{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","uuid":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","normalized_title":"stateplatformcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","isbns":["9781009619714","9781009446594","9781009446587"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":98,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/State%20Platform%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/search"},"page":{"printed_page":65,"pdf_page":70,"physical_index":70,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"4b25f1a83facd211ee3e9013465b257dbf5616c6707dc99e19ae231f39e56772"},"chapter":"Cambridge Elements","content":"We have provided considerable evidence for how states and platforms have become intertwined in the practice of state platform capitalism. The nature of digital platforms means that competition is not being fought out in traditional markets for product lines, as in, for instance, US competition in the auto industry with Japan and West Germany in the post-war period. Instead, platforms span multiple product lines and offerings, as they build out private ecosystems. We have shown on how state platform capitalist competition unfolds beyond the sphere of traditionally-defined markets – encompassing contestation over digital currencies, cybersecurity, standards-setting, and over smart city technologies. In these spheres, as in others not discussed here, US and Chinese states collaborate extensively with their respective platform giants to secure advantage and to embed their technologies within third countries’ technology stacks into the future.\n\nHow state platform capitalist competition will continue to unfold remains unclear. The ongoing ‘digitalization of everything’ is likely to concentrate ever more power in the hands of giant platform firms. This clearly contains risks – not least that spiralling paranoia about the ‘weaponisation of everything (Galeotti, 2022) leads states towards vastly expensive programs to try to wrest control over digital nodes and networks from potential rivals. Moreover, while the internet itself remains unlikely to fragment completely, state-platform capitalist competition is undoubtedly driving a growing disintegration ofdigital technology ecosystems. Efforts such as the ‘Clean Network’ – while itself formally abandoned – are only likely to deepen as the United States strives to contain China’s emerging digital prowess. Similarly, while patchwork and hybrid technology stacks will likely persist, Chinese efforts towards global digital expansion will also undoubtedly serve to concentrate technology power in the hands of its platform giants, especially across the Global South. This uneasy global layering ofrival and geographically extensive platform technologies will surely continue to be a source of tension and conflict into the future.\n\nThe geopoliticization of digital platform technologies also obscures the inherent challenges they pose to contemporary societies. At present, platform firms’ operational logics are driven by their own profit and growth motives, increasingly infused with the geopolitical goals of states. This does not leave much room for alternative visions of digital power attuned to meeting social goals. Would a TikTok wrested from its Chinese parent company and handed to a US billionaire be any more socially responsible than it is presently? Exerting popular and democratic control over digital platform technologies surely means rejecting states’ drives to enlist them into the Second Cold War. It also requires conceiving them as critical social infrastructures which should be secure, transparent, and operated in the public interest (Van Dijck, 2020). Judging by the material assembled here, we remain some way from such a vision.\n\nState Platform Capitalism\n\n65","previous_page":64,"next_page":null}