starts from a fairly brutal premise: the digital platforms that organise so much contemporary life are not merely businesses we happen to use, but increasingly function as privately owned infrastructure.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFacebook mediates sociality, Airbnb reshapes housing and cities, Uber reorganises labour, while the communities these companies claim to cultivate become sources of data, behavioural control and profit. \u003cem\u003ePlatform Socialism\u003c\/em\u003e asks what democratic ownership of digital infrastructure might actually look like.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMuldoon draws on guild socialism, cooperative organisation and public utilities to imagine platforms governed by workers and users rather than shareholders. Chapters move from the monetisation of community and the strange rhetoric of Big Tech “community-building” through questions of public infrastructure, civic platforms and global digital services.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe useful thing here is its insistence that the internet does not have to be either corporate or state-controlled. Digital systems are political institutions already; the real argument is over who gets to design them, own them and decide what they are for. A concise bridge between platform studies, socialist political theory and practical institutional imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePluto Press, 2022. First edition, paperback. Very good condition; light shelf wear and minor rubbing to covers and edges, clean internally.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45941999239251,"sku":null,"price":19.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/womenintranslation_9.png?v=1786163209","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/platform-socialism-how-to-reclaim-our-digital-future-from-big-tech-by-james-muldoon","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}