This text is divided into two sections. The first section conceptualizes state platform capitalism and charts its rise. After presenting a historically informed theoretical framework in Section 1, Sections 2 and 3 examine, respectively, the US and Chinese varieties of SPC. We explain how these national varieties of SPC emerged, identify their key actors, and describe their organizational features and dynamics. We demonstrate how in both cases varied forms of statefirm interaction are increasingly oriented towards expanding the international reach of platforms, while simultaneously bolstering the geostrategic objectives of states. In this way, while acknowledging its distinct national manifestations, we emphasize the systemic character ofSPC – and especially how its ‘varieties are conditioned by their interaction and competition. The second section explores how SPC animates distinctive forms of competition in a range of fields. Section 4 explores its implications for battles over digital currencies, while Section 5 reviews the competition to control future ‘smart cities’. Section 6 narrates the competition to establish digital standards (both formal and de facto), and Section 7 focuses on cybersecurity. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of SPC for the future of digital connectivity and the global political economy more generally.
Part I A New Paradigm
2 State Platform Capitalism: Theory and History
2.1 Introduction
Amidst the global health emergency and socio-economic turmoil unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, observers could have been forgiven for missing a conspicuous datapoint. In 2020, the ratio of US government federal spending to GDP reached an all-time high, surpassing even that achieved at the height of mobilization for total war in 1944–5 (IMF, 2024). The interventions required to prop up economies during the pandemic lockdowns were not a complete aberration; however. government spending across advanced economies has been on a steady (though fluctuating) upward trajectory ever since the end ofthe Second World War. The 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic simply accelerated this trend. Along with the perpetually rising economic profile of states, state capitalist practices and policy interventions have both made a dramatic return and evolved in new ways. From the expansion of sovereign wealth funds and policy banks to proliferating industrial and technology policies, and full-blown economic nationalism, state interventions in the economy have proliferated on a global scale (Alami and Dixon, 2024).
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Reinventing Capitalism