As the United States contends with issues of populism and de-democratization, this book considers the impacts of digital technologies on the country's politics and society. The book provides a Marxist analysis of the rise of digital media, social networks and technology giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. It looks at the impact of these new platforms and technologies on their users who have made them among the most valuable firms in the world. The book is concerned with unfreedom and class rule in contemporary American capitalism as seen in the digital realm. Class struggle is t ... More

As the United States contends with issues of populism and de-democratization, this book considers the impacts of digital technologies on the country's politics and society. The book provides a Marxist analysis of the rise of digital media, social networks and technology giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. It looks at the impact of these new platforms and technologies on their users who have made them among the most valuable firms in the world. The book is concerned with unfreedom and class rule in contemporary American capitalism as seen in the digital realm. Class struggle is the first and last force shaping developments in communication. The book looks at the response of the ruling class to an organic crisis in the United States, and it traces how digital media instruments are used by different factions within the capitalist ruling class to capture and maintain the commanding heights of the American social structure. The book moves on to examine the role of data and whiteness in American social life. It traces the evolving intersection of capital, security and technology to examine the broad trajectory of unfreedom. The book concludes that digital society requires significant restructuring if it is to facilitate greater democratization. Offering bold, new thinking across data politics and digital and economic sociology, this is a powerful demonstration of how algorithms have come to shape everyday life and political legitimacy in the United States and beyond.