Chokepoint Capitalism and Data Cartels w/Library Futures

Join Library Futures as we host Rebecca Giblin, Cory Doctorow, and Sarah Lamdan to discuss their respective new books Chokepoint Capitalism (Beacon Press, 2022) and Data Cartels: The Companies that Control and Monopolize our Information (Stanford University Press, 2022). This event will be moderated by Mai Ishikawa Sutton.

In Chokepoint Capitalism, called a “must-read” by Publisher’s Weekly, 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. 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 New York Times notable book Data Cartels, Lamdan contends that privatization and tech exceptionalism have prevented us from creating effective legal regulation. This in turn has allowed oversized information oligopolies to coalesce. In addition to specific legal and market-based solutions, Lamdan calls for treating information like a public good and creating digital infrastructure that supports our democratic ideals.

This unique, dual book event brings together top scholars in the field of digital rights and libraries, as moderated by Mai Ishikawa Sutton, Senior Organizer of DWeb projects, co-founder and editor of COMPOST magazine and Distributed Press, and a contributor with Hypha Worker Co-operative.