From global value chains to corporate production and innovation systems: exploring the rise of intellectual monopoly capitalism

Abstract

This article argues that contemporary leading global corporations are intellectual monopolies that base their power on the systematic concentration (and predation) of knowledge which they turn into intangible assets. By monopolizing access to portions of society’s knowledge, these companies’ capacity to plan portions of capitalism exceeds their legally owned assets. The article defines each intellectual monopoly’s sphere of planning as a corporate production and innovation system that may include several substructures, from global value chains to platforms. Inside corporate production and innovation systems, value and knowledge production are organized and controlled by the intellectual monopoly. Moreover, among intellectual monopolies, those centralizing big data and the machine learning algorithms required to process them will develop greater planning capacities and a further self-expansion of their intellectual monopoly. The emergence of intellectual monopolies has implications for every level within capitalism, including global capital accumulation, effects on labour and peripheries. By briefly referring to these dimensions, the article finishes by presenting a depiction of the geographies of digital capitalism as an era dominated by intellectual monopolies.