The Blurb On The Back:

Capitalism is dying.  Profits soar while inequality rises and innovation stalls.  Something has to give. 

For the past century, the story of capitalism has been the story of a market dominated by money and firms.  We use prices to judge goods, and what we’re willing to pay signals how useful a good is to us.  Firms coordinate massive efforts, such as mass-producing cars, by controlling the flow of information and centralising decision making, while providing stable employment.  But the data we generate about ourselves and the data manufacturers generate about their products enable algorithms to connect buyers and sellers much more efficiently than markets based on price ever could.  These same forces make the rigid control of information unnecessary, enabling ever-smaller groups of people to work together effectively.  Large, centralised firms could wither away to nothing more than a person and their computer: more AirBnB than Holiday Inn.

This fusion of big data and artificial intelligence will lead a new kind of capitalism: data capitalism.

This could mean a more sustainable, egalitarian economy, but the end of the firm – including the end of stable employment – carries great risks as well.  Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, the bestselling co-author of Big Data and Thomas Ramge, writer for The Economist, show how modern technological change is killing capitalism as we know it, and what comes next.  

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order REINVENTING CAPITALISM IN THE AGE OF BIG DATA by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger  and Thomas Ramge from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

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