S03E34 - Cecilia Rikap on Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism and Corporate Power in the Age of AI

Cecilia Rikap explains how today’s big tech hegemons build intellectual monopolies and use their power for corporate planning beyond ownership.

This episode was recorded during a live event with Cecilia Rikap, hosted by the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation (rosalux.de) Berlin. Many thanks to everybody involved!

For information on the event, see: rosalux.de/en/event/es_detail/2MGCX

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If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help:

Democratic planning – an information website

democratic-planning.com

Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1.

journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1

Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk]

bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construc…

International Network for Democratic Economic Planning

indep.network

Democratic Planning Research Platform:

planningresearch.net

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Shownotes

Cecilia Rikap at University College London (UCL):

profiles.ucl.ac.uk/94616-cecilia-rikap

Cecilias upcoming book:

Rikap, C. (2025). The Rulers. Corporate Power in the Age of AI and the Cloud. Verso Books.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790833/the-rulers…

Rikap, C., & Lundvall, B.-Å. (2021). The Digital Innovation Race: Conceptualizing the Emerging New World Order. Springer Nature.

link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89443…

Rikap, C. (2021). Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered. Routledge.

routledge.com/Capitalism-Power-and-Innovation-…

Rikap C., Durand, C., Paraná, E., Gerbaudo, P. and Marx P. (2024). Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty: A Roadmap to build a Digital Stack for People and the Planet.

ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications…

Bensussan, H., Durand, C., Rikap, C. (2023) 100 years of Corporate Planning. From Industrial Capitalism to Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism through the lenses of the Harvard Business Review (1922-2021).

archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:171107

Rikap, C. (2023) Mapping the Cloud. Big Tech taking the Sky by Storm. CITYPERC Working Paper, No. 2023-05.

econstor.eu/handle/10419/280831

Rikap, C. (2024) From Planning AI to Planning the Green Transition. Intellectual Monopolization amid the ecological breakdown.

youtu.be/cckqeiwXuHA?si=N3lRKBiN-KVQaXyA

Rikap, C. (2022) Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism. Knowledge Predation and Corporate Planning in the 21st Century.

youtube.com/live/VMU1IHm8838?si=jiOLSryWIyM9NvYL

Rikap, C. (2022) Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism. How Big Tech Companies became the World’s largest Planners.

youtu.be/4va-JedZGQA?si=0p_Lm-CJ-mbK6GoN

on the concept of Value Chains:

cisl.cam.ac.uk/education/graduate-study/pgcert…

on “demand sensing”:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_sensing

on the concept of „the stack” and its relation to states:

Bratton, B. H. (2016). The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. MIT Press.

mitpress.mit.edu/9780262029575/the-stack

on Doge and its cutting of jobs at US government agencies:

bbc.com/news/articles/c23vkd57471o

on Lina Kahn, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under Biden and her policy efforts (including antitrust laws against Big Tech):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Khan

on the different political strands coming together in the current Trump Administration, including the influence of Curtis Yarvin:

youtu.be/YIPWekMahXc?si=mcY_ntC1-etzulF5

on Yann leCun:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_LeCun

Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics

S03E24 | Grace Blakeley on Capitalist Planning and its Alternatives

futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e24-gr…

S02E44 | Evgeny Morozov on Discovery Beyond Competition

futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e44-ev…

S01E45 | Benjamin Bratton on Synthetic Catallaxies, Platforms or Platforms & Red Futurism (Part 2/2)

futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e45-be…

S01E44 | Benjamin Bratton on Synthetic Catallaxies, Platforms or Platforms & Red Futurism (Part 1/2)

futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e44-be…

S01E42 | Moira Weigel on Palantir, Tech-Nationalism & Aggression in the Life-World

futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e42-mo…

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Episode Keywords

#CeciliaRikap, #JanGroos, #Interview, #FutureHistories, #futurehistoriesinternational, #FutureHistoriesInternational, #BigTech, #CapitalistPlanning, #Monopolies, #PlatformCapitalism, #ProgressivePolitics, #EconomicPlanning, #TechnoPolitics, #Capitalism, #BigData, #TheStack, #Platform, #DataPolitics, #TechNationalism, #Techno-Nationalism, #PeterThiel, #SiliconValley, #Palantir, #CurtisYarvin, #IntellectualMonopolies, #KnowledgeCapitalism, #TechSovereignty, #DataColonialism, #AiAndCapitalism, #TechnoFeudalism, #IntellectualPropertyRegimes