The Rise of Chokepoint Capitalism and How Workers Can Defeat It
Hardcover, 304 pages
Published Sept. 20, 2022 by Beacon Press.
A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media
Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)—or both.
In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism,” with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon’s use of digital rights management and bundling to radically change the economics of book publishing, to Google and Facebook’s siphoning away of ad revenues from news media, and the Big Three …
A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media
Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers)—or both.
In Chokepoint Capitalism, scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we’re in a new era of “chokepoint capitalism,” with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well-illustrated by the plight of creative workers. From Amazon’s use of digital rights management and bundling to radically change the economics of book publishing, to Google and Facebook’s siphoning away of ad revenues from news media, and the Big Three record labels’ use of inordinately long contracts to up their own margins at the cost of artists, chokepoints are everywhere.
By analyzing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct “anti-competitive flywheels” designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices.
In the book’s second half, Giblin and Doctorow then explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.
Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that’s being heisted away—before it’s too late.
This is the kind of topic that deserves the prestige of a book but where the ideas can fit in a blog post without losing anything important. Here, the length and examples are worthwhile. The show the scope of the problem in a way that is both interesting and enraging.
Using a broad set of examples from the creative fields (incl. publishing, news, music & screenwriting) this book goes into how corporations go about creating monopolies to lock in both their users and suppliers and why this is terrible for all of us.
In the first half of the book, Doctorow & Giblin do an amazing job of depressing their readers by bringing together the different strategies that are leading to such dire outcomes. Luckily, the second half goes into some of the strategies that we collectively can take to fight back against.
And of course, this wouldn't be a book that involves Doctorow if existing the DMCA and DRM wouldn't get all the hate they deserve. :D
Only a little preachy, this is a great primer on how monopolies have eaten much of our culture, and some ways we might be able to claw it back into the public domain.
Un livre de Rebecca Giblin et Cory Doctorow sur comment se créent des situations de monopole et de monopsone (quand il n’y a qu’un ou presque qu’un acheteur pour un service) dans le monde moderne, en se focalisant sur les produits culturels. J’ai trouvé le livre clair et convaincant, avec un dernier chapitre qui s’ouvre de manière générale sur la conquête de plus d’égalité social et qui était très inspirant.
Je mets 4 étoiles et pas 5 parce que j’aurais aimé un peu plus de conseils pratique et d’ouverture sur d’autres pays (c’est très US-centré, mais cela prévient dès le début que c’est la compétence des auteurs).
Plenty of good anecdotes on the way companies use their position as dominent buyers or sellers to manipulate markets, pocket unfair shares of wealth, and generally make life worse for everyone who isn't their execs and shareholders. The collective solutions proposed all seem like reasonable starting points, too—but while I agree with their point that systemic problems require systemic solutions, I don't feel like I left the book with a starting point of how to work towards that change.
Maybe just naming the problem and talking about it is a sound enough starting point. Chokepoint Capitalism is a useful term, evocative and intuitive to understand, but also expansive enough to capture a whole world of corporate corruption. If it bleeds its way into more general discourse, that can only be a good thing.
Good read about platforms and hidden monopoly power
If you are concerned about the way in which culture is being shaped by technology (and you should be), this book goes deep into the causes and explains how big tech is corrupting open culture in order to make a few billion bucks.
I really enjoyed this book. I was a bit skeptical at first, because the plight of people in the creative industry hasn't previously caught my attention. However, Doctorow and Giblin do a good job of using creatives to illustrate a larger problem of how corporations use anti-competitive measures to build chokepoints accrue dominant status in almost any given market, at the expense of both labor and the consumer. This book has given me a lot to think about.
Giblin and Doctorow's book is clearly written, unabashedly partisan, and convincingly argued. A great overview of the state of the field in 2022, the book features lucid prose, a wicked sense of humor, and a profoundly moral call for an economy which values creators and communities over corporations. That said, you have to come to the volume hungry for details: No amount of clear writing will make the political economy of the creative industries interesting unless you care about the topic. That said, if you really want to understand the problem -- and be part of the solution -- there's no better place to start than this volume.
Very good state-of-the-world in a variety of fields. Timely. Funny. Amusing marketing (only releasing the chapter outlining the sins of Spotify as an audiobook on Spotify; only the chapter on Amazon via Kindle).
